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GERMAN LITERATURE
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See also:GERMAN LITERATURE . Compared with other literatures, that of the See also:German-speaking peoples presents a strangely broken and interrupted course; it falls into more or less isolated See also:groups, separated from each other by periods which in intellectual darkness and ineptitude are virtually without a parallel in other See also:European lands . The explanation of this irregularity of development is to be sought less in the chequered See also:political See also:history of the German See also:people—although this was often See also:reason enough—than in the strongly marked, one might almost say, provocative See also:character of the See also:national mind as expressed in literature . The Germans were not able, like their partially latinized See also:English See also:cousins—or even their Scandinavian neighbours—to adapt themselves to the various waves of See also:literary See also:influence which emanated from See also:Italy and See also:France and spread with irresistible See also:power over all See also:Europe; their literary history has been rather a struggle for See also:independent expression, a See also:constant warring against outside forces, even when the latter—like the influence of English literature in the 18th See also:century and of Scandinavian at the See also:close of the 19th—were hailed as friendly and not hostile . It is a peculiarity of German literature that in those ages when, owing to its own poverty and See also:impotence, it was reduced to borrowing its ideas and its poetic forms from other lands, it sank to the most servile See also:imitation; while the first sign of returning See also:health has invariably been the repudiation of See also:foreign influence and the assertion of the right of See also:genius to untrammelled expression . Thus See also:Germany's periods of literary efflorescence rarely coincide. with those of other nations, and See also:great European movements, like the See also:Renaissance, passed over her without producing a single great poet . This chequered course, however, renders the grouping of German literature and the task of the historian the easier . The first and simplest See also:classification is that afforded by the various stages_ of linguistic development . In accordance with the three divisions in the history of the High German See also:language, there is an Old High German, a See also:Middle High German and a New High German or See also:Modern High German literary See also:epoch . It is obvious, however, that the last of these divisions covers too enormous a See also:period of literary history to be regarded as analogous to the first two . The See also:present survey is consequently divided into six See also:main sections: I . The Old High German Period, including the literature of the Old Saxon See also:dialect, from the earliest times to the middle of the 11th century . II . The Middle High German Period, from the middle of the I1th to the middle of the 14th century . IV . The Period of Renaissance and Pseudo-classicism, from the end of the 16th century to the middle of the 18th . V . The Classical Period of Modern German literature, from the middle of the 18th century to See also:Goethe's See also:death in 1832 . VI . The Period from Goethe's death to the present See also:day . I . THE OLD HIGH GERMAN PERIOD (c . 750—1050) Of all the Germanic races, the tribes with which we have more particularly to See also:deal here were the latest to attain intellectual maturity . The Goths had, centuries earlier, under their famous See also:bishop See also:Ulfilas or Wulfila, possessed the See also:Bible in their See also:vernacular, the See also:northern races could point to their See also:Edda, the Germanic tribes in See also:England to a See also:rich and virile Old English See also:poetry, before a written German literature of any consequence existed at all .
At the same See also:time, these See also:continental tribes, in the epoch that See also:lay
between the Migrations of the 5th century and the See also:age of See also: In fact, for the only genuine poetry of this epoch we have to look, not to the High German but to the See also:Low German races . They alone seemed able to give literary expression to the memories handed down in oral tradition from the 5th century; to Saxon tradition we owe the earliest extant fragment of a national See also:saga, the Lay of See also:Hildebrand (Hildebrandslied, c . 800), and a Saxon poet was the author of a vigorous alliterative version of the Gospel See also:story, the See also:Heliand (c . 83o), and also of See also:part of the Old Testament (See also:Genesis) . This alliterative epic—for epic it may be called—is the one poem of this age in which the Christian tradition has been adapted to German poetic' needs . Of the existence of a lyric poetry we only know by hearsay; and the See also:drama had nowhere in Europe yet emerged from its earliest purely liturgic See also:condition . Such as it was, the vernacular literature of the Old High German period enjoyed but a brief existence, and in the loth and 11th centuries darkness again closed over it . The dominant "German" literature in these centuries is in Latin; but that literature is not without national interest, for it shows in what direction the German mind was moving . The Lay of See also:Walter (Waltharilied, c . 930), written in elegant hexameters by Ekkehard of St See also:Gall, the moralizing dramas of See also:Hrosvitha (Roswitha) of See also:Gandersheim, the Ecbasis captivi (c . 940), earliest of all the Beast epics, and the romantic adventures of See also:Ruodlieb (c . 1030), form a literature which, Latin although it is, foreshadows the future developments of German poetry .
