ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the poetry of Jonas Hallgrimsson, who grew up on a country farm in Iceland and later became a geologist by education and profession. As is the case with many a Nordic poet who enjoyed formal education but had rural roots, Jonas's poetry does not fit easily into any single category, but can be seen to modulate constantly between what people can call Pastoral, Sublime and Scientific, and thus reflects a complicated and creative vision of nature in all its diversity. It bears witness to an ongoing conversation between the poet and nature, and it reveals the constant interplay between an inner and an outer nature, between the subject and material reality. Jonas became a natural scientist by education and profession, but he is better remembered now for what he did in his spare time writing poetry. He is the single most influential poet of modern Icelandic literature.
