Edda

Jon Fosse has translated and published a number of books with Skald. What unites them is that they are works he himself regards as deeply significant for his own authorship. Alongside modern classics, he has been inspired and absorbed by the Norwegian sagas, which he has rendered into Nynorsk.

The mythological poems in what is now called The Poetic Edda lived on in oral tradition for an unknown span of time before being written down in Iceland in the 13th and 14th centuries. The collection was rediscovered in the mid-1600s and has since, together with the Prose Edda, remained the most central work in Norse mythology.

Jon Fosse’s stage version is built upon several of the most well-known poems, such as Völuspá, Vafþrúðnismál, Grímnismál, Þrymskviða, Lokasenna, and Baldrs draumar.

Fosse has given the poems his own distinctive voice. He has written a dramatic dialogue with strong musical and rhythmic qualities, managing to bring the stories close to us while, at the same time, keeping their tales and ideas exotic and distant.