Sophus Bugge (1833-1907) was a Norwegian philologist, known for his theories, and work on the runic alphabet, and the Poetic Edda and Prose Edda. In his 1880 work Studies about the origin of Nordic mythological and heroic tales, Bugge theorized that nearly all myths in Old Norse literature derive from Christian and late classical concepts. Bugge's theories were generally vehemently rejected, though these have had some influence.[1]
Life
Bugge was born at Laurvik, Norway, 5 January 1833. He was educated at Christiania, Copenhagen and Berlin, and in 1866 he became professor of comparative philology and Old Norse at Christiania University. In addition to collecting Norwegian folksongs and traditions, and writing on Runic inscriptions, he made considerable contributions to the study of the Celtic, Romance, Oscan, Umbrian and Etruscan languages.
Bugge was the author of a very large number of books on philology and folklore. His principal work, a critical edition of the elder Edda (Norroen Fornkvoedi), was published at Christiania in 1867. He maintained that the songs of the Edda and the earlier sagas were largely founded on Christian and Latin tradition imported into Scandinavian literature by way of England. His writings also include Gamle Norske Folkeviser (1858), a collection of Old Norse folk-songs; Bidrag til den aeldste skaldedigtnings historie (Christiania, 1894); Helge-digtene i den Aeldre Edda (Copenhagen, 1896, Eng. trans., The Home of the Eddic Poems, 1899); Norsk Sagafortaelling op Sagaskrivning i Island (Christiania, 1901), and various books on Runic inscriptions. He died 8 July 1907.
Notes
- ^ Simek (2007:47).
References
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Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Bugge, Sophus. |
- Simek, Rudolf (2007) translated by Angela Hall. Dictionary of Northern Mythology. D.S. Brewer. ISBN 0859915131
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
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