Born in Iceland in 1858, Finnur Jónsson came to Copenhagen as a student in 1878 and lived there until his death in 1934. He became a lecturer in Nordic philology at the University of Copenhagen in 1887, and a professor from 1898, a position he retained until his retirement in 1928.

Finnur’s importance to Nordic philology lies largely in his numerous editions of Old Norse texts: Egils saga (1886-88), Hauksbók (1892-96), Heimskingla (1893-1901), Landnámabók (1900), Færeyinga saga (1927), Morkinskinna (1928-32) and Ólafs saga Tryggvasonar (1932). His most famous text edition is Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning (1912-15), a four-volume comprehensive edition of skaldic poetry which remained the standard edition throughout the 20th century.

Additionally, Finnur published numerous critical studies, including a comprehensive literary history, Den oldnorske og oldislandske Litteraturs Historie, in three volumes (1894-1902). Besides a new edition of Sveinbjörn Egilsson’s Lexicon Poeticum (1913-16), he furthermore compiled a dictionary of the poetic language of Old Icelandic which remains an essential tool of reference for scholars in the field. Finnur’s breadth of knowledge of the medieval literature of Iceland was unrivalled in his day and his productivity remains unsurpassed.

During his lifetime, Finnur (who, despite his admiration for Iceland’s ancient greatness, had reservations about an independence which he felt to be premature) was strongly criticized for not being nationalistic enough, and for his belief that Eddic poetry was largely Norwegian. On the other hand, he was dismissive of Latin influences on ancient Nordic literature, which he believed to emanate from a Nordic spirit; this nativism rendered him hostile to the idea of links between medieval European and Nordic literature. Finnur thought of himself as a rationalist; in his autobiography, he prides himself on his lack of imagination. His scholarly life included many campaigns against all theories that he believed to be fanciful, and part of his rationalistic credo was that most fictional and religious literature was inferior to the realism of the sagas.