In his career as a poet, Jónas Hallgrímsson was the most influential figure at the beginning of Icelandic literary Romanticism and, according to many literary critics, the outstanding lyric voice of modern Icelandic literature. Even as he revivified the classic metrical forms of Old Icelandic, Jónas Hallgrímsson also introduced the use of foreign meters--for example, he composed the first known sonnet in the Icelandic language, "Ég bid ad heilsa" (I Send Greetings). His output included poetry, short stories, fairy tales, scientific papers on Icelandic natural history, and translations of works on such diverse topics as swimming and astronomy. The last, a translation and adaptation of Populært Foredrag over Astronomien (Popular Discourse on Astronomy, 1837) by Georg Frederik Ursin, published in Videiar Klantstri in 1842, was judged a major achievement, not least for its inventiveness in creating new Icelandic words...