When surveying Icelandic poetry in the twentieth century, one is tempted to say that no poet equals Steinn Steinarr in importance. Literary critics may ascribe superior poetic craftsmanship to Tómas Gudmundsson, Snorri Hjartarson, and Stefán Hördur Grímsson, but they find Steinn's capacity to phrase in his poetry the spirit of his times virtually peerless. No one better put into words the inferiority complex of a premodern people on the threshold of a new society that demanded of its citizens, who had been country people, that without much ado they find their place in a new, urban society. "Steinn Steinarr er skáld fyrstu persónu eintölu" (Steinn Steinarr is a poet of the first person singular), the poet and critic Kristján Karlsson stated in his introduction to Steinn Steinarr's collected works, Kvædasafn...