Odino Alfǫðr e il nome dei dvergar. Due studi di poetica e mitologia nordica in ottica linguistica e comparativa

In this study, the author attempts to systematically apply the methodology of historical and comparative linguistics to the most ancient mythological texts of the Scandinavian tradition, in order to investigate selected aspects of Old Norse poetics and mythology in the light of their parallels in texts in other ancient Germanic and Indo-European languages, such as Old English, Ancient Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, Old Irish, and Hittite. Comprising two sections dedicated to the supreme god Odin (aka Al-fǫðr ‘patriarch of all’) and to the so-called dvergar (usually translated as ‘dwarves’) respectively, the study demonstrates that the lexicon, divine names, traditional formulas, and mythological narratives attested in Old Norse texts may often reflect features of Germanic and Indo-European heritage, and that historical linguistics and comparative poetics can be useful tools for the interpretation both of the formal aspects of poetic language and of the ideological and cosmological conceptions which underlie them.