Om Grundtvig-udgaver
Authors: Steen Johansen 
Published: September 2020

On Editing Grundtvig. B y Steen Johansen. Up to the present, there exists no complete and scholarly edition of N. F. S. Grundtvig’s writings and of the manuscripts left unpublished at his death; no publisher has attempted to produce one, mainly because of the exceptionally wide scope of such an edition and the vast amount of preparation which it would require. Nevertheless, the great future aim of the Grundtvig Society is to bring such an edition into existence, even if the prospects of starting work on it are not particularly bright at the moment. On the other hand, work has already been done in various quarters on the most necessary scholarly preparations for the edition — that is to say, on a complete bibliography of Grundtvig’s printed writings, and a complete catalogue of the manuscripts left unpublished at his death. The bibliography is now being published in book form; it is not yet certain whether the catalogue will be published in the same way, but in the interests of research it is to be hoped that this will happen sooner or later. Even if the complete edition never materialises, we may hope that these preparatory studies will preserve their own independent value long into the future. Some questions which involuntarily suggest themselves at the outset of the great enterprise mentioned above are the following: What is the position as regards the scholarly value of existing editions of Grundtvig (editions of particular books, and selections)? Will the treatment of the text and the principles observed in editing the older editions be of any use in providing information or models for these who will be responsible for the complete edition? These questions merit some investigation, even though one need not possess any very great knowledge of various editions of Grundtvig’s writings in order to guess what the answers will be. A study of the publishers’ names on the books sent for publication by Grundtvig himself shows that during his long life he was successively connected with five large publishers, besides having occasional connections with several other publishers. At the very beginning of his career as an author Grundtvig achieved such a literary reputation that he never afterwards in his life had any difficulty in getting his books or newspaper articles printed. Grundtvig lived long enough to see the triumph of the ideas for which he had fought throughout a long life. This can be clearly seen from the sale of his books and the need for new editions. In the last ten or fifteen years before his death (c. 1859—1872) most of his numerous earlier books were sold out, whereas until then unsold copies of many of them, in varying amounts, had been left on the hands of the various publishers. This made necessary new editions of particular books, and also a collected edition of his hymns, anthologies of his other poems, etc., and this for the first time raised the problem of the correct textual foundation, the authentic text. So long as Grundtvig lived, naturally enough, no editions appeared which were specially concerned with textual criticism, but not long after his death the first of these came out: the third edition of »Krønike-Riim« 1875; »Poetiske Skrifter « (Poetic Writings), I—IX, 1880—1930; Vol. V (1881) of the collected edition of his hymns (with variant readings), etc., etc. — a long succession of editions of particular books and several editions of selected writings —, and some of his unpublished manuscripts were also included in the editions. If one wishes to try to form a comprehensive estimate of all this publishing activity, and especially of the editions of Grundtvig which appeared around 1875—1900, this must first of all be remembered: of all Danish authors, Grundtvig is the one who left behind the largest collection of manuscripts in his own handwriting, a collection which no one has hitherto been able to survey as a whole, because it has not been examined and catalogued in detail. Again, it is only very recently that this collection has become generally accessible for literary research workers, while in the period immediately after Grundtvig’s death — indeed, almost up to the end of the century — it was accessible for only very few people, who were closely connected with Grundtvig and his family. All these circumstances have clearly left their mark on the published editions (and on the history of research into Grundtvig’s writings); all the older editions betray a lack of familiarity with Grundtvig’s unpublished manuscripts which is at once obvious to a modern reader, even if the editors (especially Svend Grundtvig) try to give him the impression that they have also mastered the manuscript material. And if the manuscript material is used, the use made of it is far from being as thorough and exact as modern scholarship would demand. — Another weakness in the older editions is the modernised orthography introduced into most of the editions of Grundtvig’s writings in the period around 1873 to 1890, and to some extent also since then. Modern scholarship naturally demands that the original editions should be reproduced as they are, but the practice of modernizing them has made numerous older editions useless for modern research workers on Grundtvig’s writings. It has been especially unfortunate that Grundtvig’s »Poetiske Skrifter« was published with the spelling which prevailed during a certain period (c. 1870—1890), since in other spheres the »Poetiske Skrifter« marked a considerable advance in Grundtvig research. The consequence of all this is that the study of Grundtvig’s writings, as far as the technique of the editions is concerned, is really only beginning, in spite of many good contributions made to it during the 20th century, among which the edition of Grundtvig’s hymns which has been coming out since 1944 deserves special mention (it treats the hymns solely in the order of their composition, however — see below). With regard to the order in which the material should be arranged —r whether chronologically in order of publication or in order of composition — and also with regard to the arrangement of the papers left behind by Grundtvig at his death (whether these should be included with the material published by Grundtvig himself, or collected separately), the existing large editions of selected writings present an equally large number of compromises between the different principles of arrangement, though in such a way that »Poetiske Skrifter« consistently adheres to a chronological arrangement in order of composition, while »Udvalgte Skrifter« (»Selected Writings«), 1904 —1909, edited by Holger Begtrup, tends rather towards a chronological arrangement in order of publication. Modern literary scholarship claims that it is the duty of large complete or selected editions to reproduce the contemporary scene as far as possible, which means that the chronology of publication must be taken as the basis, so that the writings are presented in the order in which they were received by the writer’s contemporaries. And since these contemporaries naturally knew nothing of »manuscripts left unpublished at the writer’s death«, in complete modern editions these must consequently be relegated to one or more separate sections. It is to be hoped that the editorial staff of the forthcoming edition of Grundtvig will take all these questions of principle into consideration before coming to any final decision.