JOCHUMSSON, MATTHAS

born Nov. 11, 1835, Skgar, Thorskafjrdur, Ice. died Dec. 18, 1920, Akureyri Icelandic poet, translator, journalist, and dramatist. The son of a poor farmer, Jochumsson at age 30 was ordained from the Lutheran theological college in Reykjavk and spent his working life as a clergyman until he retired on a poet's pension in 1900. Through his religious poetry, his hymns and funeral elegies, and in his heroic narrative poems, Jochumsson preached Christian faith and humanity alongside the pagan virtues of the Saga Age. His innumerable translations of didactic lyrics, patriotic poems, and hymns from the Scandinavian languages and from English and German illustrate those same virtues. Jochumsson's internationalism, his free-thinking Christianity, and his unaffected assumption of greatness alienated some Icelandic contemporaries, but he was loved and admired by Scandinavian writers. His intellectual integrity and rich humanity finally established him as a national figure.