Talk:Snorri Sturluson

message: It might be an idea for someone with considerable Snorri knowledge to have a gaze through the fact and narrative of the article. It seems that the tone fluctuates and contains potentially unhelpful phraseology: "and the war was on" and "saga-type actions" which are overly familiar. Zach Beauvais 19:51, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Tone

message: Would it be inaccurate to trans-alphabetize Alþingi "All-thingy"? Assuming that there is no one in the world who can read written English who is actually clueless concerning the  þ thorn glyph - well, this is a mistaken assumption. Sadly, all the world isn't fluent in Icelandic just yet, even if Island pwns alles. Metarhyme 23:15, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Iceland's embassy in the U.S. uses Althingi on its English-language FAQ, and use without an article ("Althingi is a legislative body...") as one would do with "Congress" or "Parliament."  The U.S. State Department's background notes on Iceland also uses Althingi, as does the National Geographic Society, though the CIA World Factbook uses Althing.  Seems to me the Icelanders writing in English ought to know.  — OtherDave 20:33, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In fact, writing in a language not your own can be extremely tricky, especially about something you know well in your native tongue. The English word is Althing, almost always. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:44, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

text: The "Icelanders writing in English" was slightly tongue in cheek, though I feel confident that those writing text for the Icelandic embassy have strong English skills.  It does appear that the U.S. State Department and the National Geographic Society, neither burdened with Icelandic as a native tongue, disagree with the "almost always" contention. — OtherDave 23:35, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

text: While making a big deal about grammatical minutia [and not signing it] in an article likely written by someone for whom English is a second or third or fourth language is bad manners.  Also pretty basic stuff. So, which is worse? Carptrash 00:40, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Changed to "consists of" as active voice; but if someone feels like making it "comprise", as our anon should have done, so what? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:38, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

text: "Basic stuff," perhaps, but as Merriam-Webster notes, "comprise" in the sense of compose or constitute has been in use since the late 18th century, even in the apparently shocking "is comprised of" construction.  — OtherDave 02:11, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  the Alþingi 

message: Some odinists feel that he misintperits the Gods through a Chirstain perspective as show here 
Surley this deserves a mention in the article at least?--RainyDayCrow 03:28, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Is there an academic source on this disagreement? Its well established that Snorri's work is somewhat unreliable due to his historical proximity and artistic license taken , its a problem common to early transcriptions of oral mythos, but "odinists" disagreeing with him in a way more substantial than that? That claims going to need reliable sources. Duckmonster (talk) 00:40, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disliked by Odinists? 

message: What is meant by Snorri becoming the "king's chamberlain"? There was, of course, no such title in Norway, what is the Norwegian title that is translated as chamberlain in this article? I am very unsure if it's an appropriate translation.--Barend (talk) 17:04, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I can only guess that it's supposed to be a translation of drottsete as the other hird offices fits even less. Fornadan (t) 00:30, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, I looked it up myself - and it is skutilsvein. That is the title which later in the 13th century was converted to riddar, which translates easily to knight. I'd say the translation chamberlain is not just inappropriate, it's plain wrong. And speculating that It is unclear that he understood the significance of these honors seems very unlikely - Snorri was certaily no fool.--Barend (talk) 14:11, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  King's chamberlain? 

message: How did he die?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.124.184.104 (talk) 03:43, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: He was assassinated. BodvarBjarki (talk) 21:11, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

text: Assassinated by Gissur Thorvaldsson, his erstwhile son-in-law. The article doesn't mention that latter fact. Steinireyk (talk) 19:06, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unfinished? 

