Snorri Sturluson
Snorri Sturluson (1178 – September 23, 1241) was an Icelandic historian, poet and politician, considered to be one of the most important poets in Icelandic literature. He is known today as the author of two lengthy verse works, or eddas, the Prose Edda, and the Heimskringla. The Prose Edda, an instructional poem of great value to scholars, Sturluson recounts a number of stories out of Norse mythology while explicating on the verse-forms and literary techniques utilized in each of the myths he recounts. The Heimskringla is a more traditional sequence of semi-mythological sagas relating the history of the Norse kings. Sturluson is also believed, through stylistic and linguistic evidence, to be the author of Egils Saga, one of the most important and widely-read of all the Icelandic sagas. As an author of poetry, history, and instructional verse, Sturluson is one of the most informative sources for scholars of medieval Scandinavian history and culture. His works are also generally considered to be among the most beautiful and brilliantly-crafted of all Icelandic poetry. A major influence on the Icelandic poets of his own times, Sturluson has also been an influence on a number of non-Scandinavian authors, including the Argentinian poet and story-writer Jorge Luis Borges and a number of minor poets of German Romanticism.
Life
Little definitive is known of Sturluson's life, and much of what is known is subject to dispute and conjecture. Sturluson has almost become a mythological figure in his own right, nearly as mysterious as the heroes and demigods found in his poems. Nonetheless, a handful of facts are generally agreed upon. Snorri Sturluson was born in 1178. He was a distant descendent of Egill Skallagrimsson, the semi-mythical poet-warrior who is the protagonist of the Egils saga. His parents were Sturla Þórðarson and Guðný Böðvarsdóttir. He was raised in the village of Oddi by Jon Loptsson, one of the most powerful chieftains in all of Iceland, from whom he learned much of the traditions of Icelandic culture and literature.
In 1199 Sturluson married. His marriage made him a wealthy man, and by 1206 he and his wife had settled in Reykjaholt. The remains of his farm, including his hot outdoor bath have been preserved to some extent. He was said to have had many children, but only five are said to have survived to adulthood. It would be in Reykjaholt that Sturluson would compose almost all of his poetry. He quickly became known as a poet, but was also a successful lawyer. Eventually, he would serve as lawspeaker at the Althing, the Icelandic parliament. As lawspeaker, Sturluson was one of the most important politicians in Iceland.
In the summer of 1218, Snorri sailed from Iceland to Norway, by royal invitation. There he became well-acquainted with King Hákon Hákonarson. There he met a number of great Norweigan thinkers and poets who would influence his eddas. In the summer of 1219 he met his Swedish colleague, the lawspeaker Eskil Magnusson and his wife Kristina Nilsdotter Blake in Skara. They were both related to royalty and may have given Snorri insight into the history of Sweden.
Snorri became involved in an unsuccessful rebellion against Hákon Hákonarson, which resulted in his assassination in his house at Reykjaholt in 1241 by Gizurr Þorvaldsson, an agent of the king. Snorri's last words were reportedly Eigi skal höggva! — "Don't strike!"
Works
As an historian and mythographer, Snorri is remarkable for proposing the theory (in the Prose Edda) that mythological gods began as human warlords and kings whose funereal sites developed cults of worship. As people called upon the dead warlord as they went into battle or faced hardship, they began to venerate the figure as more than just a man. Eventually, the king or warrior, Sturluson argues, would be remembered only as a god. This theory about the evolution and development of polytheistic religions is strikingly modern, and it is extraordinary that Sturluson, a poet living hundreds of years before the advent of modern anthropology, would have the intellectual resources and historical knowledge to be able to articulate such a radical idea. Sturluson also proposed that as tribes would explain their history in religious terms, arguing that, for instance, when one tribe conquered another they would view it in terms of their gods conquering the opposing tribe's gods.
Today, Sturluson's works are read by scholars of medieval Scandinavia due to the wealth of historical information found in them. In addition to this, Sturluson's Old Norse, while quite different from contemporary Icelandic, is still readable by most Icelandic speakers, and as a result Sturluson's works are still an important part of the Icelandic literary curriculum. Moreover, a number of poets of diverse backgrounds have been attracted to the terseness of Icelandic poetry, and Sturluson is often seen as the pinnacle of the period. Between the Prose Edda, with its invaluable details on the art of Old Norse verse, the Heimskringla, with its rollicking stories of adventurer-kings, and Egils saga', which is universally considered one of the greatest of all the Icelandic sagas, Sturluson is an author of many virtues, who offers insight and excitement to readers of all backgrounds and disciplines.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Bagge, Sverre (1991). Society and politics in Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-06887-4
External links
- Faulkes, Anthony (1993). "The sources of Skáldskaparmál: Snorri's intellectual background", Snorri Sturluson. Kolloquium anläßlich der 750. Wiederkehr seines Todestages, pp. 59–76. Tübingen: Narr (PDF.)
- Works by {{{name}}}. Project Gutenberg
- Snorri's Hot Tub Fortean Times on Snorri's legacy
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