The Fourth Grammatical Treatise

The present edition is the result of a happy collaboration between two scholars with particular interests in a common text, the so-called "Fourth Grammatical Treatise" (FoGT), the understanding of which requires expertise in the medieval Latin grammatical and rhetorical tradition that made it possible for an unknown fourteenth-century Icelander to compose the work and, in addition, knowledge of the vernacular tradition of skaldic poetry, with which he illustrated it. Jonas Wellendorf has been responsible for placing FoGT in its Latin context, editing and translating the prose text and providing commentary on it, while Margaret Clunies Ross has edited, translated and provided commentary on the poetic examples. The Introduction is the work of both editors. Up to now, FoGT has been a somewhat neglected late medieval Icelandic text, especially by comparison with other vernacular treatises on poetry, such as the "Edda" of Snorri Sturluson and "The Third Grammatical Treatise" (TGT) by Snorri’s nephew Óláfr hvítaskáld "White poet" Þórðarson. The editors hope that demonstrating FoGT’s relationship to earlier Icelandic treatises, especially to TGT, and clarifying its relationship to its sources, as well as setting out the relationship between the prose text and the poetic examples, will make its merits as a product of fourteenth-century Icelandic scholarship easier to understand and appreciate.