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36-679: Arinbjarnarkviða is a skaldic poem by Egill Skalla-Grímsson in praise of his friend Arinbjörn. The poem is preserved in Möðruvallabók but not in other manuscripts of Egils saga . Some lines are lost while others may be corrupted. The metre is kviðuháttr . This article related to a poem is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Skaldic poetry More than 5,500 skaldic verses have survived, preserved in more than 700 manuscripts, including in several sagas and in Snorri Sturluson 's Prose Edda ,

72-594: A handbook of skaldic composition that led to a revival of the art. Many of these verses are fragments of originally longer works, and the authorship of many is unknown. The earliest known skald from whom verses survive is Bragi Boddason , known as Bragi the Old, a Norwegian skald of the first half of the 9th century. Most known skalds were attached to the courts of Norwegian kings during the Viking Age , and increasingly were Icelanders. The subject matter of their extended poems

108-525: A series of stanzas with a refrain ( stef ) at intervals, and the flokkr (similar to drápa , without a refrain), vísur ‘verses, stanzas’, or dræplingr ‘little drápa’, a shorter series of verses without refrain. There are also some shield poems, which supposedly describe mythological scenes on a shield presented to the poet by a patron. Most of the longer skaldic poems were composed by court poets to honor kings and jarls. They typically have historical content, relating battles and other deeds from

144-403: A spur of the moment thing. Although there is no evidence that the skalds employed musical instruments, some speculate that they may have accompanied their verses with the harp or lyre . A large number of the preserved skaldic verses are individual stanzas, called lausavísur ("loose verses"), often said to have been improvised. Long forms include the drápa , a praise poem consisting of

180-469: A very generic and superficial connotation) in 1936 and recalls a mystic conception of the poetic word because it makes reference to the legendary figure of Hermes Trismegistus ( Thrice-Great Hermes ) going back to hellenistic times, with writings such as Asclepius and the Corpus Hermeticum attributed to him. During the same year (1936), Italian poet Carlo Bo published an essay on

216-708: Is about King Magnus the Good ; in the 12th century it was the dominant metre of religious skaldic poetry. Despite these adaptations, the skaldic tradition itself was endangered by the popularity of newer and simpler forms of poetry and loss of knowledge of the kenning tradition. Snorri Sturluson 's Prose Edda , a handbook produced around 1220 that includes a guide to the metres, an explanation of kennings and their mythological and heroic bases grounded in contemporary learning, and numerous examples that preserve many skaldic verses, enabled skaldic poetry to continue in Iceland after

252-550: Is poetry of moods, of interior reflection expressed by a subdued and pensive tone, through a refined and evocative language, concealing direct intimations to experience in a play of allusions. To describe the fleeting course of human life, Quasimodo would compose this famous hermetic poem "Ed è subito sera" : The hermetic poets took their inspiration from Ungaretti 's second book, Sentimento del Tempo ("The Feeling of Time", 1933) , with its complex analogies: one can thus consider Ungaretti as Hermeticism's first exponent. In

288-774: Is thought to have originated in either Norway or the Scandinavian Baltic. Most of the skalds of whom we know spent all or part of their careers as court poets, either those of kings, particularly the kings of Norway, or those of jarls, particularly the Hlaðir jarls , a dynasty based in what is now Trøndelag some of whose members ruled all or part of Norway as heathens in alternation with the Christian converters King Olaf Tryggvason and King Olaf Haraldsson (Saint Olaf). They produced praise poetry telling of their patrons' deeds, which became an orally transmitted record and

324-559: Is to show that poetry has gone through and will continue to go through change. The dróttkvætt metre appears to have been an innovation associated with a new fashion in formally more elaborate poetry associated with named poets. The metre has been compared to Irish and Latin poetic forms, which may have influenced its development. Origins in magic have also been suggested, because of the existence of skaldic curses (such as Egill Skallagrímsson 's on King Eric Bloodaxe ) and because there are 10th-century magical inscriptions on runestones in

360-500: The Codex Regius manuscript. Skaldic verses are preserved in a large number of manuscripts, including many sagas, and some skaldic poetry, including prophetic, dream, and memorial poems, uses the simpler metres. Medieval Scandinavians appear to have distinguished between older and more modern poetry rather than considering skaldic verse as a distinct genre. Compositions done without preparation were especially valued, to judge by

396-556: The Novecento Italiano , Hermetic poetry became an Italian literary movement in the 1920s and 1930s, developing in the interwar period . Major features of this movement were reduction to essentials, abolishment of punctuation , and brief, synthetic compositions, at times resulting in short works of only two or three verses. The term ermetismo was coined in Italian by literary critic Francesco Flora (although with

