Bard of Iceland: Jónas Hallgrímsson, Poet and Scientist by Dick Ringler (review)

Abstract

MLRy 99.2, 2004 555 unification has fundamentally affected Jewish identity in Germany. These premisses are explored in fivethematic blocks. The firstsection, on architecture and Jewishness, analyses the history ofsynagoguesin Germany. While nineteenth-century eclecticism, which often combined neo-Gothic with neo-Islamic elements, reflectedthe attempt to combine a Jewish religious identity with the idea of Germanness, afterthe Holocaust the prayer rooms of the immediate post-war period were considered to be strictly provisional. However, after the foundation of the Central Council of Jews in 1950 a second phase began which resulted in the building of eighteen synagogues in the old Federal Republic between 1950 and 1967. Focusing on the demands of Jewish ritual, these buildings tap into various modern architectural styles without any reference to the Holocaust. A fundamental reorientation occurred in the 1980s when a number of synagogues were built that incorporate the rupture of the Holocaust structurally into their design; a prominent example is the 'Jiidisches Gemeindezentrum Frankfurt am Main', built by the architects Salomon Korn and Gerhard Basler. The transition from communicative to cultural memory is the central concern of the following sections, which deal with sites of memories, remembrance days, and Jewish life in Germany. Here Korn argues that the historicization of the Holocaust may help to objectify German-Jewish relations and ultimately overcome the classic distribution of roles between the descendants of perpetrators and victims. Engaging with the ongoing debate on 'Normalitat', Korn rightly observes that it can only be understood in terms of a historically dynamic reality (p. 163). For Korn this has a twofold consequence: German-Jewish relations cannot continue to be negotiated through a transgenerational sense of guilt and feelings of shame; nor can Jews in a unified Germany define their Jewish identity solely negatively in terms of the Holo? caust and the desire to leave Germany forgood. According to Korn, Jews in Germany are well on their way to becoming German Jews. The diversification of Jewishness in Germany since the 1990s also means that the Central Council of Jews will have to redefine its own vision and mission. A section on Korn's own interventions in the debate on the Holocaust memorial follows. Analysing the 'Gedenkdilemma' (p. 221) in the country of the former perpetrators, he nevertheless criticizes the decision explicitly to exclude non-Jewish victims from the Holocaust memorial. The book finishes with a measured assessment of the Walser-Bubis debate. Korn's book thus offers a wide range of highly illuminating contributions to the ongoing negotiation of German-Jewish relations from a Jewish perspective; fur? thermore, the essays on synagogue architecture, which are accompanied by many photographic reproductions, add an interesting chapter to the history of Jewish life in post-war Germany. In short, this collection of engaging and well-written essays should be ofgreat interest to scholars working in contemporary German and GermanJewish Studies. University College Dublin Anne Fuchs Bardof Iceland: JonasHallgrimsson, Poet and Scientist. By Dick Ringler. Madison: UniversityofWisconsin Press. 2002. xiv + 474pp. ISBN 0-299-17720-3 (hbk). A long and loving life's work, Bard ofIceland presents almost all the reader needs to know to understand and appreciate the life and achievement of Jonas Hallgrimsson, the young poet and scientist who brought Icelandic poetry into the modern world; composer of the first Icelandic sonnet, he never abandoned completely the tech? niques and style of traditional Norse poetry. Born the son of a parson in Northern Iceland, Jonas followed the usual but difficultpath forpromising young men in early nineteenth-century Iceland, attending the Latin school near the capital, where he 556 Reviews was exposed to Greek, Latin, and theology, and then studying in Copenhagen, where traditionally 'Icelanders became Europeans'. Here he encountered the latest think? ing in biology, geology, and related sciences: the spirit of modern scientific enquiry, which sought to explain how, rather than why (in an Aristotelian sense) things happen. Founding with other young Icelanders the progressive journal Fjblnir, in which many of his most important poems were published, Jonas found employment in research fora new 'Description of Iceland', a historical, geographical, geological, and archaeological survey. Travelling round the country, as the firstIcelander to explore his own land from a scientific perspective, Jonas...