Icelandic literature

However, works by Norwegians are present in 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"[citation needed].

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.

[citation needed] Ruling aristocratic families also appreciated poetry, and poets composed verses for important events in their lives as well.

[2][citation needed] 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, the migration of people to Iceland, voyages of Vikings to unexplored lands, or the early history of the inhabitants of Gotland.

[3] 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.

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).

[7] 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).