'I was born in the North of Iceland, on April 30, 1851, and was a farmer's boy of good old family. My chief work at home was haymaking in summer, and in winter being a shepherd. Every spring I was up all the long bright nights, watching the flock that they should not damage the cultivated soil by eating the young grass. I think that solitude (from the eighth to fourteenth year of my life) has fostered my fancy and imagination and dipped me deep in the romanticism of that time (1858-64). In 1865 I went to Reykjavik, and was initiated at the Lyceum (Latin school) in the spring of 1866. I went through the Lyceum in ordinary course. When I began to read Virgilius I felt as if I got wings on my immortal soul, and I think I shall never lose them wholly again. I began to read the poets, starting with the comedies of Old Holberg the Dane, and passing to Schiller and Goethe and Heine. I read all plays of Shakespeare (in Danish translation, then). I studied "Oidipous Tyrannos," Sophocles' awful tragedy, in the original, and read Plautus and Terentius as other boys, Icelandic and Danish fiction.
'During my first year at college I saw Matthías Jochumsson's "Utilegumenn" (The Outlaws) performed at Reykjavik: they had then very fine Icelandic scenery, and went home in ecstasy over the performance, feeling that I had seen the brightest and strongest play in the world. Of my reading I thought "Macbeth," "Gretchen im Carcer" ("Faust" I), and "Oidipous Tyrannos" finest and fullest. While at Reykjavik I wrote "Nyársnóttin" (New Year's Night) and got it acted at the college, with the greatest possible success. That drama formed a turning point in my life--as the author of it I went to Copenhagen to pursue my studies as graduate student. I left college made to half of what I am.
'While studying Political Science at Copenhagen I wrote the drama, "Hellismenn" (The Cave-dwellers). I had come south with two other dramas in my mind. But the atmosphere in Copenhagen was strongly realistic at that time; my Romanticism was not able to withstand it. Without my knowledge I turned to Realism, and when I began to think about my intended dramas I could not write on them because all my thoughts had taken another direction. After completing my examinations I returned, Copenhagen having made the other half of what I am. In 1880 I was appointed auditor of the Official Accounts of Iceland, and got married. During the ten ensuing years I was buried under an avalanche of accounts and official documents and could hardly hold my head up above the waters. The wings of my soul drooped with exhaustion. My dramatic muse awakened several times, but I could not receive her visits. At last, in 1890, I began to write "Skipit sekkur" [The Ship is Sinking,--a naturalistic drama], parts of which I rewrote seven times; so badly had I treated my muse that she began to work so slowly....'