Orð og tunga - 26.04.2018, Page 67

56 Orð og tunga
minnilegasta ljóð Halldórs Laxness” (Jóhann Hjálmarsson 1971:19)
[Halldór Laxness’ most memorable poem]. Most of Laxness’ poetry
aft er 1930 and those of his poems that are remembered best appear as
occasional verses in his novels. They generally observe conventions
of rhyme and alliteration. Many are satirical or parodic, and some
have been set to music. An example from Atómstöðin, sung by the
atom poet and the god Brilliantine, is the rhyming and alliterating
“Fallinn er Óli fi gúra” (1948:158, 276) [Oli the Figure is fallen, Halldór
Laxness, transl. Magnús Magnússon 1961:114, 202)], which became a
popular tune with the band Þokkabót in the 1970s.
7 Atómskáld and other compounds
The term atómskáld is based on the analogy of other compounds in
-skáld, which occur in both Old and Modern Icelandic. Apart from
designations like þjóðskáld ‘national poet/writer’, the most familiar
examples of this type are by-names used for individual poets in Old
Norse sources, many of which have specifi c stories behind them: Þor-
móðr Kolbrúnarskáld ‘Kolbrún’s poet’ in Fóstbrœðra saga [The saga of
the sworn brothers] composes an ode to Þorbjörg kolbrún (chapter 11;
1943:171–172); Hallfreðr vandræðaskáld ‘the troublesome poet’ is given
his nickname by King Ólafr Tryggvason (Flateyjarbok 1860–1868: vol.
1, 326; Snorri Sturluson 1949:331).
Scholarship on the atom poets, as well as their internal discourse
in both poetic and scholarly media (and all shades in between), has
self-consciously exploited the rich connotations of the term atómskáld.
Eysteinn Þorvaldsson (1980:104) suggests that the term is also appro-
priate because the atom poets “setja af stað eins konar sprengingu í
ljóðagerðinni” [set off a kind of explosion in poetry]. The concept of
atóm or frumeind can be connected metaphorically with the aesthetics
of the atom poets. They att empt to compress expression to its most
essential and fundamental form.
Allusions to the atom era appear occasionally in poems by atom
poets:
(5) Hver vill gefa snjómanninum flíkur til að skýla nekt
sinni, svo hann þurfi ekki að skjálfa eins og brjóstveikur
kynd ari við að kveikja undir atómkötlum sínum? Eng-
inn, svaraði tunglskinið og renndi sér á ísleggjum eftir
skyggðri febrúargljánni. (Einar Bragi 1959:25)
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