Ursula Dronke is a medievalist

Medieval studies

-Development:The term 'medieval studies' began to be adopted by academics in the opening decades of the twentieth century, initially in the titles of books like G. G. Coulton's Ten Medieval Studies , to emphasize a greater interdisciplinary approach to a historical subject...

 and former Reader in Old Norse

Old Norse

Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....

 at the University of Oxford

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

. She is the Emeritus Vigfússon Reader in Ancient Icelandic Literature and Antiquities and an Emeritus Fellow of Linacre College. She also formerly taught in the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages at Cambridge University.

Ursula Miriam Brown married fellow medievalist

Medieval studies

-Development:The term 'medieval studies' began to be adopted by academics in the opening decades of the twentieth century, initially in the titles of books like G. G. Coulton's Ten Medieval Studies , to emphasize a greater interdisciplinary approach to a historical subject...

 Peter Dronke

Peter Dronke

Ernest Peter Michael Dronke FBA is a scholar specialising in Medieval Latin literature. He is one of the 20th century's leading scholars of medieval Latin lyric, and his book The Medieval Lyric is considered the standard introduction to the subject.-Life and career:Dronke was born in Cologne in...

 in 1961. They have collaborated several times, and jointly gave the 1997 H.M. Chadwick Memorial Lecture at the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic at the University of Cambridge

University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...

.

Dronke's edition of the Poetic Edda

Poetic Edda

The Poetic Edda is a collection of Old Norse poems primarily preserved in the Icelandic mediaeval manuscript Codex Regius. Along with Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, the Poetic Edda is the most important extant source on Norse mythology and Germanic heroic legends, and from the early 19th century...

with translation and commentary (three volumes published of a projected four) has been praised for its scholarship, insight, and skillful and poetic renderings. In 1980 she gave the Dorothea Coke Memorial Lecture for the Viking Society for Northern Research

Viking Society for Northern Research

The Viking Society for Northern Research, founded in London in 1892 as the Orkney, Shetland and Northern Society or the Viking Club, is a group dedicated to the study and promotion of the ancient culture of Scandinavia whose journal, Saga-Book, publication of editions, translations, and scholarly...

, and she was co-editor of the festschrift for Gabriel Turville-Petre

Gabriel Turville-Petre

Edward Oswald Gabriel Turville-Petre F.B.A. was Professor of Ancient Icelandic Literature and Antiquities at the University of Oxford...

.

Editions and translations

• (as Ursula Brown). Þorgils Saga ok Hafliða. Oxford English Monographs 3. London: Oxford, 1952.
• The Poetic Edda Volume I Heroic Poems. Edited with translation, introduction and commentary. Oxford: Clarendon/Oxford University, 1969.
• The Poetic Edda Volume II Mythological Poems. Edited with translation, introduction and commentary. Oxford: Clarendon/Oxford University, 1997. ISBN 0-19-811181-9
• The Poetic Edda Volume III Mythological Poems II. Edited with translation, introduction and commentary. Oxford: Clarendon/Oxford University, 2011. ISBN 0-19-811182-7

Other books

• (with Peter Dronke). Barbara et Antiquissima Carmina. Publicaciones del Seminario de Literatura Medieval y Humanística. Barcelona: Universidad Autónoma, Faculdad de Letras, 1977. ISBN 8460009920
• The Role of Sexual Themes in Njáls Saga: The Dorothea Coke Memorial Lecture in Northern Studies delivered at University College London, 27 May 1980. London: Viking Society for Northern Research
  Viking Society for Northern Research
  The Viking Society for Northern Research, founded in London in 1892 as the Orkney, Shetland and Northern Society or the Viking Club, is a group dedicated to the study and promotion of the ancient culture of Scandinavia whose journal, Saga-Book, publication of editions, translations, and scholarly...
  
  , 1981. (pdf)
• Myth and Fiction in Early Norse Lands. Collected Studies 524. Aldershot, Hampshire/Brookfield, Vermont: Variorum, 1996. ISBN 0860785459 (Collected articles)
• (with Peter Dronke). Growth of Literature: The Sea and the God of the Sea. H.M. Chadwick Memorial Lectures 8. Cambridge: Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, 1997-98. ISBN 9780953269709

Articles

• (with Peter Dronke). "The Prologue of the Prose Edda: Explorations of a Latin Background". Sjötíu ritgerðir helgaðar Jakobi Benediktssyni 20. júlí 1977. Ed. Einar G. Pétursson and Jónas Kristjánsson. Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, 1977. 153-76.
• "The War of the Æsir and the Vanir in Völuspá". Idee, Gestalt, Geschichte: Festschrift Klaus von See. Ed. Gerd Wolfgang Weber. Odense: Odense University, 1988. ISBN 8774926977. 223-38.
• "Eddic Poetry as a Source for the History of Germanic Religion". Germanische Religionsgeschichte: Quellen und Quellenprobleme. Ed. Heinrich Beck, Detlev Ellmers and Kurt Schier. Ergänzungsbände zum Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde 5. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1992. ISBN 3110128721. 656-84.
• "Pagan Beliefs and Christian Impact: The Contribution of Eddic Studies". Viking Revaluations: Viking Society Centenary Symposium. Ed. Anthony Faulkes and Patrick Thull. London: Viking Society for Northern Research, 1993. ISBN 0903521288