Steinarr, Steinn

(1908-1958)

   An Icelandic poet, Steinarr is perhaps his country's most significant poet in the 20th century. Raised an orphan in a rural area, he became both an urban dweller and a cosmopolitan who introduced modernist lyrics to Iceland. After moving to Reykjavik, Steinarr came into contact with a communist group and was a communist for a while. Both his political radicalism and his abject poverty informed the poems in his first collection, Raudur loginn brann (1934; The Red Flame Was Burning), where he mocks the norms of the middle class and despairs at the human condition in general. The best poems in his second collection, Ljo5 (1938; Poems), have more striking imagery, and the hope for the future that was implicit in his politically radical stance gives way to increasing pessimism.

   The volume Spor i sandi (1940; Tracks in the Sand) contains both satirical poetry and poems about love, but the speaker in the love poems expresses a deep sense of hopelessness. Ferd anfyrirheits (1942; Aimless Journey) is even more strongly given to love poetry, but it is mixed with Steinarr's previous philosophical themes in such a way that the reader is left with a deep sense of existential angst. Steinarr's final poetry collection, Timinn og vatnid (1948; Time and Water), shows that he used language not to convey a specific meaning but to create a linguistic structure that in itself constitutes the meaning of the poem. He was the first Icelandic poet to accomplish this, and it took a poor and uneducated orphan from a peripheral rural community to do it.