message: Until now, the discussion on this article is mainly concerned with spelling and such side issues. Unable to resist intervening, I point out that Snorri wrote his name in Latin letters, and as it happens, no letters that are particular to Icelandic are required. It should therefore be harmless to spell his name as he did himself, although it is only fair to acknowledge variations based on usage in other languages (and provide for redirections).
Other names are however curiously, but very inconsistently, modified in spelling, apparently in the expectation of pleasing readers unfamiliar with the language they belong to. This is a disservice. A reader gains nothing from the impression that Sighvatur (Sighvatr in older spelling) may be “Sigvat” in the nominative case, Klængur “Klaeing”, or Ormur “Orm”. The masculine nominative ending -ur in Icelandic is of the same nature as the common corresponding masc. nom. sing. -us in Latin. While this may not be important or even interesting, there is no reason to hide the proper nominative ending away for the sake of petty comforts, even if they exist outside the writer’s imagination. And readers unfamiliar with Æ lose nothing by being shown a letter that has been used in very many languages for ages, and was also frequently used in Latin.
As for king’s chamberlain, it demands learning to be able to convert a title such as skutilsveinn (with a double n in the nominative) to correlates in other systems. The reader may be expected to know this, and a slight discrepancy in such matters is hardly of great consequence. But there are many (other) indications that the writer’s self-confidence overwhelms his learning.
Aside from such relatively minor irritations, the article is mostly of biographical content, about the life (not so much the works or later significance) of a man living in troubled and violent times. Although biographical information is of course appropriate in an article about a particular person, I believe that the details of the political tangles, terror and warfare of the sturlungaöld (the Age of the Sturlungar) in Iceland are, like the basically similar details of the Civil War Era in Norway, of relatively limited interest to Wikipedia readers generally. The same may probably be said of who married whom and the accompanying financial and political arrangements. On the other hand Snorri´s value to medieval studies and European prehistory (maybe even extending to Rus and Turkey), is important to all interested in those and related fields. It is a pity that a quality Wikipedia article on Snorri has yet to be written.
I am just a lawyer, not a historian. Merely that kind of education, while not directly to the point, suffices quite well to ensure the realization of a fact that must be fundamental to all study of history, namely that concepts, beliefs, attitudes and views change by time and place. As far as I know the concept of “State” was new in Snorri’s time, i.e. if applied to territories controlled by reguli (petty kings). To the extent it may have been accepted in NW Europe in his day, it was not defined in the same way as now. Much the same can be said of the so often accompanying terms “sovereignty” and “independence”. And Icelanders back then hardly saw themselves as a “nation” different from the Norwegians, knowing full well that they were in fact Norsemen (which comes close to being a synonym for “Norwegians”) living in Iceland. I was disillusioned by the writer’s obvious uncritical swallowing and regurgitation of the “presentist” views of Icelandic history promulgated by many of my compatriots (i.e. the Icelanders) from the late 19th century and even to this day, although Icelandic nationalistic self-inflation and many of its tenets had already in the 1970s subsided to the extent of making a measure of revision possible for academically trained Icelandic historians. In my opinion such sentiments have little function besides providing a playing field for demagogues, and people earnestly desiring knowledge have no business there.
I therefore pulled myself together, logged in to Wikipedia, and made some changes to the article, the most extensive of which was a new passage beginning with “In a way Snorri made a comeback into politics long after his death”. I deleted an assertion to the effect that the “Icelandic commonwealth” was “a sovereign nation” in 1173, and some other pieces of what I thought “presentist” nonsense, such as assertions of “despicable” attitudes of chieftains who wanted to accept union with Norway, and comments such as about the unnaturalness of Snorri serving a king in “one country” while holding high office in “another”. Such comments indicate views that are, I believe, at best uninteresting to others, and at worst ridiculous. In fact the article says little about Snorri, but provides considerable info about the writer. The writer also uses terms such as commando and guerilla, which are out of place, not so much because they or their equivalents in other languages came into use much later, but mainly because if used, their intended meaning must correspond to their modern one. The term “chain of command” is another example of the same. This implies regular State-run military organization and discipline, but Icelanders, like Greek hoplitai of old, did not fight on such a basis. I have been told it was the Romans who invented the system of “officers” and “other ranks”, and thus paved the way for terms such as “chain of command”. Of course both the ancient Greeks and the ancient Icelanders generally submitted in practice to the will of men of superior social rank and carried out the directions they gave, but the idea of committing to a person the power to give another free person orders that were to be obeyed unconditionally as a matter of duty, and enforceable by the severest measures, was foreign to both.  I left all these terms untouched, and even managed to resist tampering with the comment that king Hákon “went on suborning the chiefs of Iceland”, which I regret.
As I understand it, I need not apologize to anyone for my intrusion into the article. The enterprise of editing it was conceived as a little tidying-up and at the same time an exercise. But these small changes do very little for the article, because an article of the quality Snorri deserves must be coherently conceived from beginning to end. And it must of course also include information on whatever significance he may have had for later times, and how he may be of value to modern scholars. That is something I am not capable of.
Therefore “it might be an idea for someone with considerable Snorri knowledge to have a gaze through the fact and narrative of the article”. Indeed it might. And I heartily endorse the comment that “if you could manage to choke down your outrage and nationalism so we can turn this into a star article I would appreciate that.” It is unfortunate that a topic like Snorri should be bogged down in obsolete nationalistic-presentistic humbug.
I may contact a person or two whom I deem capable of writing such an article. That person should not only be knowledgeable about literature, but also about European prehistory, European paganism, and much more which I as a layman can have little idea about. If you are interested in Snorri and his works, I ask you to do the same.
--Togifex (talk) 11:17, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some general comments: 

