This book explores the nature of poetic reading using a creative approach to understanding Old Norse poetry. It considers lacunae in the history, criticism and scholarly translations of Old Norse poetry into English through a poetic enactment, an epic poem and its companion reader, demonstrating critical approaches to Old Norse poetry and poetics.

The poetic enactment analyses the complex relationship between historical gap and creative reader, the importance of the comprehension of literary objects as ideal or immutable, and the poetic construction of readable texts with particular reference to skaldic images. The poetic demonstration of scholarly approaches also raises a number of questions about poetic process and the role of composers, readers and historical contexts in Old Norse poetry. Analysing narrative-movement, diction, grammar, legend, the aural, the visual, authenticity, meaning and poetic objects as scripts, the author offers a theory of actual and virtual reading.