Iceland 1930

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1830571079

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-221162

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Iceland 1930

Edition:: 2. ed.

Place of publication:: Reykjavík

Publisher:: Ríkisprentsmiđjan Gutenberg

Year of publication:: 1930

Scope:: 193 S.; Tab., Kt., Taf.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Literature

Collection:: Economics Books

139 Another great poet of the seventeenth century is Dean Stefin Ol- afsson (1620—1688), a very prolific writer of poetry, both religious and secular. Dean Stefan is a confirmed realist, and describes humble life in all its forms, sometimes in a bitter vein; vet he is not lacking in tender feeling. He employs a variety of metres, some of them very elaborate. Eighteenth century poets. Lawman Pall Jénsson Vidalin (1667-— 1727) wrote a number of single verses, remarkable for their sweet- ness of flow and clear thought. Dean Gunnar Pilsson (1714—1768), a man of vast erudition in antiquarian lore, is a genuine Icelan- der both in thought and expression. Eggert Olafsson (1726—1768), the great naturalist and pioneer of culture, studied abroad where he acquired a great variety and amount of learning. His sincere patriotism and desire to instruct his countrymen and show them the right way in everything are apparent in all his poems, which, though remarkably good for those days and sometimes reaching a high level, seem to readers of our day more illustrative of the author's keen intellect and profound learning than of any great poelical power. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Iceland has produced many first-class poets who have in the main followed the old traditions, though with a wider range of subject and a greater variety of form. Their poetry is on the whole intensely national in spirit, showing in the first place the Icelander’s fondness for history, and secondly that our history is for the most part biographical. Many of the noblest and most beautiful poems in our language, from Egill Skallagrimsson’s ‘Sonatorrek® onward, are funeral dirges, composed in commemoration of dead friends, and due to a need to understand and explain their character, to show their attitude to the work and struggle of the na- tion, and thus, as it were, to carve their names in marble. Funeral poems have been made on persons in every walk of life, men and women, young and old, and there is hardly an Icelandic poet who has not tried his hand at this kind of poetry. This period is also remarkable for no small number of poems on famous men of the past, and on great events in our history past and present. On the other hand, if we except the rimur, only two of our sagas have been worked info metrical form, neither poem being of any great merit. This might seem strange, but the reason is obvious: to most Icelanders it would seem a lost endeavour fo weave into nar- rative verse the events which have received an imperishable form in

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