“Roberta Frank, one of the most skillful (and certainly the wittiest) of interpreters of early medieval poetry, demonstrates here that early English scops and Viking skalds manipulated their verse forms in remarkably similar ways and to remarkably similar effects.” —Christopher Abram, author of Evergreen Ash
“Roberta Frank’s scholarship is exemplary. She is the leading light in the field, and wherever she goes, others willingly follow, persuaded both by the force of her arguments and the weight of her evidence.” — Antonette diPaolo Healey, former editor of The Dictionary of Old English
"This fabulous book of ‘Northern’ poetics developed out of the Robert Conway Lectures in Medieval Studies . . . condenses the work of a lifetime. . . . Distant though it may be, Northern poetry is never read in isolation. Frank’s exuberance is, as always, catching—this is a book I want all my students to read." —The Review of English Studies
"The Etiquette of Early Northern Verse is a dazzling master class in early medieval alliterative style, identifying and showcasing artistic strategies shared by scop and skald. It collects half a century’s worth of insights into features that, though not formally required, were appreciated in both Old Norse dróttkvætt and Old English verse as expressions of poetic art, notably ornamental alliteration, half-rhyme, and paranomasia; understatement and litotes; and subtle ways of referencing individuals and narratives known to the audience." —Anglia
"Frank . . . explores the minute details of Old Norse 'skaldic' verse or dróttkvætt (court meter) and Old English alliterative poetry from the long Viking Age, a period well known for the dynamic historical and political shifts that shaped the nations of Northern Europe and beyond and was remarkable for its literary treasures. . . . [She] provides a blueprint for understanding and resurrecting two important literary traditions." —The New Criterion
"The Etiquette of Early Northern Verse is a wonderful book: erudite, witty, replete with allusions both learned and (occasionally) lewd. Frank treats, quite simply, style in Old English and Old Norse poetry, and the book is a master class in noticing and judging the sonic effects, understatements, and ironies that were the stock-in-trade of the early northern poets." —Choice
"The Etiquette of Early Northern Verse is the rare academic book whose style perfectly matches the excitement its subject raises for the author.... I would recommend it to anyone who wishes to go beyond a mechanical understanding of these complex and aloof poetries, for I think Frank succeeds in resurrecting these extinct strangers for us, bringing them a measure of the life and liveliness that they must have held for generations of Old English and Old Norse speakers. —The Medieval Review
"The Etiquette of Early Northern Verse is both a classic and a tour de force, with all the virtues of both; it is an important and thrilling read." —Heather O’Donoghue, University of Oxford
"This is a beautiful book, by a celebrated and sensitive reader of Old English and (especially) Old Norse, whose always elegant and witty prose has often been imitated by her many disciples, but never bettered. . . . The prose is always gorgeous, and the close reading equally thoughtful and thought-provoking. This is an electric book, that requires and repays rereading, and still leaves the hairs standing." —The Journal of English and Germanic Philology
