49-475: Icelandic literature refers to literature written in Iceland or by Icelandic people. It is best known for the sagas written in medieval times, starting in the 13th century. As Icelandic and Old Norse are almost the same, and because Icelandic works constitute most of Old Norse literature, Old Norse literature is often wrongly considered a subset of Icelandic literature. However, works by Norwegians are present in
98-609: A genre of novels telling stories spanning multiple generations, or to refer to saga-inspired fantasy fiction. Swedish folksaga means folk tale or fairy tale , while konstsaga is the Swedish term for a fairy tale by a known author, such as Hans Christian Andersen . In Swedish historiography, the term sagokung , "saga king", is intended to be ambiguous, as it describes the semi-legendary kings of Sweden , who are known only from unreliable sources. Norse sagas are generally classified as follows. Kings' sagas ( konungasögur ) are of
147-477: A battle won by their lord, a political event in town etc.). In narratives, poems were usually used to pause the story and more closely examine an experience occurring. Poetry was also used to dramatise the emotions in a saga. For example, Egil's Saga contains a poem about the loss of Egil's sons that is lyrical and very emotional. Skaldic poets were highly regarded members of Icelandic society, and are typically divided into four categories: 1) Professional Poets (for
196-407: A greater or lesser extent influenced by saga-style, in the widespread genres of hagiography and episcopal biographies. The genre seems to have begun in the mid-twelfth century. Icelandic sagas are based on oral traditions and much research has focused on what is real and what is fiction within each tale. The accuracy of the sagas is often hotly disputed. Most of the medieval manuscripts which are
245-508: A growing range of other ones. Where available, the Íslenzk fornrit edition is usually the standard one. The standard edition of most of the chivalric sagas composed in Iceland is by Agnete Loth. A list, intended to be comprehensive, of translations of Icelandic sagas is provided by the National Library of Iceland 's Bibliography of Saga Translations . Many modern artists working in different creative fields have drawn inspiration from
294-613: A lesser extent elsewhere in Scandinavia . The most famous saga-genre is the Íslendingasögur (sagas concerning Icelanders), which feature Viking voyages, migration to Iceland, and feuds between Icelandic families. However, sagas' subject matter is diverse, including pre-Christian Scandinavian legends ; saints and bishops both from Scandinavia and elsewhere; Scandinavian kings and contemporary Icelandic politics ; and chivalric romances either translated from Continental European languages or composed locally. Sagas originated in
343-541: 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
392-529: Is Þiðreks saga , translated/composed in Norway; another is Hjalmars och Hramers saga , a post-medieval forgery composed in Sweden. While the term saga is usually associated with medieval texts, sagas — particularly in the legendary and chivalric saga genres — continued to be composed in Iceland on the pattern of medieval texts into the nineteenth century. Icelanders produced a high volume of literature relative to
441-469: Is ] (1744–1819) undertook several major translations, including the Paradísarmissir , a translation of John Milton's Paradise Lost . Sagas continued to be composed in the style of medieval ones, particularly romances , not least by the priest Jón Oddsson Hjaltalín (1749-1835). In the beginning of the 19th century, there was a linguistic and literary revival. Romanticism arrived in Iceland and
490-464: Is invariably Eddaic verse . Some legendary sagas overlap generically with the next category, chivalric sagas. Chivalric sagas ( riddarasögur ) are translations of Latin pseudo-historical works and French chansons de geste as well as Icelandic compositions in the same style. Norse translations of Continental romances seem to have begun in the first half of the thirteenth century; Icelandic writers seem to have begun producing their own romances in
539-432: Is skaldic verse. According to historian Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, "Scholars generally agree that the contemporary sagas are rather reliable sources, based on the short time between the events and the recording of the sagas, normally twenty to seventy years... The main argument for this view on the reliability of these sources is that the audience would have noticed if the saga authors were slandering and not faithfully portraying
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#1733202998374588-512: The Heimskringla she is called Hild. Her father used to go on viking expeditions. One summer he plundered in Vík . This aroused King Harald Fairhair 's anger and he was banished. Hild appealed unsuccessfully for clemency for her father. On this occasion she composed a skaldic stanza ( lausavísa ), which is one of the few examples of skaldic poetry composed by a woman that have come down to us. She
637-470: The Middle Ages , but continued to be composed in the ensuing centuries. Whereas the dominant language of history-writing in medieval Europe was Latin , sagas were composed in the vernacular: Old Norse and its later descendants, primarily Icelandic . While sagas are written in prose, they share some similarities with epic poetry , and often include stanzas or whole poems in alliterative verse embedded in
