Archive for 'Icelandic history'
Can Folklore Express Iceland’s ‘National Soul’? Posted by Meg on Apr 8, 2018
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These past few months, I’ve had the interesting challenge of reading Icelandic folktales in Icelandic. The use of language is, as one might imagine, slightly different than reading a contemporary text – terminology and spelling conventions vary, as does prosody and phraseology. But those changes don’t preclude a deeper understanding of Icelandic culture through a…
Icelandic Literary History In a Nutshell Posted by Meg on Aug 31, 2017
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As many of you know, I study Icelandic language in Reykjavik, and I am a translator by trade. I work with a number of languages, but Icelandic is chief among them. I lived in New York for several years, growing my talents as a translator and laying the groundwork for a fruitful life of literature…
Menntun, Menning, Minning: Education, Culture, Memory Posted by Meg on Aug 25, 2017
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Last Saturday, a friend and colleague (who I’d never met before) arrived in Reykjavik. Belgian by birth, she is a world traveler, entrepreneur, artist, and yoga teacher. She’d just returned from a trip to the desert, where she finds poetry, and was on her way to produce and direct an event in Antwerp called Poëziebordeel…
It Started With Donald Duck…And Became a Revolution. Posted by Meg on May 26, 2017
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My initial intention with the somewhat winding road of a blog entry below started out as a look at translations of the names of storybook and fable characters – like Donald Duck (as below) – but my research and persistent questions took me down a rabbit hole that I couldn’t bring myself to climb out…
The First Day of Summer, Icelandic-Style (and a Knuckle-Calendar, Just For Fun) Posted by Meg on Apr 20, 2017
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Today in Reykjavik, it was a whopping 3 degrees (C), even though it is, according to the Icelanders, the first day of summer. The old Icelandic calendar is called the misseristal, or semester-count, and it’s been used since the Settlement Age. It emphasizes the two “semesters” of the year – summer and weather – with…
Haunting Images Of Iceland’s Abandoned Farms Posted by Meg on Mar 9, 2017
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In 2004, poet and publisher Aðalsteinn Ásberg Sigurðsson and photographer Nökkvi Elíasson paired up with one goal in mind: assembling Nökkvi’s twenty-years’ worth of photographs of Iceland’s abandoned farms and publishing them alongside Sigurðsson’s poetry. The resulting collection reveals the ways that Icelandic lifestyles have changed overtime: details as meager as the shape and size…
Red Christmas, Ergo White Easter: Snjóflóð 2017 Posted by Meg on Feb 28, 2017
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When Snjóflóð 2017 (“avalanche”) hit Reykjavik this past weekend, I started to think about a blog I’d prepared but not published this past December. And I decided to resurrect it from the pile. The weekend felt odd to me – like the snow had come too late. And then I remembered the Icelandic saying, rauð…