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The titles published by Stofnun Árna Magnússonar may be purchased directly from the institute (rosat@hi.is) or through booksellers such as Bóksala stúdenta, Mál og menning and Penninn-Eymundsson. Subscription to the entire series, offering the titles at a 15% discount, is also available.  Please note that the prices quoted in the list Rit Árnastofnunar - Rit-series - are exclusive of VAT and postage.

September 2006

The Árni Magnússon Manuscript Institute has recently published the book Four Sagas from the Hand of Jón Oddsson Hjaltalín, edited by Dr. Matthew J. Driscoll, research scholar at the Arnamagnæan Institute in Copenhagen.

Jón Oddsson Hjaltalín (1749–1835) worked most of his life as parish priest at Saurbær in Hvalfjörður. He was a very productive writer, hymnist, and translator, but only his hymns were printed during his lifetime. Manuscripts exist containing Jón’s religious poetry, ballads, occasional verses, and other types of secular poems, in addition to original and translated sagas. The edition published now, of four sagas written or translated by Reverend Jón, is a selection of his saga writing and sheds light on the narrative arts during this period of Icelandic literary history. None of these sagas has been published previously.

Marrons saga (The Saga of Marron) and Fimmbræðra saga (The Saga of the Five Brothers), two of the sagas published in this edition, are original compositions by Reverend Jón, in the traditional style of chivalric romances, while Sagan af Zadig (The Saga of Zadig) is his translation of the novel Zadig ou la Destinée by the French writer Voltaire, which was originally published in 1747, twelve years before Candide; in both of these novels Voltaire deals with the nature of evil and the world’s suffering. The fourth saga, Ágrip af Heiðarvíga sögu (Summary of the Saga of the Slayings on the Heath), is a special version of Heiðarvíga saga based on Jón Ólafsson’s reconstruction of the parts of the saga that were lost in the Great Fire in Copenhagen in 1728, as well as Hannes Finnsson’s transcription of fragments of a medieval manuscript of the saga preserved in Stockholm; to these sources Reverend Jón added other material, for example stories preserved orally. All of the sagas in the edition are discussed in detail in the editor’s introduction.

This book is the 66th in the series Rit Árnastofnunar and is distributed by the Icelandic University Press.

May 2006

Volume XVI of the annual journal Gripla (year 2005) has been published. Ed. by Gísli Sigurðsson, Margrét Eggertsdóttir, and Sverrir Tómasson. This book is the 65th in the series Rit Árnastofnunar.

Gripla is an international journal that publishes research in the field of Old Norse philology, literature, and history:  textual studies, literary history, historical linguistics, the history of Iceland and the Icelanders, and their connections with England and mainland Europe. Gripla is named after a manuscript that is now lost.  Editions of shorter texts, essays, and papers, as well as short scholarly notices, are all published in this journal.

Contents:

Philip Roughton: Stylistics and sources of the Postola sögur in AM 645 4to and AM 652/ 6304to
Jóhannes Nordal: Ferill Skarðsbókar
Jens Eike Schnall: Recht und Heil. Zu Kompilationsmustern in Handschriften der Jónsbók
Vésteinn Ólason: Grottasöngur
Siân Grønlie: Kristni saga and medieval conversion history
Gísli Baldur Róbertsson: Snurðan á þræði Reykjarfjarðarbókar
Marteinn H. Sigurðsson: Þórr’s travel companion in Hymiskviða
Guðrún Nordal: Á mörkum tveggja tíma. Kaþólskt kvæðahandrit með hendi siðbótarmanns, Gísla biskups Jónssonar
Gísli Baldur Róbertsson: Heilög Anna birtist Árna Magnússyni undir andlátið
Kirsten Wolf: Reflections on the color of Esau’s pottage of lentils (Stjórn 160.26-161.9)

Seminar:
Hrafn Sveinbjarnarson: On plagiarism in a PhD dissertation and subsequently in Gripla
Árni Heimir Ingólfsson: A response to Hrafn Sveinbjarnarson
Hrafn Sveinbjarnarson: An additional note on plagiarism
A note from the editors
Jóhannes B. Sigtryggsson: Hugleiðingar um stafréttar uppskriftir
Einar Sigmarsson: Hamskipti eða endaskipti? Um nykur og nykrað, finngálkn og finngálknað

Gísli Sigurðsson: Hallfreður Ö. Eiríksson [In memoriam]
Ólöf Benediktsdóttir: Ritaskrá Hallfreðar Arnar Eiríkssonar

October 2005

The Baroque Master: Art and Erudition in the Works of Hallgrímur Pétursson.
Doctoral dissertation written by Margrét Eggertsdóttir, the most recent publication in the series Rit Árnastofnunar.
This book is the 63rd in the series Rit Árnastofnunar, distributed by the University of Iceland Press.