686-725: The Píslarsaga of Jón Magnússon . The first book printed in Icelandic was the New Testament in 1540. A full translation of the Bible was published in the sixteenth century, and popular religious literature, such as the Sendibréf frá einum reisandi Gyðingi í fornöld , was translated from German or Danish or composed in Icelandic. The most prominent poet of the eighteenth century was Eggert Ólafsson (1726–1768), while Jón Þorláksson á Bægisá [
735-593: The 13th century in Iceland. The first and original manuscript of the Poetic Edda is the Codex Regius , found in 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 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
784-406: The 19th and early 20th centuries was 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 romanticism. Notable Realistic writers include
833-551: The comments they made with their verses. Skaldic poetry is written using a strict metric system together with many figures of speech, like the complicated kennings , favoured amongst the skalds, and also with a lot of “artistic license” concerning word order and syntax, with sentences usually inverted. The sagas are prose stories written in Old Norse that talk about historical aspects of the Germanic and Scandinavian world; for instance,
882-533: The continental kings of Europe and that those kings could therefore not ban subversive forms of literature. Because new principalities lacked internal cohesion, a leader typically produced Sagas "to create or enhance amongst his subjects or followers a feeling of solidarity and common identity by emphasizing their common history and legends". Leaders from old and established principalities did not produce any Sagas, as they were already cohesive political units. Later (late thirteenth- and fourteenth-century) saga-writing
931-785: The court or aristocrats) When Skaldic poets composed lyrics for the king, they wrote with the purpose of praising the king, recording his dealings, and celebrating him. These poems are generally considered historically correct because a poet would not have written something false about the king; a king would have taken that as the poet mocking him. Ruling aristocratic families also appreciated poetry, and poets composed verses for important events in their lives as well. 2) Private Poets These poets did not write for financial gain, rather, they wrote to participate in societal poetic exchanges. 3) Clerics These poets composed religious verses. 4) Anonymous Poets These poets are anonymously quoted and incorporated into sagas. The anonymity allowed them to mask
980-421: The description of the items of clothing mentioned in the sagas concludes that the authors attempted to create a historic "feel" to the story, by dressing the characters in what was at the time thought to be "old fashioned clothing". However, this clothing is not contemporary with the events of the saga as it is a closer match to the clothing worn in the 12th century. It was only recently (start of 20th century) that
1029-500: The earliest Icelandic poem reliably attributable to a woman. Dutch Renaissance and Golden Age Important compositions of the time from the 15th century to the 19th include sacred verse, most famously the Passion Hymns 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 19th century; and autobiographical prose writings such as
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#17332029983741078-491: The earliest surviving witnesses to the sagas were taken to Denmark and Sweden in the seventeenth century, but later returned to Iceland. Classical sagas were composed in the thirteenth century. Scholars once believed that these sagas were transmitted orally from generation to generation until scribes wrote them down in the thirteenth century. However, most scholars now believe the sagas were conscious artistic creations, based on both oral and written tradition. A study focusing on
1127-416: The early Icelanders were. Pragmatic explanations were once also favoured: it has been argued that a combination of readily available parchment (due to extensive cattle farming and the necessity of culling before winter) and long winters encouraged Icelanders to take up writing. More recently, Icelandic saga-production has been seen as motivated more by social and political factors. The unique nature of
1176-429: The eighteenth century to refer to Old Norse prose narratives. The word continues to be used in this sense in the modern Scandinavian languages: Icelandic saga (plural sögur ), Faroese søga (plural søgur ), Norwegian soge (plural soger ), Danish saga (plural sagaer ), and Swedish saga (plural sagor ). It usually also has wider meanings such as 'history', 'tale', and 'story'. It can also be used of
1225-613: The great figures of the "Golden Age" in poetry. In the early 20th century several Icelandic writers started writing in Danish, among them Jóhann Sigurjónsson , and Gunnar Gunnarsson (1889–1975). Writer Halldór Laxness (1902–98), won the 1955 Nobel Prize in Literature , and was the author of many articles, essays, poems, short stories and novels. Widely translated works include the expressionist novels Independent People (1934–35) and Iceland's Bell (1943–46). After World War I , there
