My Ph.D. Reading List (Patreon)

Enough people have asked for this that I thought I might as well make it a post that everyone could have a chance to review--so here you go, the pretty long list of books I was expected to read in the year leading up to my written and oral Ph.D. comprehensive exams.

GENERAL 

Primary Literature 

Eddic literature: 

Fáfnismál. Ed. Gustav Neckel. Edda: Die Lieder des Codex Regius nebst verwandten Denkmälern. Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1914-1927. 

Hávamál. Ed. Gustav Neckel. Edda: Die Lieder des Codex Regius nebst verwandten Denkmälern. Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1914-1927. 

Völuspá. Ed. Gustav Neckel. Edda: Die Lieder des Codex Regius nebst verwandten Denkmälern. Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1914-1927. 

Edda. Prologue and Gylfaginning. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1982. 

Edda. Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. London: University College London, 1998. Edda. Háttatál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. 

Skaldic poetry: 

Bragi Boddason, Ragnarsdrápa. In Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. Ed. Finnur Jónsson. Vols. 1B-2B (rettet tekst). Copenhagen: Glydendal, 1912-1915. Vol. 1B, pp. 1-4. 

Hagiography: 

Agnesar saga. In Kirsten Wolf, ed. Heilagra meyja sögur. Reykjavík: Bókmenntafræðistofnun Háskóla Íslands, 2003. Pp. 3-10; C. R. Unger, ed. Heilagra manna søgur: Fortællinger og legender om hellige mænd og kvinder. 2 vols. Christiania (Oslo): B. M. Bentzen, 1877. Vol. 1, pp. 15-22. 

Plácidus saga. In C. R. Unger, ed. Heilagra manna søgur: Fortællinger og legender om hellige mænd og kvinder. 2 vols. Christiania (Oslo): B. M. Bentzen, 1877. Vol. 2, pp. 193-203. 

Historical literature: 

Íslendingabók. Ed. Jakob Benediktsson. Íslendingabók - Landnámabók. Íslenzk fornrit I. Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1968. 

Hungrvaka. Ed. Ásdís Egilsdóttir. Biskupa sögur II. Íslenzk fornrit 16. Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 2002. 

Sturla Þórðarson. Íslendinga Saga. In Sturlunga saga. Eds. Jón Jóhannesson, Magnús Finnbogason and Kristján Eldjárn. Reykjavík: Sturlunguútgáfan, 1946. Vol. 1, pp. 229-534. 

Sagas of Icelanders: 

Brennu-Njáls saga. Ed. Einar Ólafur Sveinsson. Íslenzk fornrit 12. Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1954. - English translation: Njal’s saga. Trans. Robert Cook. London/ New York: Penguin, 2001. 

Egils saga Skalla-Grímssonar. Ed. Sigurður Nordal. Íslenzk fornrit 2. Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1933. 

Gísla saga Súrssonar. In Björn K. Þórólfsson and Guðni Jónsson, eds. Vestfirðinga sögur. Íslenzk fornrit 6. Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1943. 

Grettis saga Ásmundarsonar. Ed. Guðni Jónsson. Íslenzk fornrit 7. Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1936. 

Hrafnkels saga Freysgóða. In Jón Jóhannesson, ed. Austfirðinga sögur. Íslenzk fornrit 11. Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1950. 

Laxdæla saga. Ed. Einar Ólafur Sveinsson. Íslenzk fornrit 5. Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1934. 

Secondary Literature 

Andersson, Theodore M. The Growth of the Medieval Icelandic Sagas (1180-1280). Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2006. 

Andersson, Theodore M. The Icelandic Family Saga: An Analytical Reading. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967. 

Clover, Carol J. and John Lindow, ed. Old Norse-Icelandic Literature: A Critical Guide. Islandica 45. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985. 

Clunies Ross, Margaret, ed. Old Icelandic Literature and Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. 

Hallberg, Peter. The Icelandic Saga. Trans. Paul Schach. Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1962. Jónas Kristjánsson. Eddas and Sagas: Iceland’s Medieval Literature. Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1997. 

Sørensen, Preben Meulengracht. Saga and Society. Trans. John Tucker. Odense: Odense University Press, 1993. 

Turville-Petre, E. O. G. Myth and Religion of the North. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1975.

Turville-Petre, E. O. G. Origins of Icelandic Literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953. 

Turville-Petre, E. O. G. Scaldic Poetry. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976. 

SPECIALIZATION 

Old Norse-Icelandic Paleography and Philology 

Driscoll, M. J.: ‘Abbreviations in Old Norse-Icelandic manuscripts’ [unpublished, available electronically http://www.staff.hum.ku.dk/mjd/abbreviations.html] 

Guðvarður Már Gunnlaugsson: ‘Manuscripts and palaeography’ In A Companion to Old Norse- Icelandic Literature and Culture, ed. Rory McTurk. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2005. Pp. 245-264. 