The dissertation seeks to answer the following questions, among others: What type of poet was Hallgrímur Pétursson? Whence did he draw the inspiration for his poetry? Were his ideas homespun or did he share something in common with poets in other countries? Was Iceland remote and isolated in Hallgrímur’s day, or did people here think in the same way as in neighboring European countries? What is baroque? Is it a style, a period, or a text? Does the concept have any place in the history of Icelandic literature?
The baroque and the “baroque text” are the key concepts in this investigation of the poetry of Hallgrímur Pétursson (1614-1674). An attempt is made to grant readers insight into the baroque in Germany, Scandinavia, and finally in Iceland, as well as to define the characteristics of a so-called “baroque text.” Other chapters describe Icelandic society in the seventeenth century and training in the poetical arts at the same time. Discussed is Magnús Ólafsson from Laufás, a contemporary of Hallgrímur who produced poetry both analogous to and distinct from Hallgrímur’s own. The main part of the book concerns Hallgrímur Pétursson and his works: sources concerning him and the chief events in his life are expounded and light is shed on his position in Icelandic society. A survey is given of the poet’s written works, followed by a discussion of the various types of poetry that he wrote: “poems on impermanence,” satires, occasional poems, religious poetry, passion hymns, and hymns of penance and consolation. The third and final part of the dissertation discusses Hallgrímur’s prose works (meditational writings and a memorial address), which contain Christian reflections and are clear witnesses to the author’s rhetorical skills. The final topic is on the poems of praise written for Hallgrímur Pétursson and the image that they create of him. Appendices include an English summary, bibliography, register of manuscripts, and indexes of names and illustrations.

Margaret’s doctoral committee was chaired by Dr. Guðrún Nordal, associate professor in Icelandic literature at the University of Iceland.

September 2005

The Árnstofnun has published The Poems of Hallgrímur Pétursson. This is the third of nine volumes of the poet’s collected works…

As announced, the Árnastofnun has published The Poems of Hallgrímur Pétursson, Volume III of The Collected Poetical Works of Hallgrímur Pétursson (1614-1674). This volume contains 43 hymns, including 14 Biblical psalms or texts in metrical form. Among these penitential and consolatory hymns is Remedy for the Heart, which the poet composed after his home at Saurbær in Hvalfjörður burned in 1662. In addition to the longer hymns there are several shorter, devotional pieces. The texts have been printed diplomatically from the main manuscripts or printed editions of Hallgrímur’s works, with variants from other manuscripts given in footnotes. A special register details the textual traditions of the hymns and the manuscripts. The texts have been edited by the scholars Margrét Eggertsdóttir, Kristján Eiríksson and Svanhildur Óskarsdóttir. The Poems of Hallgrímur Pétursson is the 64th book in the series Rit Árnastofnunar.

The poetical works of Hallgrímur Pétursson have never been published in collection. The Árnastofnun’s edition is particularly comprehensive, built on extensive research done on the numerous manuscripts that preserve texts attributed to Hallgrímur, who was one of the most beloved of Icelandic poets. The Árnastofnun plans to publish the poet’s collected works in four parts: Poems, Hymn Cycles, Ballads, and Miscellaneous Works, with five volumes in the first part. The first volume was published in 2000, the second in 2002. Work on the fourth volume has commenced, with an expected publication date of 2007.

May 2005 

Volume XV of the annual journal Gripla has been published and three new books are scheduled for publication by the Árnastofnun, autumn'05, in the series Rit Árnastofnunar. 

