Tómas Guðmundsson (6 January 1901 – 14 November 1983) was an Icelandic writer. He was known as

Reykjavík Reykjavík is the Capital city, capital and largest city in Iceland. It is located in southwestern Iceland on the southern shore of Faxaflói, the Faxaflói Bay. With a latitude of 64°08′ N, the city is List of northernmost items, the worl ...

's poet ''(Reykjavíkurskáldið, skáld Reykjavíkur)''. Tómas's parents were Steinunn Þorsteinsdóttir and Guðmundur Ögmundsson, living at Efri-Brú in Grímsnes. He soon got in touch with literature and poetry. He read

Icelandic sagas The sagas of Icelanders (, ), also known as family sagas, are a subgenre, or text group, of Icelandic sagas. They are prose narratives primarily based on historical events that mostly took place in Iceland in the ninth, tenth, and early elev ...

Jónas Hallgrímsson Jónas Hallgrímsson (16 November 1807 – 26 May 1845) was an Icelandic poet, writer and naturalist. He was one of the founders of the Icelandic journal ''Fjölnir'', which was first published in Copenhagen in 1835. The magazine was used by J ...

's poems and more. He also started to write his own poetry at a young age.

Career

He moved to Reykjavík and studied at

Menntaskólinn í Reykjavík Menntaskólinn í Reykjavík (MR; official name in English: Reykjavik College) is collegein Iceland. It is located in Reykjavík. The school traces its origin to 1056, when a school was established in Skálholt, and it remains one of the oldest ...

, there he got in touch with many authors, including

Halldór Laxness Halldór Kiljan Laxness (; born Halldór Guðjónsson; 23 April 1902 – 8 February 1998) was an Icelandic writer and winner of the 1955 Nobel Prize in Literature. He wrote novels, poetry, newspaper articles, essays, plays, travelogues and sh ...

(they formed a close friendship during the M.R. years),

Guðmundur G. Hagalín Guðmundur Gíslason Hagalín (Lokinhömrum in Arnarfjörthur, October 10, 1898 – Akranesi, February 26, 1985) was an Icelandic writer who came from the sea-girt Western Fiords of Iceland, where he was a fisherman before attending secondary scho ...

and

Davíð Stefánsson Davíð Stefánsson (21 January 1895 – 1 March 1964) was an Icelandic poet and novelist, best known for his ten volumes of poetry. He was born on 21 January 1895, in Fagriskógur, Eyjafjörður, Iceland and he died on 1 March 1964, in Akureyr ...

. Tómas graduated from M.R. in 1921. He then studied law at

Háskóli Íslands The University of Iceland ( ) is a public research university in Reykjavík, Iceland, and the country's oldest and largest institution of higher education. Founded in 1911, it has grown steadily from a small civil servants' school to a modern com ...

and graduated in 1926. During that time he got in touch with even more authors, including Jón Thoroddsen junior. After his graduation he opened an office to practise law and in 1928 he started working at Hagstofa Íslands. He closed his office in 1929 and quit the bureau in 1943. From 1943 he mostly worked at poetry and authorship. He was one of the editors of the literary magazines ''Helgafell'' and ''Nýja Helgafell'', and also translated stories, plays and poems.

Death

Tómas died 1983 in Reykjavík, aged 82.

Legacy

Since 1994, the city of Reykjavík has made an award in memory of Tómas called the

Bókmenntaverðlaun Tómasar Guðmundssonar The Bókmenntaverðlaun Tómasar Guðmundssonar (Tómas Guðmundsson literature award) is an award which the city of Reykjavík awards in memory of the poet Tómas Guðmundsson. The award was first made in 1994, and thereafter every other year up ...

(the Tómas Guðmundsson literature award). A statue of Tómas by the sculptor Halla Gunnarsdóttir was unveiled in 2010 at the southern end of the

Tjörnin Tjörnin () is a small, prominent lake in central Reykjavík, the capital of Iceland. Most visitors to the city pass along its shore, as it is situated in the city centre next to the Reykjavik City Hall and several museums. ''Tjörnin'' means "t ...

, a lake in Reykjavík centrum.

Works

Tómas's poems were mostly traditional and his style did not change much during his career. The poems are mostly about Reykjavík and his place of youth. The first three books he published, ''Við sundin blá'', ''Fagra veröld'' and ''Stjörnur vorsins'' belong to

neoromanticism The term neo-romanticism is used to cover a variety of movements in philosophy, literature, music, painting, and architecture, as well as social movements, that exist after and incorporate elements from the era of Romanticism. It has been used ...

and so do his last two books, ''Fljótið helga'' and ''Heim til þín, Ísland'', but its signs are not as strong.

Publications

*1925: Við sundin blá, poems *1933: Fagra veröld, poems *1940: Stjörnur vorsins, poems *1950: Fljótið helga, poems *1953: Ljóðasafn, poems *1977: Heim til þín, Ísland, poems

References

*''Musterissvipurinn mikli'' - Inngangur að ævi Tómasar Guðmundssonar og greining á ljóði hans Við höfnina -. 13 March 2004. Tómas Guðmundsson

DF {{DEFAULTSORT:Gudmundsson, Tomas 1901 births 1983 deaths Tomas Gudmundsson