Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson: Tales from Norse Mythology FROM THE PUBLISHER
Written by Iceland's most versatile literary genius, Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda is a work without predecessor or parallel. Snorri was born in western Iceland in 1179, the son of a great chieftan, and early in his career won a reputation at home and in Norway for his poetic talents. Later he traveled to Norway and wrote the lives of the kinds: the Helmskringla Saga, Egil's Saga, and St. Olaf's Saga, a work unsurpassed in Icelandice prose.
The Prose Edda - edda means "the poetic art" - was designed as a handbook for poets to compose in the style of the skalds of the Viking ages. Snorri feared that the traditional techniques, the pagan kennings, and the allusions to mythology would be forgotten with the introduction of new verse forms from Europe. Arranged in three parts, The Prose Edda is an exposition of the rules of poetic diction with many examples, applications, and retellings of myths and legends. The first part is the Gylfagginning, "The Deluding of Gylfi," a guide to mythology that forms one of the great story books of the Middle Ages. The second part, the Skaldskaparmial, "Poetic Diction," gives examples of technical expressions such as kennings. The third part, the Hattatal, a long poem written in honor of King Hakon and Duke Skuli, is omitted in this translation.
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