Icelandic literature encyclopedia topics

Early Writings

With Iceland's loss of political independence (1261-64) came a decline in literature, although the linguistic tradition continued and the old writings were still venerated. In the 13th and 14th cent. the sagas of antiquity flourished; many were based on Eddic poems (see Edda). Chivalric romances appeared c.1300, emphasizing classical and ecclesiastical themes and showing French influence. From the 14th to the middle of the 16th cent. many foreign works were translated; Old Norse works were copied and compiled, and new religious poems were written in the old meters. The 14th cent. also saw the development of the rímur, metrically ingenious narrative poetry based on the sagas; it was popular until the 19th cent. and was revived in the 20th.

The Sixteenth to Nineteenth Centuries

The Protestant Reformation, reaching Iceland in the 16th cent., turned literary emphasis to hymns and illuminations of the Protestant faith. Einar Sigurdsson (1538-1626) was the great spiritual poet of the age. The first printing press was brought to Iceland in 1528 by Bishop Jón Aresson. From the Reformation until the late 18th cent. it was under church control; secular works were circulated in manuscript. After 1550, German and Danish influences were strong.

The great secular poets of the 17th cent. were Hallgrímur Petursson (1614-74), author of the Passion Hymns, and the satirist Stefan Olafsson (1620-88). Neoclassicism dominated literary style in the late 18th cent. In the early 19th cent. Árni Magnusson compiled a library of ancient Icelandic masterpieces.

The Creation of a Modern Icelandic Style

Continental romanticism and a newly aroused nationalism fed the romantic revival begun in the 1830s by the poets Bjarni Thorarensen (1786-1841) and Jónas Hallgrímsson (1807-45). The first writer of the modern Icelandic short story, Hallgrímsson also influenced Jón Thóroddsen, who wrote the first published Icelandic novel. This movement, whose practitioners created what became the classic Icelandic style of the 19th and 20th cent., was continued by Grimur Thomsen (1820-96), writer of heroic narrative poems; Benedikt Grondal (1826-1907), romantic and humorous poet; Steingrímur Thorsteinsson (1831-1913), lyric poet, satirist, and translator; and Matthías Jochumsson (1835-1920), whose plays mark the beginning of modern Icelandic drama. The towering figure of the period was the historian and statesman Jón Sigurðsson.

The periodical Verdandi [the present], founded in 1882, advanced a new realism—strongly socialistic, individualistic, and anticlerical, and influenced by the Danish critic Georg Brandes. Notable realists include the short-story writer and social critic Gestur Palsson (1852-91); the Icelandic-Canadian poet Stephan G. Stephansson (1853-1927); and the anticlerical satirist and lyric poet Thorsteinn Erlingsson (1858-1914). Einar H. Kvaran (1859-1938), at first a realist, later turned to religious and spiritual themes in his short stories about the poor in Reykjavík. Jón Trausti (pseud. of Guðmundur Magnusson, 1873-1918) in his fiction depicted medieval as well as modern Iceland.

The Twentieth Century

The 20th cent. saw the rise of a more introspective writing, influenced by Nietzsche and the French symbolists. One group of writers, part of the Icelandic colony in Copenhagen, wrote in Danish to reach a wider public. They were led by Johann Sigurjonsson (1880-1919), a romantic dramatist. Others were the romantic novelist Gunnar Gunnarsson and the cosmopolitan dramatist Guðmundur Kamban. A neoromantic movement arose in the 1920s; it had as a leading spirit the poet, scholar, and critic Sigurdur Nordal, author of the prose poem Hel (1919). Among the neoromantics were the novelists Guðmundur Hagalin and Kristmann Guðmundsson and the lyric poets Davið Stefánsson and Stefan Sigurdsson.

With the urbanization of Iceland's population came the rise of a working class and new patterns of life and thought. Kamban and Trausti early became socialists; Hagalin turned from conservative journalism to become thoroughly identified with the new socialist middle class. The most noted writer of this period was the Nobel laureate Halldor K. Laxness. The establishment of British and American bases in Iceland during World War II introduced foreign literary influence, and Icelandic independence (1944) increased nationalist and patriotic emphasis. In the 1950s the introspective "atom poets," including Stefan H. Grimsson and Hannes Sigfursson, won acclaim. Major writers of the late 20th cent. include Agnar Thórðarson, Elias Mar, Oddur Björnsson, Hannes Pétursson, and Jökull Jakobsson.

Bibliography

See S. Einarsson, History of Icelandic Prose Writers, 1800-1940 (1948) and A History of Icelandic Literature (1957); R. Beck, History of Icelandic Poets, 1800-1940 (1950); G. Turville-Petre, Origins of Icelandic Literature (1953); G. Jones, ed., Erik the Red, and Other Icelandic Sagas (1961).

