Icelandic Literature - Middle Icelandic Literature

Middle Icelandic Literature

Important compositions of the time from the fifteenth century to the nineteenth include sacred verse, most famously the Passíusálmar of Hallgrímur Pétursson; rímur, rhymed epic poems with alliterative verse that consist of two to four verses per stanza, popular until the end of the nineteenth century; and autobiographical prose writings such as the Píslarsaga of Jón Magnússon. A full translation of the Bible was published in the sixteenth century. The most prominent poet of the eighteenth century was Eggert Ólafsson (1726–1768), while Jón Þorláksson frá Bægisá (1744–1819) undertook several major translations, including the Paradísarmissir, a translation of John Milton's Paradise Lost.