message: if this article isn't on purpose made confusing, then some serious cleanup is in order. for example, "As Sturla was trying to settle a lawsuit with Father Páll Sölvason, the latter's wife lunged suddenly at him with a knife, intending, she said, to make him like his hero Odin"
who's "Páll Sölvason" ? he has not been mentioned in the article before and he is not linked to. who's wife did that ? what lawsuit ?
it's like a few passages taken from a middle of a literary work without any context...
--Richlv (talk) 08:01, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  totally confusing article 

message: I think it's important to show why it took until the 20th century for Sturluson to get his respect back.  Who were his biographers in the interim?  Who wrote the scholarly studies of his work in the interim?  What do modern scholars say about what happened in the interim and what are their sources?
71.163.117.143 (talk) 21:20, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Well you better get busy on this.  You have a lot to do. Carptrash (talk) 04:46, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  important discussion missing? 

message: The reason for my adding this section to the talk page is simply to see if I'm alone in my opinions on the (over)use of the "Citation Needed" template. I am not implying that there is no use for this template or that citations are unnecessary. I occasionally use the template myself (if you're looking for examples, this is a new accoun—my old account got hacked—but back in the day I'd insert them when needed). The point is I'm not arguing for its ban or anything. I know it's a commonly accepted practice to insert a "Citation Needed" template whenever one is needed, which is perfectly acceptable, as many facts (though by no means all) should be linked to at least one or two externally published, verifiable references.
And although I do feel the template has been possibly overused in this article, I'm not singling the "Snorri Sturluson" article out. I've seen some Wikipedia/Wiki* pages that are actually littered with them. These articles are so obsessively dotted with innumerable "Citation Needed" templates that it's nearly impossible to comprehend the articles' content! This is not one of those, but there are quite a few of these templates for such a short article. My main issue with the abuse of the "Citation Needed" template (or use of "Citation Needed", period) consists of the following mis-uses:
1. A lot of people misuse the words "Citation Needed" by just popping one onto the end of literally any statement that they find fault with personally and subjectively. In other words, whenever these people read a statement they disagree with, whether it's true, false, accurate, inaccurate, their opinion or objective fact, etc. They just slap a "Citation Needed" template onto the end as if they were designed to be appended to every sentence, just like a period is. In many instances, no reference is even needed according to Wikipedia or MediaWiki's conventions. 
2. The other way people abuse "Citation Needed" statements is this: They liberally sprinkle them throughout the article whenever they find a statement that should include a reference, or those that they aren't sure about whether a reference is needed. This starts out ok, because naturally we need to have references in many statements. The problem with these people is they ONLY add the "Citation Needed" template, job done. They don't EVER bother to try and find a citation themselves, or try and verify the statement, or anything else. They just say "Oh, that needs a citation...and that, and that, and THAT...ad nauseam".
I'm not sure which category this page falls under, but it's obviously an abuse (not a use) of it when there are more instances of "Citation Needed" than of any other words in the article. Unless people think you should practice using Citation Needed statements as much as someone with OCD, of course. x) Because the world is full of different kinds of people, obviously some people won't agree with me. But I refuse to believe I'm the only one who has a problem with the way some people use it, as in the examples above.
I'm aware this isn't the best place for this section, but the article is a perfect example of the template's misuse, so I decided to "Feel" whether anyone else has noticed this phenomenon ever. I am also not trying to "correct" or "judge" anyone. I am merely trying to understand and to increase the accuracy and quality of Wikipedia and its articles, because most Wikipedians (at least those of us that sign in with an account) are decent, competent and intelligent editors/writers. But it only takes a few bad apples to ruin the whole batch, right? Thanks for your time. And I'm sorry this section is so long. It's just hard to describe exactly, and I've been up for going on 48 hours (my own kind of abuse, that of time lol), so . . .
:so . . .... don't forget to sign your posts with 4 of these `. Carptrash (talk) 05:20, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Too Many "Citation Needed" Items? 

message: I added a "Works as an author" section to this article, which is pretty poor right now and I'm hoping to be able to improve it later. Since I'm very inexperienced in this, the section is pretty short and lacking at the moment, I'd be very thankful if someone could just say what I should do better if I continue working on this article. (like, seriously im rly bad at this) Quadritzel (talk) 13:45, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  New (poorly designed) section