Icelandic Literature

I

Introduction

Icelandic Literature, literature created by the inhabitants of Iceland from the country's settlement in the 9th century ad to the present. Because Old Norse and Icelandic are, for all practical purposes, the same language, Icelandic medieval writings are sometimes referred to as Old Norse literature.

II

The Saga

Iceland is most famous for its medieval sagas, written between the 12th and 14th centuries. Sagas are tales of Norwegian kings and real or legendary heroes, both men and women, of Iceland and Scandinavia. Composed in prose, generally by unknown authors, they are thought to have been widely recited by storytellers before being committed to writing. None of the original manuscripts is extant; transcripts and collections, sometimes with revisions and amplifications of the originals, date from the 13th century and after.

Hundreds of sagas were written in medieval Iceland. They may be divided into kings' sagas, such as Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla, which traces the rulers of Norway from legendary times to 1177, and Knýtlinga Saga, dealing with Danish kings from Gorm the Old to Canute IV; legendary sagas, which are basically knightly romances and fantasies (sometimes called lying sagas) of varying literary merit; and the sagas of Icelanders—more or less fictionalized accounts of the so-called Saga Age (900-1050) in Iceland. To the last category belong such highly accomplished literary works as Egil's Saga, the life of the warrior-poet Egill Skallagrímsson; Laxdaela Saga, a triangular love story; Gísla Saga, the tragic tale of a heroic outlaw; and Njál's Saga, generally considered the high point of Icelandic literary art, a complex and rich account of human and societal conflicts.

In addition, the saga form was used in the 13th century to write contemporary history as it evolved around preeminent personages of the time. The result is generally known under the collective name of Sturlunga Saga; it recounts in gory detail the internecine struggle of the 13th century that led to the end of the old Icelandic commonwealth. The best of its components is the Íslendinga Saga of Sturla Thórdarson, a nephew of Snorri Sturluson. Other historical writings of medieval Iceland include the Íslendingabók (Book of Icelanders) by Ari Thorgilsson the Learned and the Landnámabók (Book of Settlements), in which Ari may also have had a hand.

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III

The Eddas and Other Poetry

Early Icelandic literature also included the so-called Eddas and skaldic poetry. The term Edda is of doubtful origin. It may be derived from the Old Norse word edda (great-grandmother), but more likely refers to Oddi, a seat of culture in southern Iceland. (Oddi was the residence, at different times, of Saemund Sigfússon, a learned cleric once thought to have compiled one of the Eddas, and Snorri Sturluson, who is known to have written the other.) It is also possible that the term refers to the Old Norse word óthr (“poetry”). In any case, the term is used for two famous collections of Icelandic literature. The Poetic Edda, or Elder Edda (9th-12th century), is a group of more than 30 poems on the Scandinavian and Germanic gods and on human heroes, notably Sigurd, the Icelandic counterpart of the German Siegfried (see Nibelungenlied). Some of these poems may possibly have been composed outside Iceland, but they were apparently first written down there in the 12th century.

The Prose Edda, or Younger Edda (13th century), is the work of Snorri Sturluson. It includes tales from Scandinavian mythology and is the most important source of modern knowledge on this subject. Other sections of the Prose Edda form a guide to poetic diction and a metrical key.

Skaldic poetry, composed between the 9th and 13th centuries, was written variously in honor of the nobles, in praise of love, or to satirize or commemorate current happenings. Not as free as Eddic verse, it is strictly syllabic in structure and is characterized by the use of kennings: complex periphrases that at their best are beautiful metaphors, but also sometimes give skaldic poetry the effect of riddles.

IV

Period of Literary Sterility

After Iceland's loss of independence in the 1260s, Icelandic literature declined, and from about 1400 to the 19th century hardly any literary prose was written, with the exception of a notable Icelandic translation of the Bible by 16th-century Protestant theologians. Sacred verse, however, was composed, and so were rímur, an Icelandic form of balladry more remarkable for metrical ingenuity than literary value, which continued to be popular until the end of the 19th century. The outstanding work of these centuries—and the one that is more often printed than any other in Iceland—is the Passíusálmar (Hymns of the Passion, 1666) by Hallgrímur Pétursson, a Lutheran pastor.

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