1274-494: The kings' sagas. Like kings' sagas, when sagas of Icelanders quote verse, as they often do, it is almost invariably skaldic verse. Contemporary sagas ( samtíðarsögur or samtímasögur ) are set in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Iceland, and were written soon after the events they describe. Most are preserved in the compilation Sturlunga saga , from around 1270–80, though some, such as Arons saga Hjörleifssonar are preserved separately. The verse quoted in contemporary sagas
1323-573: The late thirteenth century, with production peaking in the fourteenth century and continuing into the nineteenth. While often translated from verse, sagas in this genre almost never quote verse, and when they do it is often unusual in form: for example, Jarlmanns saga ok Hermanns contains the first recorded quotation of a refrain from an Icelandic dance-song, and a metrically irregular riddle in Þjalar-Jóns saga . Saints' sagas ( heilagra manna sögur ) and bishops' sagas ( biskupa sögur ) are vernacular Icelandic translations and compositions, to
1372-544: The lives of Scandinavian kings. They were composed in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries. A pre-eminent example is Heimskringla , probably compiled and composed by Snorri Sturluson . These sagas frequently quote verse, invariably occasional and praise poetry in the form of skaldic verse . The Icelanders' sagas ( Íslendingasögur ), sometimes also called "family sagas" in English, are purportedly (and sometimes actually) stories of real events, which usually take place from around
1421-523: The main sources for studying the history of Scandinavia between the 9th and 13th centuries. Little medieval Icelandic writing is securely attested to be by women. In theory, anonymous sagas might have been written by women, but there is no evidence to support this, and known saga-writers are male. A fairly large number of Skaldic verse stanzas are attributed to Icelandic and Norwegian women, including Hildr Hrólfsdóttir , Jórunn skáldmær , Gunnhildr konungamóðir , Bróka-Auðr , and Þórhildr skáldkona . However,
1470-435: The medieval corpus — seem to have been composed in the thirteenth century, with the remainder in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. These sagas usually span multiple generations and often feature everyday people (e.g. Bandamanna saga ) and larger-than-life characters (e.g. Egils saga ). Key works of this genre have been viewed in modern scholarship as the highest-quality saga-writing. While primarily set in Iceland,
1519-511: The migration of people to Iceland, voyages of Vikings to unexplored lands, or the early history of the inhabitants of Gotland . Whereas the Eddas contain mainly mythological stories, sagas are usually realistic and deal with actual events, although there are some legendary sagas of saints, bishops, and translated romances. Sometimes mythological references are added, or a story is rendered more romantic and fantastical than as actually occurred. Sagas are
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1568-453: The past." Legendary sagas ( fornaldarsögur ) blend remote history, set on the Continent before the settlement of Iceland, with myth or legend. Their aim is usually to offer a lively narrative and entertainment. They often portray Scandinavia's pagan past as a proud and heroic history. Some legendary sagas quote verse — particularly Vǫlsunga saga and Heiðreks saga — and when they do it
1617-415: The poetry attributed to women—just like much of the poetry attributed to men— is likely to have been composed by later (male) saga-writers. Even so, this material suggests that women may sometimes have composed verse. However, the authorial voice of the fifteenth-century rímur -cycle Landrés rímur describes itself with grammatically feminine adjectives, and accordingly the poem has been suggested to be
1666-662: The political system of the Icelandic Commonwealth created incentives for aristocrats to produce literature, offering a way for chieftains to create and maintain social differentiation between them and the rest of the population. Gunnar Karlsson and Jesse Byock argued that the Icelanders wrote the Sagas as a way to establish commonly agreed norms and rules in the decentralized Icelandic Commonwealth by documenting past feuds, while Iceland's peripheral location put it out of reach of
1715-477: The sagas follow their characters' adventures abroad, for example in other Nordic countries , the British Isles, northern France and North America. Some well-known examples include Njáls saga , Laxdæla saga and Grettis saga . The material of the short tales of Icelanders ( þættir or Íslendingaþættir ) is similar to Íslendinga sögur , in shorter form, often preserved as episodes about Icelanders in
1764-612: The sagas. Among some well-known writers, for example, who adapted saga narratives in their works are Poul Anderson , Laurent Binet , Margaret Elphinstone , Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué , Gunnar Gunnarsson , Henrik Ibsen , Halldór Laxness , Ottilie Liljencrantz , Henry Wadsworth Longfellow , George Mackay Brown , William Morris , Adam Oehlenschläger , Robert Louis Stevenson , August Strindberg , Rosemary Sutcliff , Esaias Tegnér , J.R.R. Tolkien , and William T. Vollmann . Primary: Other: In Norwegian: Hildr Hr%C3%B3lfsd%C3%B3ttir Hildr or Ragnhildr Hrólfsdóttir