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432-602: The Symbolist school, wherein the language and imagery are subjective, and where the suggestive power of the sound of words is as important as their meaning. The name alludes to the mythical Hermes Trismegistus . Hermeticism was influential in the Renaissance , after the translation into Latin of a compilation of Greek Hermetic treatises called the Corpus Hermeticum by Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499). Within

468-409: The skald- stem ( Proto-Germanic : * skeldan ), means "to scold, blame, accuse, insult". The person doing the insulting is a skelto or skeltāri . The West Germanic counterpart of the skald is the scop . Like scop , which is related to Modern English scoff , the word skald is probably cognate with English scold , reflecting the importance of mocking taunts in the poetry of

504-701: The 16th century, although that produced after 1400 is rarely studied as part of the skaldic corpus. More than 300 skalds are known from the period between 800 and 1200 AD. Many are listed in the Skáldatal , a list of court skalds by the ruler they served that runs from the legendary Ragnar Lodbrok to the late 13th century and includes some poets from whom no verses are preserved. Notable names include: Many lausavísur attributed in sagas to women have traditionally been regarded as inauthentic, and few female skalds are known by name. They include: The first comprehensive edition of skaldic poetry, by Finnur Jónsson ,

540-498: The Eddic poems. Skaldic poetry is also characteristically more ornate in its diction, using more interlacing of elements of meaning within the verse and many more kennings and heiti . This both assisted in meeting the greater technical demands of the metre and allowed the poets to display their skill in wordplay. The resulting complexity can appear somewhat hermetic to modern readers, as well as creating ambiguity in interpretation; but

576-620: The Scandinavian Middle Ages project and began publication in 2007. The word skald (which internal rhymes show to have had a short vowel until the 14th century) is perhaps ultimately related to Proto-Germanic : * skalliz , lit.   'sound, voice, shout' ( Old High German : skal , lit.   'sound'). Old High German has skalsang , 'song of praise, psalm ', and skellan , 'ring, clang, resound'. The Old High German variant stem skeltan , etymologically identical to

612-430: The analogic form, with a constant emotional introspection. Among these young intellectuals, some took strong anti-fascist stances, with Romano Bilenchi , Elio Vittorini , Alfonso Gatto and Vasco Pratolini being the main dissidents. "Tradition is Hermeticism's best ally". Hermetic poetry opposes verbal manipulation and the ease of mass communication, which began taking place during Europe 's dictatorial years, with

648-402: The ancient values and myths of the romantic and positivistic society , no longer retaining any certitudes to refer to. Man lives in an incomprehensible world, ravaged by wars and enslaved by dictatorships, therefore the poet has a disheartened vision of life, without illusions, and repudiates the word as an act of communication in order to give it an evocative sense only. So, hermetic poetry

684-491: The cult of Odin as an aristocratic, educated form of heathenism influenced by Christian eschatology . Poetic ability was highly valued; the art was practised by the Norwegian kings themselves, and several skalds, such as Egill Skallagrímsson , are the subject of their own biographical sagas. Icelandic skalds came to dominate at Norwegian courts; the last prominent Norwegian skald was Eyvindr skáldaspillir , and from

720-499: The early 21st century, the Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages project has prepared a new edition with associated database online; 5 of a projected 9 volumes had been published as of 2018 . This edition groups the poems according to the type of prose source in which they are preserved. Hermeticism (poetry) Hermeticism in poetry, or hermetic poetry , is a form of obscure and difficult poetry, as of

756-408: The field of hermetic literary critique, Carlo Bo was its main interpreter, with his discourse La letteratura come vita ("Literature as a way of life") dated 1938, where he wrote the actual hermetic manifesto by describing poetry as a moment of Absolute . Among the other critics and theoreticians, to be mentioned are Oreste Macrì , Giansiro Ferrata , Luciano Anceschi and Mario Luzi . During

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792-448: The increasing brain-washing propaganda of the nazi - fascist regimes. Poetry therefore retreats into itself and assumes the task of returning sense to words, giving them back their semantic meaning, using them only when strictly necessary. The hermetic poets pursue the ideal of a "pure poesy", an essential composition without educational aims. Their central theme is the desperate sense of loneliness modern man experiences, having lost

828-506: The king's career. Examples include: A few surviving skaldic poems have mythological content: To these could be added two poems relating the death of a king and his reception in Valhalla : Some extended works were composed as circumstance pieces, such as the following by Egill Skallagrímsson : The origin story for poetry comes from a myth by Snorri Sturlson. The story depicts poetry as a liquid that takes various forms. The point of this

864-444: The literary magazine Il Frontespizio , by the title "Letteratura come vita (Literature as a way of life)", containing the theoretical-methodological fundamentals of hermetic poetry. On the literary plane, the term Hermeticism thus highlights a type of poetry which has a close (i.e., hermetic , hidden, sealed) character, complex in its construction and usually achieved by a sequence of analogies difficult to interpret. At