First is an edition of the works of Jón Oddson Hjaltalín:  Fjórar sögur frá hendi Jóns Oddsonar Hjaltalín (Four Sagas Written by Jón Oddson Hjaltalín), edited by Matthew James Driscoll, a scholar at Den Arnamagnæanske Samling (The Arnamagnæan Institute) in Copenhagen. Next book is Barokkmeistarinn:  List og lærdómur í verkum Hallgríms Péturssonar (The Baroque Master:  Art and Erudition in the Works of Hallgrímur Pétursson), written by Margrét Eggertsdóttir, a scholar at the Árnastofnun and at last is Volume III of Ljóðmæli Hallgríms Péturssonar (The Collected Poetical Works of Hallgrímur Pétursson).

September 2004

Lemmatized Index to the Icelandic Homily Book perg 15 4° in the Royal Library Stockholm - 2004 - xxxii + 204 pp. Paperback - price: ISK 3500. Book written by Dr. Andrea de Leeuw van Weenen.

The Icelandic Homily Book was written around 1200, possibly at the Benedictine monastery at Þingeyrar in Northern Iceland, and is probably the oldest manuscript to have survived in its entirety from this first period of Icelandic literacy. In the late 17th century the manuscript was acquired by the Swedish Antiqvitetskollegium, whereupon it came into the possession of the Royal Library in Stockholm.

The sermons contained in the Homily Book introduced Icelanders to the teachings of the Christian Church in the first centuries after the conversion in the year 1000. They reveal the vitality of the language of that time and often demonstrate an independence in relation to their Latin sources, and thus have an important place in Icelandic literature.

A facsimile edition of the manuscript with a diplomatic transcription of the text and an extensive introduction in English was prepared by the author of this lemmatized index to the Icelandic Homily Book, and published by the Institute in the series Íslensk handrit in 1993.  The present work is based on an independent morphological analysis of the text in that edition, and all references are to page and line in the diplomatic transcription and correspond to the manuscript itself.

New Edition from Harvard University Press

The Medieval Icelandic Sagas and Oral Tradition - A Discourse on Method - 2004 - 400 pp. Paperback - price: ISK 2600. £ 19.95

Book written by Gísli Sigurðsson, a research professor at The Árni Magnússon Institute in Iceland.

English translation by Nicholas Jones of: Túlkun Íslendingasagna í ljósi munnlegrar hefðar - Tilgáta um aðferð.

This work explores the role of orality in shaping and evaluating medieval Icelandic literature. Applying field studies of oral cultures in modern times to this distinguished medieval literature, Gísli Sigurðsson asks how it would alter our reading of medieval Icelandic sagas if it were assumed they had grown out of a tradition of oral storytelling, similar to that observerd in living cultures.

Read more by visiting the Press website: http://www.hup.harvard.edu

June 2004

New Edition from The Árni Magnússon Institute in Iceland

The Manuscripts of Iceland originally published as Handritin (2002), accompanying an exhibition by the Árni Magnússon Institute in Iceland, which opened in the Culture House, Reykjavík, October 5th, 2002.

Editors: Gísli Sigurðsson and Vésteinn Ólason. English translation by Bernard Scudder. Paperback, x + 194 pp. - price: ISK 3500.

The Manucripts of Iceland is a comprehensive and richly illustrated accompaniment to the exhibition "The Manuscripts of Iceland", which was organized by the Institute in the Culture House 2002. In this collection of articles, scholars present the story of Icelandic manuscripts, their medieval origin, the literature they contain and its influence up to the present day. The meeting of written Christian and classical culture with the rich oral traditions in Iceland brought forth a remarkable literary flowering, and eloquent sources of information about pagan Scandinavian culture and thought. In time this literature came to inspire the sense of national character in the Nordic countries and  had a notable influence in the German - and English - speaking worlds. This book and the exhibition it accompanies are a tribute to the central role that medieval Icelandic literature played in forging national identities in northern Europe.

February 2004 

Donation

Recently the Institute received a donation of 500,000 US dollars to establish the Birgit Baldwin (1960-1988) Memorial Fund, and interest from the fund is intended for the Institute’s purchase of books and journals. The patrons of the fund are Professors Jenny Jochens and John Baldwin. This fund is a memorial to their daughter, who died in an automobile accident 17 June 1988.

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