ICELANDIC LITERATURE. In order to understand the remarkable brilliancy of the classical Icelandic literature of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, it is necessary to hear 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 Icelandeis are probably the greatest lovers of oral literature. The leelandic ela:ksies still form the most popular reading mat ter of the masses of the people. This vitality of the leelandie literature is again closely con nected 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 genealogie4. whieb the most patient foreign reader finds tiresome, are full if 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 tine world, that the earliest monuments are in verse form. The earliest monument of Ieelandie literature, furthermore, the so-called Older Edda, is, like our own Beowulf. the most important and in teresting work produced. and claims. more than any other single work. the attention of leelandie 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 time 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 1(1.13 it was attributed to the classical writer S:emund, called the !Vise, who lived in the last half of the eleventh and the tirst half of the twelfth century. It has since been proved con clusively that it was redacted by an unknown Icelander. A curious error is also frequently re peated with regard to the etymology of the word Edda itself, which is explained as meaning great graielmother. As a matter of fact the name was improperly extended from a prose work, the so called Younger Edda, the work of Snorri Stur Imm (q.v.). The age of the Older Edda has been greatly exaggerated. the oldest portions probably belonging in their present halm 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 poctien, and was compiled for the guidance of young poets. Its style is admirable, its tales of the gods and god desses being related with a due attention to effect. The style of most of the early.lcelandie poetry is in marked contrast to the simplicity and directness of the classical prose. The most complicated figures and the most obscure refer ences are freely used. The form is alliteration combined with assonance, or the agreement of media,/ vowels. Most of the poems of the skalds are short, eigl't verses each, hut 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 an cient 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 rime, or ballad, which closely resembles in form and subject matter the ballad as found on the Conti nent. These continued in popularity until the seventeenth century. Frequently the classical sagas were paraphrased in these rims.