Þorsteinn Erlingsson

Þorsteinn Erlingsson (1858–1914), was an Icelandic poet. He graduated from Menntaskólinn í Reykjavík in 1883 and went to Copenhagen to study law. He never finished law school but during his time in Copenhagen his poems became known in Iceland. He returned to his home country in 1895 and died of pneumonia in Reykjavík in 1914.

Þorsteinn was an atheist and a socialist. While much of his poetry attacked the ruling classes and the church he also composed popular ditties and poems on nature reminiscent of romanticism. Sometimes, as in his poem Sólskríkjan, the two themes are intertwined. Other well-known poems include:

Þorsteinn's volume of poetry, Þyrnar ("Thorns"), was first published in 1897 although many of the poems had been published before individually.

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