Einar Bragi
{{Short description|Icelandic poet and publisher}}
{{Icelandic name|Einar Bragi}}
{{infobox writer
| name = Einar Bragi
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| birth_name = Einar Bragi Sigurðsson
| birth_date = April 7, 1921
| birth_place = Eskifjördur, Iceland
| death_date = {{Death date and age|2005|3|26|1921|4|7}}
| death_place = Reykjavík
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| occupation = poet, publisher, translator
| language = Icelandic
| period = Post-World War II
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| movement = modernism
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Einar Bragi (or Einar Bragi Sigurðsson) (7 April 1921 – 26 March 2005) was an Icelandic poet and publisher. He was a modernist who founded and edited the journal Birtingur, the leading forum for modernism in Iceland at the time.
Einar Bragi published nine books of poetry between 1950 and 1980. He is known as one of the Atom Poets.{{Cite journal
| last = Firchow
| first = Evelyn Scherabon
| title = Rev. of Einar Bragi, Ljóð
| journal = World Literature Today
| volume = 59
| issue = 2
| page = 278
| date = Spring 1985
| jstor = 40141568
| doi=10.2307/40141569}} He also translated poetry into Icelandic.
Poetry
Einar Bragi was born in Eskifjördur. His first two books were published while he was studying in Sweden; he returned to Iceland in 1953. His early writing was often polemic, and in the early stages of his career he felt the need to defend his own poetry and that of the other Atom Poets, arguing that modern poetry was intrinsically different from traditional poetry. Like other poets of his generation, he was influenced by Tómas Guðmundsson, and "even attempted to match Tómas Guðmundsson's polish in style."{{Cite book
| last = Einarsson
| first = Stefán
| title = A history of Icelandic literature
| publisher = Johns Hopkins Press for the American-Scandinavian Foundation
| year = 1957
| page = 331
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=6ypcAAAAMAAJ&q=%22einar+bragi%22&dq=%22einar+bragi%22&lr=&cd=4
}} His subject matter includes love and nature, often joined together, and he is critical of greed and exploitation. His critique of social injustice, according to scholar of Icelandic literature Neijmann, is expressed through sarcasm or the use of imagery derived from nature, and is free from sermonizing.
His forms are highly varied and he employed alliteration and rhyme, but also wrote free verse and prose poetry. Some of his longer poems employ the traditional Icelandic form of the thula.
In the nine slim volumes of poetry he published, Einar Bragi reworks and revisits the same material,{{Cite book
| last = Magnússon
| first = Sigurður A.
| title = The Postwar poetry of Iceland
| publisher = U of Iowa P
| year = 1982
| page = xl
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=QPYqAAAAMAAJ&q=%22einar+bragi%22&dq=%22einar+bragi%22&lr=&cd=1
| isbn = 978-0-87745-115-0}} "so that in effect the poet was republishing his work over and over again." His prose poems were called "fine," with "a refined sense of poetic diction," and the Columbia dictionary of modern European literature likewise praises his "refined lyrical verse."{{Cite book
| last = Bédé
| first = Jean Albert
|author2=William Benbow Edgerton
| title = Columbia dictionary of modern European literature
| publisher = Columbia UP
| year = 1980
| page = 381
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=2_JLL32RzrkC&pg=PA381
| isbn = 978-0-231-03717-4}} French scholar Régis Boyer also commented on his admirably rhythmical prose.Régis Boyer, "Le modernisme poétique en Islande," {{Cite book
| last = Béhar
| first = Henri
| title = Mélusine No. 3
| publisher = l'Age de l'Homme
| year = 1982
| location = Lausanne
| pages = 61–79
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=NdsLRpiNO6gC&pg=PA74
| isbn = 978-2-8251-0824-6}}
In addition to writing poetry, Einar Bragi also translated poetry "from virtually all European languages," including English, French and Scandinavian languages (Swedish, Norwegian, Sami, Greenlandic, etc.), and acquired a reputation as a translator.{{Cite book
| last = Jansson
| first = Mats
|author2=Jakob Lothe |author3=Hannu Riikonen
| title = European and Nordic modernisms
| publisher = Norvik Press
| year = 2004
| page = 193
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=vucZAQAAIAAJ&q=%22einar+bragi%22&dq=%22einar+bragi%22&lr=&cd=106
| isbn = 978-1-870041-58-4}}{{Cite book
| last = Weisgerber
| first = Jean
| title = Les Avant-gardes littéraires au XXe siècle: Histoire
| publisher = John Benjamins
| year = 1984
| pages = 442–43
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=J38HB30AVHcC&pg=PA443
| isbn = 978-963-05-2667-8}}
Publishing ventures
With the Swiss-German artist Dieter Roth, he founded the publishing company Forlag Editions,{{Cite book
| last = Stiles
| first = Kristine
|author2=Peter Howard Selz
| title = Theories and documents of contemporary art: a sourcebook of artists' writings
| publisher = U of California P
| year = 1996
| page = [https://archive.org/details/theoriesdocument0000stil/page/284 284]
| url = https://archive.org/details/theoriesdocument0000stil
| url-access = registration
| isbn = 978-0-520-20253-5}} which published a number of important books by Roth.{{Cite news
| last = Buhmann
| first = Stephanie
| title = Roth Time: A Dieter Roth Retrospective
| newspaper = The Brooklyn Rail
| date = April 2004
| url = http://www.brooklynrail.org/2004/04/art/roth
| access-date = 2010-01-01}}{{Cite book
| last = Roth
| first = Dieter
| author-link = Dieter Roth
|author2=Theodora Vischer |author3=Bernadette Walter
| title = Roth time: a Dieter Roth retrospective
| publisher = The Museum of Modern Art
| year = 2003
| page = 40
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=sKlSgCVbfAsC&pg=PA40
| isbn = 978-0-87070-035-4}} In 1953, he founded the journal Birtingur, which became the "main forum for Icelandic modernists"{{Cite book
| last = Neijmann
| first = Daisy L.
| title = A history of Icelandic literature
| publisher = U of Nebraska P
| year = 2007
| pages = 474–477, 481
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=e_3jxYe5nTMC&pg=PA475&
| isbn = 978-0-8032-3346-1}} and was published until 1968.
Bragi died in Reykjavík.
Bibliography
References
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