The practiced reader of English verse will be able to read the translations - aloud or silently - without reference to the many details and explanations that follow. The translations are designed to be read aloud (many of them even to be sung to the traditional tunes associated with their Icelandic originals). In every such case, this is clearly indicated in the note on form at the end of the translation. In a few cases, however, only some of the prosodic features of an original are imitated, or else similar features are used in different patterns (see "I Send Greetings!" and "The Beast!" ).
In general, the present translations attempt to imitate the prosodic features of their originals quite closely and to distribute these features in the same patterns (see, for example, "Iceland" and "At an Old Grave, 1841" ). 2 It goes without saying that verse translations of poetry are the product of many compromises, compromises that are hopefully - if the translations are to mirror the originals in any consistent way - to some degree principled and systematic.
The aim of the translations in this collection is threefold: (1) to convey the essential meaning of Jónas Hallgrímsson's poems with tolerable fidelity and as clearly as possible and at the same time (2) to suggest the complexity of their formal features and the virtuosity of Jónas's technique and (3) to do all this using a relatively simple and straightforward English poetical lexicon and unforced, idiomatic syntax.