Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/107

Rh teristic form in which they are written, must be regarded as exceedingly difficult or even as impossible. It is a no more easy task than the translation of the ancient and mediæval Icelandic poetry. In the matter of form the Icelanders have preserved very many of the peculiarities of the ancient poetry, and thus they still consider alliteration necessary to good poetry. But modern forms of versification have also found their way to Iceland, and so we find here a strange union of the old and the new, the old alliteration blended with the modern rhymes in the same poem.

The number of Icelandic poets who have justly been held in high esteem by their people is so extraordinarily large that we cannot here give even approximately a full list of them. A catalogue of modern Icelandic poets would embrace everybody who in any way has been conspicuous in Iceland. On the one hand it is true that Iceland has not a single poet who has made poetry the chief avocation of his life, but on the other hand all the literary men of that island have also been poets. The psalmist (1614-1674) and the lyric poet  (1620-1688) must be considered the fathers of modern Icelandic poetry. Of the former, one of the greatest psalmists that ever lived, and that not only in Iceland, we have already given some account in our description of religious literature. Of Olafsson's numerous poems many are remarkable for their sparkling wit and rugged humor, while in others idyllic sentiments predominate. The above-mentioned Eggert Olafsson (1726-1767), who distinguished himself in so many other literary fields, was also a poet of decided merit, and in the eighteenth century he may be said to have had only one rival for the first place as Icelandic poet, and that was Jon Thorlaksson (1744-1819), whose original poems are marvellous for their freshness and keen wit, and who also gave the Icelanders a masterly translation of Milton's "Paradise Lost," and of Klopstock's "Messias." The greatest Icelandic poet of the present century, and perhaps in the whole field of modern Icelandic poetry is -