An horribly inaccurate translation, August 21, 2001

While it's popular to criticise the Hollander translation of The Poetic Edda for being more poetic than accurate, compared to Larrington's version, his is nearly ideal.

The "Elder" or "Poetic" Edda is the modern name for a set of Old Norse mythological (mainly about gods) and heroic (mainly about humans) poems, found in a limited number of Icelandic manuscripts, the most important of which is damaged, and missing pages, and does not agree with other copies, and quotations in other medieval texts. The exact list of poems included varies slightly, with editors and translators having a little leeway. The "World's Classics" series from Oxford University Press finally included a translation of this famous collection in its list in 1997; it has since been reprinted in the slightly refurbished and renamed series of "Oxford World's Classics."{Perhaps I should add that, like five earlier reviewers, I have taken for granted the importance and high literary quality of the Elder Edda, and concentrated on whether this particular translation is worth your time -- and money.}Although some reviewers have complained that Carolyne Larrington's...

Handy book with nice format and readable translation. However there's virtually no context here as far as a meaningful introduction to the individual works or the work as a whole. The individual introductions are cursory at best, written in a dismissive "Oxford" tone which assumes the reader is familiar with the works and their context. Imagine mixing up the books of the Bible, and removing most of the study annotations now included in most versions. Reading the Prose Edda first was EXTREMELY helpful, as Snorri does what the editor of this book should have tried harder to do herself. If you know little or nothing of Norse mythology, you'll be lost if you start with this book; but after the Prose Edda, things become much more meaningful.