<i>I carmi di Guðrún</i>: problemi ecdotici ed ermeneutici dell’edizione in <i>codex unicus</i>

Abstract

Focusing on the Eddic Lays of Guðrún, this article investigates the philological and hermeneutic challenges posed by their transmission in a codex unicus. After situating the poems within the Nibelung-Vǫlsung cycle and reviewing the scholarly debate concerning their dating and classification, this study examines a selection of textually and interpretively problematic passages as case studies. Through an analysis of the editorial solutions proposed in critical scholarship, this article foregrounds the intrinsically interpretative character of editorial intervention. From this perspective, the commentary emerges as the primary locus of editorial mediation, where textual ambiguities may be explored, emendations argued for, and culturally specific references clarified, while preserving the productive tension between orality and writing that characterises Eddic poetry. This contribution ultimately advocates an understanding of ecdotic practice as an open-ended critical process, grounded in a careful balance between fidelity to the manuscript evidence and responsibility toward the modern reader.