1813-477: The settlement of Iceland in the 870s to the generation or two following the conversion of Iceland to Christianity in 1000. They are noted for frequently exhibiting a realistic style. It seems that stories from these times were passed on in oral form until they eventually were recorded in writing as Íslendingasögur , whose form was influenced both by these oral stories and by literary models in both Old Norse and other languages. The majority — perhaps two thirds of
1862-463: The short-story writer Gestur Pálsson (1852–91), known for his satires, and the Icelandic-Canadian poet Stephan G. Stephansson (1853–1927), noted for his sensitive way of dealing with the language and for his ironic vein. Einar Benediktsson must be mentioned here as an early proponent of Neo-romanticism . He is in many ways alone in Icelandic poetry, but is generally acknowledged to be one of
1911-592: The size of the population. Historians have proposed various theories for the high volume of saga writing. Early, nationalist historians argued that the ethnic characteristics of the Icelanders were conducive to a literary culture, but these types of explanations have fallen out of favor with academics in modern times. It has also been proposed that the Icelandic settlers were so prolific at writing in order to capture their settler history. Historian Gunnar Karlsson does not find that explanation reasonable though, given that other settler communities have not been as prolific as
1960-616: The sources: the author of King Sverrir 's saga had met the king and used him as a source. While sagas are generally anonymous, a distinctive literary movement in the 14th century involves sagas, mostly on religious topics, with identifiable authors and a distinctive Latinate style. Associated with Iceland's northern diocese of Hólar , this movement is known as the North Icelandic Benedictine School ( Norðlenski Benediktskólinn ). The vast majority of texts referred to today as "sagas" were composed in Iceland. One exception
2009-451: The standard reader Sýnisbók íslenzkra bókmennta til miðrar átjándu aldar , compiled by Sigurður Nordal on the grounds that the language was the same. The medieval Icelandic literature is usually divided into three parts: 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
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2058-484: The tales of the voyages to North America (modern day Canada) were authenticated. Most sagas of Icelanders take place in the period 930–1030, which is called söguöld (Age of the Sagas) in Icelandic history. The sagas of kings, bishops, contemporary sagas have their own time frame. Most were written down between 1190 and 1320, sometimes existing as oral traditions long before, others are pure fiction, and for some we do know
2107-500: The text. The main meanings of the Old Norse word saga (plural sǫgur ) are 'what is said, utterance, oral account, notification' and the sense used in this article: '(structured) narrative, story (about somebody)'. It is cognate with the English words say and saw (in the sense 'a saying', as in old saw ), and the German Sage ; but the modern English term saga was borrowed directly into English from Old Norse by scholars in
2156-474: Was a 9th-century woman who is referenced in various Old Norse sources including Óláfs saga helga , Orkneyinga saga , and Landnámabók and is also one of the few female skalds from whom verses survive. According to the sagas, Hild was the daughter of Rolv Nefia ( Hrólfr nefja ), jarl at Trondhjem (modern Trondheim ). In the Orkneyinga saga , the daughter of Rolv Nefia is called Ragnhild, although in
2205-563: 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 20th century. Modern authors, from the end of World War II , tend to merge the classical style with a modernist style. More recently, crime novelist Arnaldur Indriðason 's (b. 1961) works have met with success outside of Iceland. Saga Sagas are prose stories and histories, composed in Iceland and to
2254-405: 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 the modern Icelandic novel. This classic Icelandic style from
2303-575: Was married to Rognvald Eysteinsson , who was the jarl of Møre . They had three sons: Ivar ( Ívarr ), Thorir ( Þórir ), and Rolv ( Hrólfr ). Thorir succeeded his father as jarl of Møre. Rolv ( Hrólfr ), nicknamed Gǫngu-Hrólfr (Rolv the Walker), became known as Rollo of Normandy . The death of Ivar during an earlier campaign in support of King Harald Fairhair resulted in the Northern Isles ( Norðreyar ) being gifted to his family as compensation. According to
2352-449: Was motivated by the desire of the Icelandic aristocracy to maintain or reconnect links with the Nordic countries by tracing the ancestry of Icelandic aristocrats to well-known kings and heroes to which the contemporary Nordic kings could also trace their origins. The corpus of Old Norse sagas is gradually being edited in the Íslenzk fornrit series, which covers all the Íslendingasögur and
2401-471: Was to use it as a manual of poetics for the Icelandic skalds . Skaldic poetry mainly differs from Eddaic poetry by the fact that skaldic poetry was composed by well-known skalds , the Norwegian and Icelandic poets. Instead of talking about mythological events or telling mythological stories, skaldic poetry was usually sung to honour nobles and kings, commemorate or satirise important or any current events (e.g.
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