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Wikipedia

Icelandic literature refers to literature written in Iceland or by Icelandic people. It is best known for the sagas written in medieval times. As Icelandic and Old Norse are almost the same, Icelandic medieval literature is also referred to as Old Norse literature.

Early Icelandic Literature

The medieval Icelandic literature is usually divided into three parts:

The Eddas

There has been some discussion on the probable etymology of the term “Edda”. Most say it stems from the Old Norse term edda, which means great-grandmother, but some see a reference to Oddi, a place where Snorri Sturluson (the writer of the Prose Edda) was brought up.

The Elder Edda or Poetic Edda (originally attributed to Sæmundr fróði, although this is now rejected by modern scholars) is a collection of Old Norse poems and stories originated in the late 10th century.

Although these poems and stories probably come from the Scandinavian mainland, they were first written down in the 13th century in Iceland. The first and original manuscript of the Poetic Edda is the Codex Regius, found in the southern Iceland in 1643 by Brynjólfur Sveinsson, Bishop of Skálholt.

The Younger Edda or Prose Edda was written by Snorri Sturluson, and it is the main source of modern understanding of the Norse mythology and also of some features of medieval Icelandic poetics, as it contains many mythological stories and also several kennings. In fact, its main purpose was to use it as a manual of poetics for the Icelandic skalds.

Skaldic poetry

Skaldic poetry mainly differs from Eddaic poetry by the fact that skaldic poetry were composed by well-known skalds, the Icelandic poets. Instead of talking about mythological events or telling mythological stories, skaldic poetry was usually sung to honor nobles and kings, commemorate or satirize important or any current event (e.g. a battle won by their lord, a political event in town etc.). Skaldic poetry is written with strict metric system and many figures of speech, like the complicated kennings, favorite among the skalds, and also with much “artistic license” concerning word order and syntax, with sentences usually inverted.

Sagas

The sagas are prose stories written in Old Norse, that talk about historic facts of the Germanic and Scandinavian world; for instance, the migration of people to Iceland, voyages of Vikings to unexplored lands or the early history of the inhabitants of Gotland. As the Eddas contain mainly mythological stories, sagas are usually realistic and deal with real events, although there some legendary sagas, sagas of saints, bishops and translated romances. Only sometimes some mythological references are added or a story is rendered more romantic and fantastic as it really happened. Sagas are the main source to study the History of Scandinavia between the ninth and thirteenth centuries.

Middle Icelandic literature

In 1262, Iceland united to the Norwegian monarchy, and lost its independence, starting a decline in literature. A great translation of the Bible was published in the sixteenth century. Important compositions of the time from the 15th century to the 19th centure include sacred verse, most famously the Passíusálmar of Hallgrímur Pétursson; rímur, rhymed epic poems with alliterative verse that consist of two to four verses per stanza, popular until the end of the nineteenth century; and autobiographical prose writings such as the Píslarsaga of Jón Magnússon.

Modern Icelandic literature

Literary revival

In the beginning of the nineteenth century, there was a linguistic and literary revival. Romanticism arrived in Iceland and was dominant especially during the 1830s, in the work of poets like Bjarni Thorarensen (1786-1841) and Jónas Hallgrímsson (1807-45). Jónas Hallgrímsson, also the first writer of modern Icelandic short stories, influenced Jón Thoroddsen (1818-68), who, in 1850, published the first Icelandic novel, and so he is considered the father of modern Icelandic novel.

This classic Icelandic style from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were continued chiefly by Grímur Thomsen(1820-96), who wrote many heroic poems and Matthías Jochumsson (1835-1920), who wrote many plays that are considered the beginning of modern Icelandic drama, among many others. In short, this period was a great revival of Icelandic literature.

Realism and Naturalism followed the Romanticism. Notable Realistic writers include the short-story writer Gestur Pálsson (1852-91), known by his satires, and the Icelandic-Canadian poet Stephan G. Stephansson (1853-1927), noted for his sensitive way to deal with the language and for his ironic vein.

In the early twentieth century, many writers started to write in Danish, among them even some really noteworthy, like Gunnar Gunnarsson (1889-1975), one of the best-known and most translated Icelandic authors, considered a master in characterization. However, the best-known Icelandic author is Halldór Laxness (1902-98), winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1955, author of several articles, essays, poems, short stories and novels, like the best known Expressionist works Independent People, Salka Valka and Iceland's Bell.

After World War I, there was a revival of the classic style, mainly in poetry, with authors such as Davíð Stefánsson and Tómas Guðmundsson, who later became the representer of traditional poetry in Iceland in the twentieth century. Modern authors, from the end of World War II, tend to merge the classical style with a modernist style.