Snorri Sturluson

Politician, diplomat, historian and poet Icelandic, Snorri Sturluson (1179 - 1241) are the principal Scandinavian writer of the Moyen-âge. Author of many saga S and mythological accounts, his work constitutes an irreplaceable source for the knowledge of the Scandinavian Mythologie.

Biography

The life of Snorri is known for us thanks to the Sturlungasaga (“History of Sturlungar”, i.e. descendants of Sturla), written at the end of the 13th century.

Snorri Sturluson was born in 1179 in Hvammur. Wire of Sturla Þórðarson and Guðný Böðvarsdóttir, it belongs to the family of Sturlungar, then most influential of the country.

Snorri is not raised by his/her parents but, as of the three years age, by Jón Loftsson - this practice is at the time a way of sealing an alliance or an agreement. Jón Loftsson is one of the most powerful chiefs of the island but also a man of a great scholarship. Snorri passes its youth to Oddi, which is then one of the principal intellectual centers of the Iceland. It discovers as well the Christian culture there as the traditional literature norroise: mythological and heroic poems and first saga S recalling the history of the kings of Norway or the exploits of hero Viking S.

It makes a rich person marriage and receives the load of Goði (local leader). It gets busy to increase its richness, and plays an increasingly important political role. Of 1215 with 1219, it is titular more high position in Iceland, that of Lögsögumaðr (“man which says the law”), i.e. it chairs the Alþing (assembled political and legal of the free men) and are charged to learn and recite the laws.

In 1218, it is invited to the court of Norway by the king Hakon IV. It spends two years to the sides of the king and the prince Skuli and benefits from its stay to look further into its knowledge of the history of Norway. But Hakon has on Iceland of the aimings that Snorri was committed supporting. This project is worth to him enemies in Iceland and, after its failure, its disgrace near the king.

It nevertheless is indicated once again Lögsögumaðr of 1222 with 1231. But the Iceland enters then during a time of decline (known under the name of Sturlung , it lasts of 1230 to 1262), characterized by the exacerbation of the competitions between the principal clans of the island. The situation of Snorri becomes delicate then.

Also it in turns over 1237 to Norway, where a wild fight opposes from now on Hakon and Skuli. There remain two years there, at the sides of prince Skuli, before regaining Iceland, which the king had prohibited to him. In 1241, after having overcome Skuli, Hakon orders to the chief of the Norwegian party in Iceland to carry out Snorri, which dies assassinated by a henchman of his son-in-law in the night of the September 23rd.

Work

Snorri Sturluson is initially the author of the Edda , so called Edda de Snorri , Edda in prose or Jeune Edda .

One also owes him a Histoire of the kings de Norvège (or Heimskringla ), mythical origins at the 13th century.

He is also allotted the Saga d' Egill, wire of Grímr the Bald person , large poet, magician, but so warlike sanguinary Viking, which lived at the 10th century and is perhaps an ancestor of Snorri.

Lastly, some (Peter Hallberg in particular) estimate that he is the author of the Þrymskviða , poem of the poetic Edda telling the flight and the recovery of Mjöllnir, the hammer of Þórr.

French translations

Governed Boyer, poetic Edda , Beech, coll “interior Space”, 1992 (ISBN 2213027250) , for the Þrymskviða ;
Governed Boyer Saga de Harald pitiless the Payot, coll “Small Payot library”, 1979
Governed Boyer, Saga de Saint Olaf , Payot, coll “Small Payot library”, 1992 (ISBN 2228884723) ;
Governed Boyer, Sagas Icelandic , Gallimard, coll “Library of the Pleiad”, 1987 (ISBN 2070111172) , for the Saga d' Egill, wire of Grímr the Bald person ;
François-Xavier Dillmann, Edda , Gallimard, coll “the Paddle of the people”, 1991 (ISBN 2070721140) ;
François-Xavier Dillmann, History of kings de Norvège - First part, Gallimard, coll “the Paddle of the people”, 2000 (ISBN 2070732118) .

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