ERLINGSSON, THORSTEINN

born Sept. 27, 1858, Fljtshld, Ice. died Sept. 28, 1914, Reykjavk Icelandic poet whose satirical and rebellious writing was always softened by his own humanity. Erlingsson was a farmer's son. At the University of Copenhagen, he spent 13 years dabbling in philology and Old Norse but never took a degree. He lived in poverty and finally went back to Iceland as a provincial journalist. He settled in Reykjavk and eked out a writer's pension by private teaching. Living at a time when the Danish regime imposed great hardship on the Icelanders, Erlingsson rebelled against the establishment, both religious and secular, but he was essentially a gentle poet. His two major publications were Thyrnar (1897; Thorns) and Eidurinn (1913; The Oath). Thyrnar is a collection of poems ranging from love lyrics to political satire. Eidurinn is a moving poem sequence that interprets the 17th-century tragic love story of Ragnheidur, the defiant daughter of Bishop Brynjlfur Sveinsson of Sklholt, who gives birth to the child of a lover whom she has been forced to forswear.