Þorsteinn Valdimarsson

Þorsteinn Valdimarsson , (* 1918 in the area of Vopnafjörður , Iceland ; † 1977 in Reykjavík , Iceland) was an Icelandic poet .

Family and origin

The poet Þorsteinn Valdimarsson was born in 1918 on the Brunahvammi farm on Vopnafjörður in East Iceland. His parents were Valdimar Jóhannesson and his wife Guðfinna Þorsteinsdóttir , who herself was known as a poet under the stage name Erla .

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As a child, Þorsteinn Valdimarsson moved with his parents several times in the area of Vopnafjörður . The parents finally settled on the Teigur farm in Hofsárdalur, the valley of the famous salmon river Hofsá í Vopnafirði . The parents' farm was the neighboring farm of Bustarfell , which is now an open-air museum .

There the boy grew up with his parents and had to help in the house and yard at an early age because he was the oldest of 9 children.

But since he showed a talent for learning at an early age, he was first given the opportunity to attend the secondary school ( Gagnfræðaskóli ) in Akureyri and then the high school Menntaskólinn í Reykjavík , where he graduated from school in 1939.

Then Þorsteinn went to college in Reykjavík , Háskóli Íslands for a year and was enrolled in medicine. However, this subject was not his and he broke off this course after a year to switch to Protestant theology , where he graduated in 1946.

After three years abroad, he returned to Iceland and turned to teaching. He taught in various schools in Reykjavík, including the seaman's school.

Politically, he was temporarily against Iceland's membership of NATO.

The poet did not have a very long life and died in 1977.

The artist

As an artist he proved to be multi-talented and u. a. as a very good musician. At the same time as studying in Reykjavík, he attended the conservatory with the subjects piano and organ , and also composed on the side.

After completing his studies, these interests moved him to longer stays abroad in Vienna and Leipzig .

There he also studied German literature.

From an early age, Þorsteinn had already dealt with poetry and his first volume of poetry, Villta vor , was published in 1942. His works often first appeared in newspapers and magazines, but numerous other volumes of poetry followed, as well as translations and texts for musicals, for example .

Topics were the nature of his homeland, but also the countries he visited.

He loved the funny limericks and introduced them as a form of poetry in Iceland. In one of them he parodies the waltz text of the Danube waltz .

Nú er Dóná svo blá fyrir bí

(...)

hún er auðvitað grá,

en alls ekki blá (...)

(German: "Now the Danube was so blue in the past / (...), / it is of course gray, / not at all blue (...)")

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l} Jón R. Hjálmarsson: Með þjóðskjáldum við þjóðveginn. Reykjavík 2004, 169-173
2. ↑ Hofsá as a salmon river ; accessed on November 6, 2015
3. ↑ Kristján Eiríksson, Sigurborg Hilmarsdóttir: Bókastóð. Ágrip af íslenskri bókmenntasögu. Reykjavík, Iðnú, 1999, 111
4. ↑ Jón R. Hjalmarsson: Með þjóðskjáldum við þjóðveginn. Reykjavík 2004, 172

Note: Icelanders are referred to by their first name or first and last name, but not just their surname. Further information can be found under Icelandic personal name .