On the Faroese Reworking of Paradise Lost

• Main Author: Sigurðardóttir, Turið
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: Oxford University PressOxford 2023
• Subjects: Faroe Islands
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192844743.003.0007; https://academic.oup.com/book/chapter-pdf/56620241/oso-9780192844743-chapter-7.pdf

Abstract When Paradise Lost was retold in Faroese around 1820, Danish had been the language of religion in the Faroe Islands since the Reformation. The Faroese version of Paradise Lost was composed by the ballad poet Jens Christian Djurhuus, a central figure in the revival of the Faroese ballad in the early nineteenth century. Djurhuus’s rendering of Paradise Lost is exceptional not only in his body of work but in Faroese literature on the whole since the Faroese language had been out of use in religious matters for centuries. Having no tradition at hand, Djurhuus forges his version with the tools available: the language and poetics of the ballad, Danish religious language, and last but not least, the metre of a banned Catholic hymn, in which he boldly composes his poem Púkaljómur [Devil’s Tones].