Guðvarður Már Gunnlaugsson. Sýnisbók íslenskrar skriftar. Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar á Íslandi, 2004. 

Halldór Hermannsson. Icelandic Manuscripts. Islandica 19. Ithaca: Cornell University Library, 1929. 

Handbok i norrøn filologi. Ed. Odd Einar Haugen. Bergen: Fagbok-forlaget, 2004.
Hreinn Benediktsson. Early Icelandic Script. Reykjavík: Manuscript Institute of Iceland, 1965. 

Mass, Paul: Textkritik, Einleitung in die Altertumswissenschaft, II. Leipzig/Berlin, 1927, 3. Aufl., 1967; Textual Criticism, trans. Barbara Flower. Oxford, 1958. 

Sverrir Tómasson. “The History of Old Nordic Manuscripts I: Old Icelandic” In The Nordic Languages: An International Handbook of the History of the North Germanic Languages. Ed. Oskar Bandle et al. Vol 1 of 2. New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2002. Pp. 793-801. 

Vésteinn Ólason and Gísli Sigurðsson, ed. Handritin: Ritgerðir um íslensk miðaldarhandrit,
sögu þeirra og áhrif. Reykjavík: Árni Magnússon Institute in Iceland, 2002; English version: The Manuscripts of Iceland. Reykjavík: Árni Magnússon Institute in Iceland, 2004. 

History of the Scandinavian Languages 

Old Norse-Icelandic and General Works: 

Antonsen, Elmer H. A Concise Grammar of the Older Runic Inscriptions. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1975. 

Alexander Jóhannesson. Ìslenzk tunga í fornöld. Reykjavík: Bókaverzlun Ársæls Árnasonar, 1923-24. 

Barnes, Michael P. A New Introduction to Old Norse. Part I: Grammar. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research, 2004. 

Green, Dennis H. Language and History in the Early Germanic World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. 

Haugen, Einar. The Scandinavian Languages: An Introduction to their History. London: Faber and Faber,1976 

Haugen, Einar. Scandinavian Language Structures: A Comparative Historical Survey. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982 

Hreinn Benediktsson. “The Unstressed and the Non-Syllabic Vowels of Old Icelandic” In Arkiv för nordisk filologi 77 (1962): 7-31. 

Hreinn Benediktsson. The First Grammatical Treatise. Introduction. Text. Notes. Translation. Vocabulary. Facsimiles. Reykjavík: University of Iceland Publications in Linguistics, 1972. 

Iversen, Ragnvald. Norrøn grammatikk. Seventh edition revised by E.F. Halvorsen. Oslo: Aschehoug, 1973. 

Jahr, Ernst Håkon, ed. Nordisk og nedertysk. Oslo: Novus, 1995. 

Jóhanna Barðdal, Nils Jörgensen, Gorm Larsen, Bente Martinussen. Nordiska: Våra språk förr och nu. Lund: Studentlitteratur, 1997. 

Koivulehto, Jorma. “Contact with non-Germanic languages II: Relations to the East” In The Nordic Languages: An International Handbook of the History of the North Germanic Languages. Ed. Oskar Bandle et al. Vol 1 of 2. New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2002. Pp. 583-94. 

Nielsen, Hans Frede. The Germanic Languages: Origins and Early Dialectal Interrelations. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1989. 

Nielsen, Hans Frede. The Early Runic Language of Scandinavia. Heidelberg: Winter, 2000. 

Nielsen, Hans Frede. “Nordic-West Germanic relations” In The Nordic Languages: An International Handbook of the History of the North Germanic Languages. Ed. Oskar Bandle et al. Vol 1 of 2. New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2002. Pp. 558-68. 

Quak, Arend. “Nordic and North Sea Germanic relations” In The Nordic Languages: An International Handbook of the History of the North Germanic Languages. Ed. Oskar Bandle et al. Vol 1 of 2. New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2002. Pp. 568-72. 

Scardigli, Piergiuseppe. “Nordic-Gothic linguistic relations” In The Nordic Languages: An International Handbook of the History of the North Germanic Languages. Ed. Oskar Bandle et al. Vol 1 of 2. New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2002. Pp. 553-8. 

Scardigli, Piergiuseppe. “Contact with non-Germanic languages I: Relations to the West” In The Nordic Languages: An International Handbook of the History of the North Germanic Languages. Ed. Oskar Bandle et al. Vol 1 of 2. New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2002. Pp. 572-83. 

Seip, Didrik Arup. Norsk språkhistorie til omkring 1370. Oslo: Aschehoug, 1955. Torp, Arne. Nordiske språk i nordisk og germansk perspektiv. Oslo: Novus, 1998. 

