Icelandic Baroque: Poetic Art and Erudition in the Works of Hallgrímur Pétursson by Margrét Eggertsdóttir

Abstract

Reviewed by: Icelandic Baroque: Poetic Art and Erudition in the Works of Hallgrímur Pétursson by Margrét Eggertsdóttir Gracia Grindal Icelandic Baroque: Poetic Art and Erudition in the Works of Hallgrímur Pétursson. By Margrét Eggertsdóttir. Translated by Andrew Wawn. Islandica: A Series in Icelandic and Norse Studies, vol. LVI. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Library, 2014. 570 pp. The little Lutheran countries, and Iceland is the littlest, have traditions which rarely are brought to the attention of the wider poetic or scholarly world, unfortunately, until a truly great writer breaks out of the national boundaries. Iceland reigned supreme in European literature at one time. Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241) whose eddas, sagas and histories were the greatest European literature of his day, was the high point for Icelandic letters for the next four hundred years. With a few exceptions, its tradition of literature and thought has remained on the island nation without much purchase from the wider European world of letters. One glorious exception is the poetry and hymnody of Hallgrímur Pétursson (1614–1664). While many outside of the Icelandic world of literature have known of him and his rather exotic biography, they have not been able to access his poetry in any meaningful way unless they learned Icelandic. Pétursson, born in the north of the island, in Gröf on Höfðaströnð, was marked early as a gifted young man. The bishop of Hólar, Guðbranður þorlákson, noticed him and made sure he received a good education. As a very young man, Hallgrímur went to Europe, probably Germany, where he became apprenticed to a blacksmith, but due to the good graces of his cousin, Brynjólfur, the head of the Latin School at Roskilde, Denmark, Hallgrímur, ended up studying at the cathedral school in Copenhagen. While there he was assigned a strange task—reeducating some Icelandic natives who had been captured by Barbary pirates and enslaved in Algiers. When they finally could pay the ransom for their release, they came to Copenhagen where the Danish government [End Page 474] determined they should be retaught their Lutheran faith. Hallgrímur was chosen to be the teacher. As he taught his class, he fell in love with Guðriður, one of the released captives. She returned his affections, and even if she was still married to a man in Iceland, she became pregnant. Fortunately for them, her husband had died years before, so Hallgrímur's sin was not punished by the usual harsh sentence when he returned home with Guðriður. After some time of troubles over this transgression, Hallgrímur took holy orders and began serving the Hvalsnes parish near Keflavik. There they suffered the death of their beloved daughter, as they eked out a living in this impoverished parish on the weather beaten heaths on the western seacoast. After some time he was transferred to another parish, Saubær, by comparison a much richer village. While there, he began writing, among other things, his collection of fifty hymns, Passíussálmer, which have been the center of Icelandic piety ever since they appeared in 1666. About that time he contracted leprosy and died eight years later after great suffering. These fifty Passion Hymns are intended to be sung and meditated on during Lent. Rich with Baroque poetic and sermon traditions, they are the best of Icelandic poetry. The poet has skillfully used its conventions of alliteration—somewhat like the poetic genius of the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf—and the rich number of rhymes available in Icelandic. Poetic sermons, hymns, on the events in Jesus' life from Holy Thursday and the institution of the Lord's Supper until Easter Saturday and the resurrection of our Lord, they are still treasured by the Icelandic people. Still the most frequently published work in the country, they are read each day during Lent on the radio, they are sung in churches, at home, and remain the basis for fine modern compositions, such as Hallgrímurspassía by one of Iceland's most accomplished composers, Sigurður Sævarsson, written for the four hundredth anniversary...