Snorri Sturluson is regarded as Iceland's most important medieval author. In Old Norse-Icelandic literary culture, where authorial anonymity was the norm among prose writers, Snorri is a rare example of an early Icelandic literary figure whose work survives and whose biography we are able to reconstruct in some detail. There is, however, very little proof of his authorship of any of the works that are conventionally attributed to him: Snorri's role in the production of literary texts in the thirteenth century is one of the most controversial topics in Old Norse-Icelandic studies.

Snorri's life is narrated in Íslendinga saga, a history of twelfth- and thirteenth- century Iceland written by his nephew Sturla Þórðarson (1214-84) between 1271 and 1284. Sturla was not precise about the

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Citation: Abram, Christopher. "Snorri Sturluson". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 09 February 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4275, accessed 19 March 2024.]

4275 Snorri Sturluson 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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