SOURCE: Litzenberg, Karl. “Allusions to the Elder Edda in the ‘Non-Norse’ Poems of William Morse.” Scandinavian Studies and Notes 14, no. 2 (May 1936): 17-24.

In the following essay, Litzenberg traces Morris's allusions to Eddic matters in his pre-1869 verse.

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Although William Morris is noted for the Norse adaptations he made in such poems as “The Lovers of Gudrun” and Sigurd the Volsung, in composing which he drew directly upon the Laxdæla and Völsunga Sagas, his “non-Norse” poems do not contain any large body of Norse allusions. It is a rather curious fact, however, that the poet actually employed more allusions to the Edda in poems written before he studied the Old Icelandic language and literature than he did after he and Eiríkr Magnússon composed their joint translations. In 1869, after a short period of study with Magnússon, Morris began to publish his long series of...