Orð og tunga - 26.04.2018, Side 59

48 Orð og tunga
Hence while frumeind and atóm appear to be largely interchange-
able in the scientifi c meaning, atóm, when used in compounds, has
an additional set of connotations and metaphorical meanings. The
societal connotations are also seen in some compounds formed with
kjarnorku- ‘nuclear’, as illustrated with the presumed nonce forma-
tions in (4):
(4) að bak við hina stórmennskubrjáluðu kjarnorku stjórn-
mála menn og kjarnorkusendiherra stendur enn ein mann-
tegund, kjarnorkuauðkýfingarnir. (Leonidoff 1948:49)
[behind the megalomaniac nuclear politicians and nu-
clear ambassadors stands yet another kind of person, the
nuclear tycoons.]
However, the connection to literary and artistic modernism appears
to be restricted to atóm and its compounds.
5 Modernism and the atom poets
The “form revolution” (formbylting) and advent of free verse came late
to Icelandic compared to many other European traditions, only in the
mid-20th century (although Eysteinn Þorvaldsson (2006:474) points
out that Iceland was in fact not far out of step with other Nordic na-
tions, with the exception of Sweden). In addition to the late and rapid
modernization of Icelandic society in the 20th century, one reason for
this delay is that the status of regular structural alliteration in the Ice-
landic poetic tradition was so strong that, as Peter Carleton puts it,
“alliteration was not a limit on poetic expression, it was poetic expres-
sion” (Carleton 1967:152, emphasis in original). In the fi rst half of the
20th century, Icelandic translations of European modernists, e.g. by
Magnús Ásgeirsson, adapted free verse forms to include structural al-
literation in accordance with the expectations of the Icelandic reading
public (Eysteinn Þorvaldsson 2006:471). The expectation of alliteration
in metrical verse remained strong even in the 1990s (Willson 2008). In
a manifesto for the modernist movement (Til varn ar skáld skapnum
[In defense of poetry]), atom poet Sigfús Daðason (1952:268) dismisses
the view that Icelandic poetry must alliterate. The modernist “form
revolution” was presented in a way as a means to an end, a way to
liberate poetic language from a restrictive tradition that valued form
over content. However, Þorsteinn Þorsteinsson (2005) points out that
the change was more gradual than “revolutionary”.
tunga_20.indb 48 12.4.2018 11:50:36