Barði Guðmundsson

Yoav Tirosh (University of Iceland)

Ed. by Ármann Jakobsson, University of Iceland
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.3.4: Icelandic Writing and Culture.
Vol. editors: Ármann Jakobsson (University of Iceland), Kjerstin Moody (Gustavus Adolphus College), Sven Hakon Rossel (Universitat Wien), Herbert Rowland (Purdue University), Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen (University College London)

Dates

Born 1900
Died 1957

Places

Born in Iceland
Active in Iceland

Activities

Primary

Literary Critic/ Historian
Scholar

Resources

Guðmundsson's Works

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Barði Guðmundsson was an Icelandic historian and archivist. He was the national archivist from 1935 to his death and a parliament member for the Alþýðuflokkur (social democratic party) from 1942 to 1949. He also published a number of significant works on the sagas of Icelanders (

Íslendingasögur

), focusing on

Brennu-Njáls saga

[The Saga of Njáll the Burner] and

Ljósvetninga saga

[The Saga of the People of Light Lake]. In his work he tried to track down the authors of various sagas,

Njáls saga

in particular, and tied the texts to events in the thirteenth century. His approach was influenced by the Icelandic bookprose theory of saga origins, which thought of the

Íslendingasögur

as products of singular authorial ingenuity rather than distributed authors shaping an oral tale…

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2316 words

Citation: Tirosh, Yoav. "Barði Guðmundsson". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 05 April 2023 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=14814, accessed 25 April 2024.]

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