Skírnir

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

Ármann Jakobsson (University of Iceland)
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Skírnir

is the journal of

Hið íslenska bókmenntafélag

(est. 1816). It was founded in 1827 as the successor to

Íslenzk sagnablöð

, and is currently the oldest cultural journal in Northern Europe. In the nineteenth century,

Skírnir

mostly carried news from Iceland and abroad along with obituaries and memorial poems. At the time it was Icelanders’ main source of information about distant places such as Africa, Asia and South America and is an important source for Icelandic ideas about the world in the nineteenth century.

Skírnir was changed into a scholarly and cultural journal in the early nineteenth century, carrying articles about literature, philosophy, history, and current affairs, and has since then published many important studies plus texts from some of Icelandic finest

315 words

Citation: Jakobsson, Ármann. "Skírnir". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 11 August 2023 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=19680, accessed 09 November 2024.]

19680 Skírnir 2 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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