(sing. 

), or “metrical romances”, were specifically Icelandic, and formed the dominating poetic genre in Iceland from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century. The 

 were based on written sagas, and most of them follow the plot of the prose texts closely. They are therefore long and detailed. Many of them deal with chivalric and heroic matters and are based upon the translated and original Icelandic romances (

), the mythical-heroic sagas (legendary sagas, cf. 

) and other kinds of saga literature. But even if the 

 poets usually composed their poems from written sources, this is not very often specifically mentioned. As an example of this is the poet of 

 who claims to have obtained his material from a book…

1411 words

Citation: Guðmundsdóttir, Aðalheiður. "Rímur". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 03 November 2022 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=19657, accessed 21 November 2024.]