Guðbrandur Vigfússon
Encyclopedia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
n scholars of the 19th century.
Life
He was born of an IcelandIceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
ic family in Breiðafjörður
Breiðafjörður
Breiðafjörður is a large shallow bay, about 50 km wide and 125 km long and located in the west of Iceland. It separates the region of the Westfjords from the rest of the country. Breiðafjörður is encircled by mountains, including glacier Snæfellsjökull the Snæfellsnes peninsula on the south side...
. He was brought up, until he went to a tutor's, by his kinswoman Kristín Vigfússdóttir, to whom he records, he owed not only that he became a man of letters but almost everything. He was sent to the old school at Bessastad
Menntaskólinn í Reykjavík
Menntaskólinn í Reykjavík is the oldest gymnasium in Reykjavík, Iceland....
and (when it moved there) at Reykjavík
Reykjavík
Reykjavík is the capital and largest city in Iceland.Its latitude at 64°08' N makes it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói Bay...
. In 1849, already a fair scholar, he came to Copenhagen University as a bursar
Bursar
A bursar is a senior professional financial administrator in a school or university.Billing of student tuition accounts are the responsibility of the Office of the Bursar. This involves sending bills and making payment plans with the ultimate goal of getting the student accounts paid off...
ius (bursar) in the Regense College.
After his student course, he was appointed stipendiarius
Research assistant
A research assistant is a researcher employed, often on a temporary contract, by a university or a research institute, for the purpose of assisting in academic research...
by the Arna-Magnaean trustees, and worked for fourteen years in the Arna-Magnaean Library until, as he said, he knew every scrap of old vellum
Vellum
Vellum is mammal skin prepared for writing or printing on, to produce single pages, scrolls, codices or books. It is generally smooth and durable, although there are great variations depending on preparation, the quality of the skin and the type of animal used...
and of Icelandic written paper in that whole collection.
In 1866, he settled down in Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
, which he made his home for the rest of his life. He held the office of Reader in Scandinavian at Oxford University (a post created for him) from 1884 till his death. He was made a Jubilee Doctor
Jubilee doctor
A jubilee doctor is, in Sweden, a person who has held a doctorate for 50 years or more. When 50 years have passed, the doctor is invited again by his or her university to the ceremony where the doctorates are conferred and is made jubeldoktor and celebrated as guest of honour.-References:*...
of Uppsala
Uppsala
- Economy :Today Uppsala is well established in medical research and recognized for its leading position in biotechnology.*Abbott Medical Optics *GE Healthcare*Pfizer *Phadia, an offshoot of Pharmacia*Fresenius*Q-Med...
in 1877, and received the Danish order of the Dannebrog
Order of the Dannebrog
The Order of the Dannebrog is an Order of Denmark, instituted in 1671 by Christian V. It resulted from a move in 1660 to break the absolutism of the nobility. The Order was only to comprise 50 noble Knights in one class plus the Master of the Order, i.e. the Danish monarch, and his sons...
in 1885.
Guðbrandur died of cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
on 31 January 1889. He was buried in St. Sepulchre's Cemetery, Oxford, on the 3rd of February, 1889.
Work
He was an excellent judge of literature, reading most European languages well and being acquainted with their classics. His memory was remarkable, and if the Eddic poems had ever been lost, he could have written them all down from memory. He spoke English well, with a strong Icelandic accent. He wrote a beautiful, distinctive and clear hand, in spite of (or because of) the thousands of lines of manuscript copying he had done in his early life.His Tímatöl (written between October 1854 and April 1855) laid the foundations for the chronology of Icelandic history. His editions of Icelandic classics (1858–1868), Biskopa Sögur, Bárðar Saga, Fornsögur (with Mobius
August Ferdinand Möbius
August Ferdinand Möbius was a German mathematician and theoretical astronomer.He is best known for his discovery of the Möbius strip, a non-orientable two-dimensional surface with only one side when embedded in three-dimensional Euclidean space. It was independently discovered by Johann Benedict...
), Eyrbyggia Saga
Eyrbyggja saga
Eyrbyggja saga is one of the Icelanders' sagas. The name means the saga of the inhabitants of Eyrr, which is a farm on Snæfellsnes on Iceland. The name is slightly misleading as it deals also with the clans of Þórsnes and Alptafjörðr. The most central character is Snorri Þorgrímsson or Snorri goði...
and Flateyar-bók (with Carl Rikard Unger) opened a new era of Icelandic scholarship. They can be compared to the Rolls Series
Rolls Series
The Rolls Series, official title The Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages, is a major collection of British and Irish historical materials and primary sources, published in the second half of the 19th century. Some 255 volumes, representing 99 separate...
editions of chronicles by William Stubbs
William Stubbs
William Stubbs was an English historian and Bishop of Oxford.The son of William Morley Stubbs, a solicitor, he was born at Knaresborough, Yorkshire, and was educated at Ripon Grammar School and Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated in 1848, obtaining a first-class in classics and a third in...
, for the interest and value of their prefaces and texts.
He spent the seven years 1866-1873 on the Oxford Icelandic-English Dictionary, the best guide to classic Icelandic, and a monumental example of single-handed work. His later series of editions (1874–1885) included Orkneyinga Saga
Orkneyinga saga
The Orkneyinga saga is a historical narrative of the history of the Orkney Islands, from their capture by the Norwegian king in the ninth century onwards until about 1200...
and Háconar Saga, the great and complex mass of Icelandic historical sagas known as Sturlunga, and the Corpus Poeticum Boreale, in which he edited the entire body of classic Scandinavian poetry. As an introduction to the Sturlunga, he wrote a complete, concise history of the classic Northern literature and its sources. In the introduction to the Corpus, he laid the foundations of a critical history of the Eddic poetry and Court poetry of the North in a series of well-supported theories.
His little Icelandic Prose Reader (with F. York Powell) (1879) furnishes a path to a sound knowledge of Icelandic. The Grimm Centenary Papers (1886) give good examples of the range of his historic work, while his Appendix on Icelandic currency to Sir G. W. Dasent's Burnt Njal is a methodical investigation into an intricate subject.
As a writer in his own tongue, he once gained a high position by his Relations of Travel in Norway and South Germany. In English, as his Visit to Grimm and his powerful letters to The Times show, he had attained no mean skill. His life is mainly a record of well-directed and efficient labor in Denmark and Oxford.
External links
- An Icelandic-English Dictionary by Richard CleasbyRichard CleasbyRichard Cleasby was an English philologist, author with Guðbrandur Vigfússon of the first Icelandic-English dictionary.-Life:He was eldest son of Stephen Cleasby, and brother of Anthony Cleasby, born on 30 November 1797...
and Gudbrand Vigfusson, published in 1874.