H
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THE MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN PERIOD (1o50-135o)
(a) Early Middle High German Poetry.—The beginnings of Middle High German literature were hardly less tentative than those of the preceding period
.
The Saxon emperors, with their Latin and even See also:Byzantine tastes, had made it extremely difficult to take up the See also:thread where Notker let it drop
.
Williram of Ebersherg, the commentator of the See also:Song of Songs (c
.
1063), did certainly profit by Notker's example, but he stands alone
.
The See also: 1o6o), a spirited lay by a monk of See also:Bamberg on the life, miracles and death of See also:Christ, and in the Annolied (c. ro8o), a poem in praise of the See also:archbishop See also:Anno of See also:Cologne, we find, however, some traces of a higher poetic See also:imagination . The transition from this rigid ecclesiastic spirit to a freer, more imaginative literature is to be seen in the lyric poetry inspired by the Virgin, in the legends of the See also:saints which bulk so largely in the poetry of the 12th century, and in the See also:general trend towards See also:mysticism . Andreas, See also:Pilatus, Aegidius, Albanius are the heroes of monkish romances of that age, and the stories of See also:Sylvester and Crescentia form the most attractive parts of the Kaiserchronik (c . 1130-1150), a long, confused See also:chronicle of the See also:world which contains many elements See also:common to later Middle High German poetry . The national sagas, of which the poet of the Kaiserchronik had not been oblivious, soon began to assert themselves in the popular literature . The wandering Spielleute, the lineal descendants of the jesters and minstrels of the dark ages, who were now rapidly becoming a See also:factor of importance in literature, were here the innovators; to them we owe the See also:romance of See also:Konig Rother (c . 116o), and the kindred stories of See also:Orendel, See also:Oswald and Salomon and Markolf (Salman and Morolf) . All these poems See also:bear See also:witness to a new See also:element, which in these years kindled the German imagination and helped to counteract the austerity of the religious faith—the See also:Crusades . With what alacrity the Germans revelled in the wonderland of the See also:East is to be seen especially in the Alexanderlied (c . 1130), and in See also:Herzog See also:Ernst (c . 1180), romances which point out the way to another important development of German See also:medieval literature, the See also:Court epic . The latter type of romance was the immediate product of the social conditions created by See also:chivalry and, like chivalry itself, was determined and influenced by its See also:French origin; so also was the version of the Chanson de See also:Roland (Rolandslied, c .
1135), which we owe to another See also:priest, Konrad of See also:Regensburg, who, with considerable See also:probability, has been identified with the author of the Kaiserchronik
.
The Court epic was, however, more immediately ushered in by Eilhart von Oberge, a native of the neighbourhood of See also:Hildesheim who, in his Tristant (c
.
1170), See also:chose that Arthurian type of romance which from now on was especially cultivated by the poets of the Court epic; and of equally early origin is a knightly romance of See also:Floris and Blanchefiur, another of the favourite love stories of the middle ages
.
In these years, too, the Beast epic, which had been represented by the Latin Ecbasis captivi, was reintroduced into Germany by an Alsatian monk, Heinrich der Glichezxre, who based his See also:Reinhart See also:Fuchs (c
.
118o) on the French See also:Roman de Renart
.
Lastly, we have to consider the beginning of the Minnesang, or lyric, which in the last decades of the 12th century burst out with extraordinary vigour in See also:Austria and See also:South Germany
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The origins are obscure, and it is still debatable how much in the German Minnesang is indigenous and national, how much due to French and Provencal influence; for even in its earliest phases the Minnesang reveals correspondences with the contemporary lyric of the south of France
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The freshness and originality of the early South German singers, such as Kurenberg, Dietmar von Eist, the Burggraf of Rietenburg and Meinloh von Sevelingen, are not, however, to be questioned; in spite of foreign influence, their verses make the impression of having been a spontaneous expression of German lyric feeling in the 12th century
.