Udolph, Jürgen. “Nordic, Germanic, Indo-European and the structure of the Germanic language family” In The Nordic Languages: An International Handbook of the History of the North Germanic Languages. Ed. Oskar Bandle et al. Vol 1 of 2. New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2002. Pp. 544-53. 

Vikør, Lars S., The Nordic Languages. Their status and interrelations (Nordisk språksekretariats skrifter 14). New and revised edition. Oslo: Novus, 2001. 

Wessén, Elias. De nordiska språken. Stockholm: AWE/ Geber, 1965. 

Widmark, Gun. Det nordisk u-omljudet. En dialektgeografisk undersökning. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksells boktryckeri AB, 1959. 

 Danish: 

Kristiansen, Tore, et al., eds. Dansk sproglære. Copenhagen: Dansklærerforeningen, 1996. Skautrup, Peter. Det danske sprogs historie I-V. København: Gyldendal, 1944-1970. 

Skautrup, Peter. “Dansk sprog” In Kulturhistorisk leksikon for nordisk middelalder. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde og Bagger. Vol. II (1957): 659-62. 

Færoese and Norn: 

Barnes, Michael P. The Norn Language of Orkney and Shetland. Lerwick: Shetland Times, 1998. 

Hamre, Håkon. Færøymålet i tiden 1584-1750. Oslo: Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi, 1944. 

Matras, Christian. Færøsk sprog i skrift og tale. Ringkjøbing: A. Rasmussens bogtrykkeri, 1951. 

Icelandic: 

Helgi Guðmundsson. The Pronominal Dual in Icelandic. University of Iceland: Publications in Linguistics 2. Reykjavík: Institute of Nordic Linguistics, 1972. 

Hreinn Benediktsson. “The Vowel System of Icelandic: A Survey of its History” In Word 115 (1959): 282-312. 

Hreinn Benediktsson. “Islandsk språk” In Kulturhistorisk leksikon for nordisk middelalder. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde og Bagger. Vol. VII (1962): 486-93. 

Norwegian: 

Aasen, Ivar. Norsk grammatik. Christiania: P. T. Malling, 1864. 

Beito, Olav T. Norske målføretekster. Andre reviderte utgåva. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1967. 

Beito, Olav T. Nynorsk grammatikk. Oslo: Det norske samlaget, 1970. 

Christiansen, Hallfrid. Norske dialektar. Oslo: Tanum-Norli, 1976. 

Haugen, Einar. Language Conflict and Language Planning: The Case of Modern Norwegian. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1966. 

Haugen, Einar. “The Linguistic Development of Ivar Aasen ́s New Norse” In Proceedings of the Modern Language Association 48 (1932), pp. 558-97. 

Husby, Olaf. An Introduction to Norwegian Dialects. Trondheim: Tapir Academic Press, 2008. Hægstad, Marius. Vestnorske maalføre fyre 1350. Innleiding: Latinsk skrift i gamalnorsk maal. Kristiania: Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi, 1905. 

Hægstad, Marius. Vestnorske maalføre fyre 1350. I. Nordvestlandsk. Kristiania: Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi, 1907. 

Hægstad, Marius. Vestnorske maalføre fyre 1350. II. Sudvestlandsk. 1. Rygjamaal. Kristiania: Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi, 1915. 

Hægstad, Marius. Vestnorske maalføre fyre 1350. II. Sudvestlandsk. 2. Indre sudvestlandsk. Færøymaal. Islandsk. Fyrste bolken. Kristiania: Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi, 1916. 

Hægstad, Marius. Vestnorske maalføre fyre 1350. II. Sudvestlandsk. 2. Indre sudvestlandsk. Færøymaal. Islandsk. Andre bolken. Kristiania: Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi, 1917. 

Hødnebø, Finn. “Norsk språk” In Kulturhistorisk leksikon for nordisk middelalder. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde og Bagger. Vol. XII (1967): 357-63. 

Indrebø, Gustav. Norsk målsoga. Bergen: John Grieg, 1951.
Iversen, Ragnvald. Bokmål og talemål i Norge 1560-1630. Oslo: Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi, 1932. 

Johnsen, Egil Børre. Vårt eget språk. Bind 1. Oslo: Aschehoug, 1988. 

Venås, Kjell. Sterke verb i norske målføre. Morfologiske studiar. University of Oslo thesis. 1967. 

Swedish: 

Wessén, Elias. Svensk språkhistoria 1. Ljudlära och orböjningslära. 8th ed. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1968. 

Wessén, Elias. Svensk språkhistoria 2. Ordbildningslära. 8th ed. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1968. 

Wessén, Elias. Svensk språkhistoria 3. Grundlinjer till en historisk syntax. 2nd ed. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1965. 

Wessén, Elias. “Svenska språket” In Kulturhistorisk leksikon for nordisk middelalder. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde og Bagger. Vol. XVII (1972): 504-9.