Þulur

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

Yelena Sesselja Helgadóttir (University of Iceland)

Ed. by Ármann Jakobsson, University of Iceland
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.3.4: Icelandic Writing and Culture.
Vol. editors: Ármann Jakobsson (University of Iceland), Sven Hakon Rossel (Universitat Wien), Herbert Rowland (Purdue University), Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen (University College London)

Domains

Poetic/ rhetorical term

Dates

Date of occurrence 1150-

Places

Iceland (Location)

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

Recommended Reading

The term

þulur

(sing.

þula

, cognate to Old Norse/Icelandic

þylja

[“chant”, “murmur”, “speak”]) has traditionally been applied to a variety of poetic forms in the Middle Ages and post-Reformation period. In scholarly usage, a

þula

is “a versified list of names” (Gurevich 2017, 651). However, such a basic definition does not suffice to describe either medieval or post-medieval poetry known as

þulur

. This article discusses Old Norse/Icelandic

þulur

(skaldic and eddic;

ONIÞ

) and the Icelandic genre of folk poetry designated as post-medieval

þulur

(

PMÞ

) as well as related post-medieval poetic forms that have received little scholarly attention.

Gurevich (2017) discusses in particular “versified catalogues of poetic terms (heiti) for the main subjects of skaldic

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

3161 words

Citation: Helgadóttir, Yelena Sesselja. "Þulur". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 12 January 2024 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=19660, accessed 21 November 2024.]

View recommended reading for this article

Þulur

Domains

Dates

Places

Resources

Save this article

Leave Feedback