Sveinn Yngvi Egilsson, professor of Icelandic literature at the University of Iceland, will give a talk at the National Library on Wednesday, October 5th at 12 noon, which he calls “The Aesthetics of Uncertainty: Snorri Hjartarson and John Keats”. The talk is part of the Reykjavík Reading Festival program.

John Keats (1795–1821) presented ideas about poetry that can be taken into account when reading the poems of Snorri Hjartarson. Snorri was greatly moved by Keats's poems and incorporated them into his own poetry. His original poetry and attitude to poetry are in many ways similar to what Keats calls negative capability. In this case, the poet immerses himself in different circumstances and avoids egotism, but feels with everything that draws breath and tries to… perceive the beauty of the world. The poet is then in the position of a sufferer rather than a doer and does not use reasoning but artistic and multifaceted perception. Empathy and sensitivity to nature leave a strong impression on the poems of Keats and Snorri, but they also share certain poetic methods and poetic style, as will be discussed in the talk. Negative skill lies, among other things, in poetic uncertainty that is challenged against logical certainty, and thus poetry can manage to show life as it is, instead of subjecting it to preconceived ideas about what should be.