Reception of the sagas of icelanders in modern icelandic poetry: the poem 'Maðr inn skammi' by Hallgrímur Helgason

2023

Вестник Православного Свято-Тихоновского гуманитарного университета: Сериа III. Филология, Vol 74, Iss 74, Pp 41-50 (2023)

The article deals with the particular case of reception of the "Sagas of Icelanders“ in modern Icelandic poetry. The plot of the poem "Maðr inn skammi“ (The Short Man) by Hallgrímur Helgason is based in the Chapter 66 of Egil's Saga, namely the fight of Egil and Atli the Short. This episode is being detached form the original context of the saga and turns into an allegory of an encounter of an "ordinary person“ with the literary tradition, as it is not Egil himself, that takes part in the encounter, but the Saga of Egil. For a common person, like Atli in the poem, a tragic death is the only chance to get into a significant work of literature. In modern Icelandic poetry such a reception of interaction of a person with a signifiant text of culture is unique, as normally there are psycological motivations of the saga characters' deeds that prevail in modern literature based on Old Icelandic works. Still, Hallgrímur's perception is determined by the significance of the saga texts in modern Icelandic culture. The article is supplied by the translation of the poem into Russian, done specially for this publication.

article

Russian

St. Tikhon's Orthodox University, 2023.

modern icelandic literature, icelandic poetry, poetry of the 2010s, reception of the old icelandic literature, reception of the sagas of icelanders, hallgrímur helgason, text., современная исландская литература, современная исландская поэзия, рецепция древнеисландской литературы, рецепция саг об исландцах, сага об эгиле, хатльгрим хельгасон, текст, Philology. Linguistics, P1-1091, Literature (General), PN1-6790