900-417: The metre. Since the first example of skaldic poetry of which we know is Bragi Boddason 's Ragnarsdrápa from the early 9th century, some have argued that he and his associates invented it, but his work is already highly accomplished, suggesting that this style of poetry had been developing for some time. Bragi (whom many scholars consider was deified as the god Bragi ) was a Norwegian, and skaldic poetry

936-416: The movement's core—which was modelled after the great French decadentist poets Mallarmé , Rimbaud and Verlaine —was a group of Italian poets, called hermeticists , who followed the style of Giuseppe Ungaretti and Eugenio Montale . Rejecting any direct social and political involvement, in order to detach themselves from the fascist culture, the hermetic group used a difficult and closed style in

972-463: The original audiences would have been familiar with the conventions of the syntactic interweaving as well as the vocabulary of the kennings. Eddic poems are characterized by their mythological, ethical, and heroic content, while skaldic verse has a wider range of subject matter. One of the main topics was mighty kings and the deeds of courtly patrons. Eddic poetry typically includes a large amount of dialogue and rarely recounts battles; skaldic poetry,

1008-498: The reverse. Skalds also composed spontaneous verses reacting to events, insult verses ( níðvísur ) such as Þorleifr jarlsskáld 's curse on his former patron Jarl Hákon Sigurðarson and the níð that provoked the missionary Þangbrandr into killing Vetrliði Sumarliðason , and occasionally love poems and erotic verse called mansöngr . Hallfreðr Óttarsson and especially Kormákr Ögmundarson are known for their love poetry. A large amount of Eddic poetry has been preserved in

1044-438: The sagas. Egill Skallagrímsson is supposed to have composed his Höfuðlausn in one night to ransom his head. King Harald Hardrada is said to have set his skald, Þjóðólfr Arnórsson , as he was walking down the street, to compose two stanzas casting a quarreling smith and tanner through the choice of kennings as specific figures first from mythology and then from heroic legend. It is not common though that skaldic verse are

1080-574: The second half of the 10th century, all known court skalds were from Iceland or the Orkney Islands. By the end of the 10th century, skaldic poetry had become increasingly internally complex, and in the 11th century Christian skalds reacted against this complexity by using far fewer kennings, especially avoiding those referencing heathen deities. In the 12th century, a century after the conversion of Iceland, some skalds reintroduced heathen kennings as literary formulae, interest in ancient tradition

1116-593: The skalds. Skaldic poetry and Eddic poetry stem from the same tradition of alliterative verse , and in Old Norse as well as Icelandic, the word skald simply means "poet" or "composer". Skaldic verse is distinguished from Eddic by characteristically being more complex in style and by using dróttkvætt ("court metre"), which requires internal rhyme as well as alliteration, rather than the simpler and older fornyrðislag ("way of ancient words"), ljóðaháttr ("song form"), and málaháttr ("speech form") metres of

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1152-480: The tradition of court poetry ended in the 13th century. Christian religious poetry became an increasingly important part of the skaldic tradition beginning in the 12th century. Eysteinn Ásgrímsson 's Lilja was particularly influential: it uses the hrynhent metre and almost no kennings, and was much imitated. Christian skaldic poetry died out in Iceland only with the Protestant Reformation of

1188-673: Was Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning , published in 4 volumes in Copenhagen in 1908–15 (2 volumes each diplomatic and corrected text; with Danish translations). Later editions include Ernst A. Kock  [ sv ] 's Den norsk-isländska Skaldedigtningen , published in 2 volumes in Lund in 1946–50, and Magnus Olsen 's Edda- og Skaldekvad: forarbeider til kommentar , published in 7 volumes in Oslo in 1960–64 (analysis in Norwegian). In

1224-430: Was revived, and drápur were produced on historical figures, such as Einarr Skúlason 's Geisli on Olaf Tryggvason, composed 150 years after his death. Skalds experimented with new metres, notably hrynhent , which uses longer lines than dróttkvætt and was probably influenced by Latin metres. This metre arose in the 10th century and was popularized in the 11th by Arnórr jarlaskáld , whose Hrynhenda (c. 1045}

1260-487: Was sometimes mythical before the conversion to Christianity, thereafter usually historical and encomiastic , detailing the deeds of the skald's patron. The tradition continued into the Late Middle Ages . The standard edition of the skaldic poetic corpus, Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning , was edited by Finnur Jónsson and published in 1908–1915. A new edition was prepared online by the Skaldic Poetry of

1296-474: Was subsequently cited in history sagas. One example of this is the Helmskringla by Snorri Sturlson. A third of the book focuses on Olaf II Haraldsson. Their accuracy has been the subject of debate, but the verse form guards against corruption and the skalds traditionally criticized as well as advised their patrons. Skalds at the court at Hlaðir have been credited with developing the Valhalla complex and

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