The New International Encyclopædia/Icelandic Literature
ICELANDIC LITERATURE. In order to understand the remarkable brilliancy of the classical Icelandic literature of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, it is necessary' to bear in mind the fact that the early settlers were among the cream of the Norwegian people. In spite of the political difficulties that had induced these hardy Norsemen to seek a home almost in the ocean itself, intercourse between Iceland and the Scandinavian Peninsula continued to be very close, especially as a result of the frequent visits made to Norway by young Icelanders of rank. Another reason for the literary supremacy of the early Icelanders is closely connected with one of the principal natural drawbacks of the island, its severe climate, and the consequent isolation of the people during the greater part of the year. Persons in Iceland were thus greatly thrown upon their own resources. As a result, the art of story-telling was resorted to for passing away the monotony of the dark winter days. The periodical meetings in summer were used for an interchange of news and of stories and poems, and to this day the Icelanders are probably the greatest lovers of oral literature. The Icelandic classics still form the most popular reading matter of the masses of the people. This vitality of the Icelandic literature is again closely connected with social conditions. The Icelanders are a homogeneous people, and in reading the accounts of the early heroes of Iceland they read the stories of their own ancestors, whose names have been familiar to them from early childhood. For them the long genealogies, which the most patient foreign reader finds tiresome, are full of interest as family records of the remote past, and the most insignificant detail is fraught with the vividness of personal association.
Turning to the literature itself, we find, as is the case with the other literatures of the world, that the earliest monuments are in verse form. The earliest monument of Icelandic literature, furthermore, the so-called Older Edda, is, like our own Beowulf, the most important and interesting work produced, and claims, more than any other single work, the attention of Icelandic scholars. The Older Edda is not a poem, in the strict sense of the word, but a collection of more or less closely connected poems of varying length and character, which were preserved for a long lime by oral tradition, suffering inevitable changes in the process of transmission. For many centuries the manuscript containing the poems was forgotten, and on its discovery in 1643 it was attributed to the classical writer Sæmund, called the Wise, who lived in the last half of the eleventh and the first half of the twelfth century. It has since been proved conclusively that it was redacted by an unknown Icelander. A curious error is also frequently repeated with regard to the etymology of the word Edda itself, which is explained as meaning great-grandmother. As a matter of fact the name was improperly extended from a prose work, the so-called Younger Edda, the work of Snorri Sturluson (q.v.). The age of the Older Edda has been greatly exaggerated, the oldest portions probably belonging in their present form to the tenth century. (For an account of the poems, see Edda.) The Younger, or Prose Edda, is of great value, because of the information it gives of Icelandic mythology and the language of the early skalds. It is a sort of ars poetica, and was compiled for the guidance of young poets. Its style is admirable, its tales of the gods and goddesses being related with a due attention to effect. The style of most of the early Icelandic poetry is in marked contrast to the simplicity and directness of the classical prose. The most complicated figures and the most obscure references are freely used. The form is alliteration combined with assonance, or the agreement of medial vowels. Most of the poems of the skalds are short, eight verses each, but some few longer poems occur. The most striking of the latter are the three poems by Egil Skallagrimsson, the hero of the Egils Saga. They are much simpler than the short poems by the same author, and are full of feeling and dignity. Egil's elegy on his son may be ranked among the great poems of the world. To the eleventh and twelfth centuries belong poems composed in imitation of the ancient works, consisting of moral and didactic maxims, the former conceived from an assumed heathen, the latter from a Christian point of view. In the thirteenth century the skaldic art declined and gave place to an inferior literature based upon biblical stories and legends of the saints. Two centuries later appeared the rima, or ballad, which closely resembles in form and subject matter the ballad as found on the Continent. These continued in popularity until the seventeenth century. Frequently the classical sagas were paraphrased in these rimas.
The earliest Icelandic prose belongs to the beginning of the twelfth century, when Ari the Wise (1007–1148) composed a history of his native island and its population in the Islendinga-bók (The Book of the Icelanders), which is a revision of an earlier work by Ari. The value of this work is historical rather than literary, for its facts, while detailed and reliable, are not presented in an interesting style. It has been edited, with a German introduction and notes (Halle, 1891). The Landnáma-bók (Landtaking Book), also by Ari, is based upon the earlier Islendinga-bók. It describes the discovery and settlement of Iceland, and contains detailed accounts of 3000 persons and 1700 places. It was continued by others. There is an English translation by T. Ellwood (London, 1898). These works entered largely into the composition of the annals of the early kings of Norway, composed a century later by Snorri Sturluson (q.v.), under the title of the Heimskringla (Circuit of the World), the opening word of the work. This work deserves special notice as being the most important historical contribution of the Middle Ages. It is characterized by a vivid style, and so strongly does it appeal to the Icelandic consciousness that it is still the most popular book after the Bible in Iceland. A new translation into Dano-Norwegian has been made (1900) by G. Storm, and published with a subvention by the Norwegian Parliament. The best edition in the original is that edited by F. Jónsson (1893–1901). A continuation of the Heimskringla was composed by several authors. It has twice been translated into English. by David Laing (London, 1844 and 1889), and by W. Morris and K. Magnússon (London, 1895). Other histories belonging to a later period are Flateyarbók, containing a rather confused selection of sagas, the Færeyingasaga, which tells of the introduction of Christianity into the Faroe Islands (translated by F. York Powell, 1896), and the Orkneyingasaga, relating the history of the earls of the Orkneys. The parts of the Flateyarbók relating to the discovery of America have been edited by A. M. Reeves in The Finding of Wineland the Good (London, 1890). The compilation of the laws of the island attracted the attention of the Icelanders at an early period, and in 1118 a complete code, known as the Gragas (gray goose), which had been derived from the ancient Norse law, was submitted to the Althing, or popular assembly, and in 1123 the canons of the Church, or the kristinrettr were settled and reduced to writing. A collection of these enactments in the ancient and subsequent codes has been made by Stephensen and Sigurdsson (Copenhagen, 1853), under the title of Lagasafn handa Islandiæ.
