Hallgrimsson, Jonas

(1807-1845)

   An Icelandic poet and short story writer, Hallgrimsson studied law and natural science at the University of Copenhagen. While there he became familiar with the ideas of national romanticism, including the notion that one should look back to the glorious past of the nation as a source of inspiration for the present. In Hallgrimsson's day, Iceland had been under Danish colonial rule for many centuries and was marked by poverty and lack of development. In 1835 Hallgrimsson and three of his friends founded the annual Fjolnir, which published his poems and short stories, as well as articles about Iceland's geology and related fields. Hallgrimsson used both traditional Old Icelandic meter and modern poetic form in his poetry; he was the first person to write a sonnet in Icelandic. He also affected the development of the modern Icelandic written language. A linguistic purist, he advocated finding native terms that could be used instead of loan words, and he worked to rid Icelandic of Danicisms.