Steinn Steinarr - Examples of Style

Examples of Style

Here is a well known stanza from one of his works (VI 1):

Lífs um angurs víðan vang víst ég ganginn herði, eikin spanga, í þitt fang oft mig langa gerði.

Across life's broad plain of grief I surely quickened my pace; oh lady, in your embrace often I did long to be.

This is not only a perfect imitation of the style of the rímur, with the sometimes inherent repetitiveness of syntax and the circumlocutions known as kenningar (the word for "lady" in the original is a traditional kenning component literally denoting an oak tree, though the skaldic device of the heiti happens to be absent here), but it has just that little bit of its author's own invention to make it art in its own right too.

Another stanza actually makes the whole point clear (I 4):

Þó ég meini þetta og hitt, þér ég reyna vil að segja: þú ert eina yndið mitt unz ég seinast fer að deyja. Although I mean this and that, I want to try to tell you: you alone are my darling until at last I die.

Here there are no poetical circumlocutions, just ice-cold irony.

Steinn Steinarr's best known work is The Time and the Water, of which the following is the first part.

Tíminn er eins og vatnið, og vatnið er kalt og djúpt eins og vitund mín sjálfs. Og tíminn er eins og mynd, sem er máluð af vatninu og mér til hálfs. Og tíminn og vatnið renna veglaust til þurrðar inn í vitund mín sjálfs. (Quoted from ljod.is)

Time is like the water, and the water is cold and deep like my own consciousness. And time is like a picture, which is painted of water, half of it by me. And time and the water flow trackless to extinction into my own consciousness. (Translation by Marshall Brement)

The second stanza here may be regarded as an object lesson in the difficulty of translation, and perhaps of translating the work of Steinn Steinarr in particular. Its second line may refer to a picture painted "of" the water, or, just as readily, to a picture painted "by" the water, i.e. to a picture the water paints, since "of" and "by" are both among the possible translations of the preposition af. This is all the more important since the first two words of the third line of the stanza simply mean "and me" and do not themselves indicate whether the picture is painted of the narrator or by him. Also, whereas the translator here has interpreted til hálfs in the third line of the stanza as indicating that the narrator has painted half the picture, it is commonly used as an idiom to mean "imperfectly" or "inadequately". Thus the third line here may, for example, mean "and me, imperfectly". This would be consistent with an interpretation according to which both the water and the narrator were inadequate painters. Furthermore, the word máluð in the second line, translated here as "painted", can also mean "worded" or "put into words": this use of the word was archaic by the time this poem was written, but so was a good deal of the skaldic diction Steinn used elsewhere in his poetry.

Steinn satirized anything and everything, and spared nobody, as can be seen from his poem "Ein sorgleg vísa um Sósíalistaflokkinn og mig" ("One Tragic Poem about the Socialist Party and Me"). Another very well known poem is "Passíusálmur No. 51" ("Passion Psalm No. 51"). The title is a reference to the greatest work of legendary Icelandic poet Hallgrímur Pétursson (d. 1674), Passíusálmar (Passion Psalms), 50 in all. Steinn added the 51st:

Á Valhúsahæðinni er verið að krossfesta mann. Og fólkið kaupir sér far með strætisvagninum til þess að horfa á hann. Það er sólskin og hiti, og sjórinn er sléttur og blár. Þetta er laglegur maður með mikið enni og mógult hár. Og stúlka með sægræn augu segir við mig: Skyldi manninum ekki leiðast að láta krossfesta sig?

There's a man being crucified on Valhúsahæðin hill. And people buy themselves a ride on the bus to watch him. There's sunshine and warmth, and the sea is calm and blue. This is a fine looking man with a high forehead and golden brown hair. And a girl with sea-green eyes says to me: Won't the man get bored of being crucified?

Here the crucifixion is shown in an Icelandic setting, probably as the little girl imagines it. The metre is new, but not without such traditional devices as rhyme and alliteration, making this a poem to be appreciated especially when read aloud.

But Steinn Steinarr not only satirized his contemporaries. He was also a master of self-parody. His great book of poetry, Journey without Destination (Ferð án fyrirheits), ends with this haunting self-portrait.

UNDIRSKRIFT Lesendum þessarar bókar ef einhverjir eru Hef ég ekkert fleira að segja í raun og veru Sjá hér er ég sjálfur og þetta er allur minn auður Hið eina sem ég hef að bjóða lifandi og dauður. Ég veit að þið teljið mig aldrei í ykkar hópi Og ætlið mig skringilegt sambland af fanti og glópi Ég er langt að koninn úr heimkynnum niðdimmrar nætur Og niður í myrkursins djúp liggja enn mínar rætur. Ég ber þess að sjálfsögðu ævilangt óbrigðult merki Því örlög hvers manns gefa lit sinn og hljóm sinn hans verki Það var lítið um dýrðir og næsta naumt fyrir andann Mitt nafn er Steinn Steinarr, skáld. Ég kveðst á við fjandann. SIGNATURE To the readers of this book if any exist Nothing else I can tell, nothing else I can list. This is all that I am, the harvest of my strife. The only thing I offer, dead or alive. I know you will never count me as one of your class And conclude instead I am either a thug or an ass. I have come afar from a dim and dreary place And into the depths of darkness my roots are traced. I will no doubt be doomed for the rest of my life 'Cause our destiny marks and colors the works we contrive. The times were sparse for the spirit on every level. Steinn Steinarr the poet’s my name. I rap with the devil. (Translation by Jon Othar)