Martin L. Chase

I plan to produce a critical edition, with full apparatus, commentary, and translation into English, of previously unedited devotional poetry composed in Iceland at the end of the medieval period. The first stage of the larger project will be an edition of Siðbót ("Conversion"), a 52-stanza poem on the biblical story of Susanna, which I plan to submit for publication in 2009. Siðbót has affinities with the Middle English Pistel of Swete Susan, and my edition will include a comparative study. I will subsequently edit the five related poems that remain inaccessible. My work will involve transcribing the poems from manuscripts and establishing critical texts, as well as investigating the linguistic, literary, theological, and social context of these works from the eve of the Reformation.