Of hardly inferior interest to the Edda and the Heimskringla are the sagas (q.v.). This term in its broadest sense includes all Icelandic prose works of a narrative character. Thus, strictly speaking. Ari's works cited above are sagas, as is also the Heimskringla. But as generally used the term saga is applied to shorter narratives, the interest of which centres in one person. The scene of the saga may be laid either wholly or in part in Iceland, or occasionally altogether outside of Iceland. Sagas are divided into several classes, the first of which is the mythic-heroic. The representatives of this class often give a later version of some well-known story which appears in other literatures. This is notably the case with the most interesting representative, the Völsunga Saga, earlier traces of which appear in the Eddas, and a later version in the Nibelungenlied (q.v.). It has been translated by W. Morris and E. Magnússon (London, 1870). The Vilkina Saga, treating of Dietrich of Bern, is later, and shows German influence. The Fridthiofs Saga is of special interest as being the earliest version of the story made famous by the Swedish poet Tegnér (q.v.). A number of legendary stories were translated into Icelandic prose, the most important of which is the Saga of Barlaam and Josaphat (q.v.). The second and most characteristic class of sagas are the family sagas, accounts of individual men and their families. These biographies, as they would now be called, deal with the earliest settlers of the island, and extend to about 1050. They are marked by great simplicity of style, with frequent highly dramatic passages, extreme detail, especially in connection with genealogies and chronologies, and keen characterization. A striking feature of all the sagas is the introduction of verses supposed to be the work of the characters. This is particularly noticeable in the Kormaks Saga, which contains an average of over one poem to each page. The family sagas are subdivided into two classes, the larger sagas and the smaller sagas. To the first belong the Njáls, the Egils, the Laxdæla, and the Eyrbyggja. Of these, the first has been admirably translated by G. Webbe Dasent (2 vols., Edinburgh, 1861), and the last was translated in a condnsed form by Sir Walter Scott. The Egils Saga has been edited with a German introduction and notes by Finnur Jónsson (Halle, 1894), and in the same series the Laxdæla Saga has appeared, edited by Kr. Kaalund (1896). Among the smaller sagas, the most interesting are the Kormaks Saga and the Saga of Gunnlaug Serpent Tongue, both of which are love tales. Apart from their literary qualities, the Icelandic sagas are of great value in throwing light upon many Old Norse customs—religious, legal, and social—that would otherwise be entirely unknown. This is especially true of the Eyrbyggja. For the English reader, the introduction to Dasent's translation of the Egils Saga is of interest in connection with the general subject of sagas.
Modern Icelandic literature begins with the introduction of printing (1530) by the last Roman Catholic Bishop of Iceland. The first Icelandic translation of the New Testament was made in 1540. During the seventeenth century many learned works were written, the leader in this movement being Arngrim Jónsson (1568–1648). Many manuscripts were collected and copied, and communication between Icelandic and Danish and Swedish scholars was close. Grammars and dictionaries were compiled, and many antiquarian works were published. Among the principal scholars of this period were Thormod Torfæus (1636–1710) and Arni Magnússon (q.v.). During this same period, and without interruption down to the present day, Iceland has produced a surprisingly large number of poets—the largest number, indeed, in proportion to the population, of any country in Europe. Among these poets may be mentioned Hallgrimur Pjetursson (1614–74), the leading Icelandic psalm-writer; Stefan Olafsson (1620–88); Eggert Olafsson (1726–67); and Jon Thorlaksson (1744–1819). The latter made an excellent translation of Paradise Lost and Klopstock's Messias. Among nineteenth-century poets may be noted Bjárna Thórarenson (1786–1841), who is probably the most popular recent Icelandic poet; Jónas Hallgrimsson (1807–45), who introduced several foreign verse forms, notably the hexameter. Of the younger poets we may mention Gestur Pálsson (1852–91); Matthias Jochumsson (1835—), one of the most productive Icelandic poets and author of one of the few successful dramas; Thorsteinn Erlingsson (1858—): and Hannes Hafsteinn (1861—). The principal Icelandic novels are Jón Thordarson's Piltur ok Stulka (The Boy and the Girl) and Mathur ok Kona (Man and Wife).
Bibliography. The standard history of Old Norse literature is Finnur Jónsson's Den Oldnorske og Oldislanske Litteraturs Historie (3 vols., Copenhagen, 1893–1900). The only treatment of the whole subject in English is Winkel Horn, History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North, translated by Anderson (Chicago, 1884). This contains a useful bibliography. The Prolegomena to Vigfússon's edition of the Sturlunga Saga (Oxford, 1878) discusses the classical literature, and the same author's Corpus Poeticum Boreale (ib., 1883) contains a complete collection of the poetry down to the thirteenth century, with English translations, notes, etc. The value of this work is impaired by the arbitrary arrangement of many of the poems, especially those of the Older Edda. Extracts from the literature will be found in Vigfusson and Powell, Icelandic Prose Reader (London, 1868), and in other similar works. Consult also the introductions to the translations of individual sagas in the Saga Library, edited by Morris and Magnússon (London, 1884).