Ritmennt - 01.01.2000, Page 163

RITMENNT
Abstracts
Birgir Þórðarson: Eggert Ó. Gunnarsson. Getið í
eyður gamalla blaða. Ritmennt 5 (2000), pp. 9-47.
A discussion of the origin and background of
two nineteenth-century manuscripts, both
almost certainly written by Eggert Ó. Gunnars-
son (b. 1840), farmer and entrepreneur, and
mernber of the Althing 1875-79. The first one is
a notebook containing the records of various
commercial transactions in the years 1858-59.
Extracts from the book are printed with annota-
tions on pp. 12-25. The other one, printed in full
on pp. 27-35, consists of a journal in fragment-
ary form held during the author's journey to
Copenhagen in 1862.
Aðalsteinn Ingólfsson: "Elsku vinkona mín í
Vesturheimi." Bréfaskipti Erlends í Unuhúsi og
Nínu Tryggvadóttur. Ritmennt 5 (2000), pp.
48-56.
Nína Tryggvadóttir, the painter, was one of a
number of Icelandic artists and writers that used
to visit Erlendur Guðmundsson in the years
1938-43. After she went to America in
September 1943 as a student she corresponded
with Erlendur until she returned to Iceland in
1946. Their correspondence gives important
information as to her development as an artist,
the circles she moved in during her stay in
America, and other Icelandic artists living in
America at the time, including Louisa Matthías-
dóttir, Drífa Viðar and Ólafur Jóhann Sigurðsson,
but above all it is evidence of a unique relation-
ship between this young artist and the elderly
and wise man of culture.
Þórunn Sigurðardóttir: Viðhorf til bókmennta og
bóklegrar menningar í Hagþenki Jóns Ólafssonar
úr Grunnavík. Ritmennt 5 (2000), pp. 57-68.
Jón Ólafsson's views on literature and literary
works are presented in two main ways in his
Hagþenkir: through a discussion of poetics and
poetic composition and through the many scat-
tered references to his ideas on the purpose and
usefulness of literature. Jón deals with poetics in
the spirit of 18tlr-century classicism and anti-
quarianism, with the ideas of form and content,
subject matter and genre being sought from the
classical traditions as they were taught and prac-
tised in the Latin Schools, although Nordic
medieval literature was also important in this
context. Jón especially stresses that a poet
should compose in Icelandic for Icelanders, that
great care be taken with diction and style, and
that metrical rules be honored and adhered to.
Literature should serve a specific purpose and be
both useful and morally educational, though he
makes it clear that it may also sirnply be for
pleasure and relaxation. In terrns of literary his-
tory, Hagþenkir can be seen as one of the
Renaissance worlcs which were written to sus-
tain progress in Iceland in the first half of the
18th century, but which also has elements that
look forward to the Enlightenment works of the
latter half of the century, as well as revealing the
personal and sometimes rather special views of
Jón Ólafsson of Grunnavík himself, whose view
of what literary worlcs should be can be sum-
marised in the following words: helpful and
entertaining.
Steingrímur Jónsson: Prentnemarnir. Bóksaga
neðan frá. Ritmennt 5 (2000), pp. 69-94.
In the years around 1880 the cousins Jón
Steingrímsson and Magnús Ingvarsson worked
as apprentices at a printing office in Reykjavík.
A number of their letters have survived, shed-
ding light on their daily life as apprentices and
the work in a printing office in Reykjavík at that
time, and giving a picture that differs in many
ways from the conventional one. It is also worth
noting that their attitudes towards the printing
trade differ widely: while Magnús Ingvarsson is
full of interest, Jón Steingrímsson expresses
rather negative views, but on the other hand he
shows interest in publishing and politics.
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