The Spruchdichtung, a form of poetry which in this period is represented by at least two poets who See also:call themselves Herger and " Der Spervogel," was less dependent on foreign See also:models; the pointed and satirical strophes of these poets were the forerunners of a vast literature which did not reach its highest development until after literature had passed from the hands of the See also:noble-See also:born See also:knight to those of the burgher of the towns
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(b) The Flourishing of Middle High German Poetry.—Such was the preparation for the extraordinarily brilliant, although brief epoch of German medieval poetry, which corresponded to the reigns of the See also:Hohenstaufen emperors, See also:Frederick I
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See also:Barbarossa, See also: Docile pupils of French chivalry, the Germans had no sooner learned their See also:lesson than they found themselves in the position of being able to dictate to the world of chivalry . In the same way, the German poets, who, in the 12th century, had been little better than clumsy translators of French romances, were able, at the beginning of the 13th, to substitute for French chansons de geste epics based on national sagas, to put a completely German imprint on the French Arthurian romance, and to sing German songs before which even the lyric of See also:Provence paled . National epic, Court epic and Minnesang—these three types of medieval German literature, to which may be added as a subordinate See also:group didactic poetry comprise virtually all that has come down to us in the Middle High German See also:tongue . A Middle High German prose hardly existed, and the drama, such as it was, was still essentially Latin . The first place among the National or Popular epics belongs to the See also:Nibelungenlied, which received its present form in Austria about the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries . Combining, as it does, elements from various cycles of sagas—the See also:lower Rhenish See also:legend of Siegfried, the Burgundian saga of See also:Gunther and See also:Hagen, the See also:Gothic saga of See also:Dietrich and Etzel—it stands out as the most representative epic of German medieval life . And in literary power, dramatic intensity and singleness of purpose its See also:eminence is no less unique . The vestiges of See also:gradual growth—of irreconcilable elements imperfectly welded together—may not have been entirely effaced, but they in no way lessen the impression of unity which the poem leaves behind it; whoever the welder of the sagas may have been, he was clearly a poet of lofty imagination and high epic gifts (see NIBELUNGENLIED) . Less imposing as a whole, but in parts no less powerful in its See also:appeal to the modern mind, is the second of the German national epics, See also:Gudrun, which was written early in the 13th century . This poem, as it has come down to us, is the work of an See also:Austrian, but the subject belongs to a See also:cycle of sagas which have their See also:home on the shores of the See also:North See also:Sea . It seems almost a freak of See also:chance that Siegfried, the See also:hero of the Rhineland, should occupy so prominent a position in the Nibelungenlied, whereas Dietrich von See also:Bern (i.e. of See also:Verona), the name under which See also:Theodoric the Great had been looked up to for centuries by the German people as their national hero, should have See also:left the See also:stamp of his See also:personality on no single epic of the See also:intrinsic See also:worth of the Nibelungenlied . He appears, however, more or less in the background of a number of romances—See also:Die Rabenschlacht, Dielrichs Flueht . Alpharts See also:Tod, Biterolf and Dietlieb, Laurin, &c.—which make up what is usually called the See also:Heldenbuch . It is tempting, indeed, to see in this very unequal collection the basis for what, under more favourable circumstances, might have See also:developed into an epic even more completely representative of the German nation than the Nibelungenlied . While the influence of the romance of chivalry is to be traced on all these popular epics, something of the manlier, more See also:primitive ideals that animated German national poetry passed over to the second great group of German medieval poetry, the Court epic . The poet who, following Eilhart von Oberge's tentative beginnings, established the Court epic in Germany was Heinrich von Veldeke, a native of the See also:district of the lower See also:Rhine; his Eneit, written between 1173 and 1186, is based on a French See also:original . Other poets of the time, such as Herbort von See also:Fritzlar, the author of a Liet von Troye, followed Heinrich's example, and selected French models for German poems on See also:antique themes; while Albrecht von See also:Halberstadt translated. about the See also:year 1210 the Metamorphoses of See also:Ovid into German verse . With the three masters of the Court epic, Hartmann von Aue, Wolfram von Eschenbach and Gottfried von See also:Strassburg—all of them contemporaries—the Arthurian cycle became the recognized theme of this type of romance, and the accepted embodiment of the ideals of the knightly classes . Hartmann was a Swabian, Wolfram a Bavarian, Gottfried presumably anative of Strassburg . Hartmann, who in his Erec and Iwein, Gregorius and Der See also:acme Heinrich combined a tendency towards religious asceticism with a See also:desire to imbue the worldly life of the knight with a moral and religious spirit, provided the Court epic of the age with its best models; he had, of all the medieval court poets, the most delicate sense for the formal beauty of poetry, for language, verse and style . Wolfram and Gottfried, on the other hand, represent two extremes of poetic temperament . Wolfram's Parzival is filled with mysticism and obscure spiritual significance; its flashes of See also:humour irradiate, although they can hardly be said to illumine, the gloom; its hero is, unconsciously, a See also:symbol and See also:allegory of much which to the poet himself must have been mysterious and inexplicable; in other words, Parzival—and Wolfram's other writings, Willehalm and Titurel, point in the same direction—is an instinctive or, to use See also:Schiller's word, a " naive " work of genius . Gottfried, again, is hardly less gifted and original, but he is a poet of a wholly different type . His See also:Tristan is even more lucid than Hartmann's Iwein, his See also:art is more See also:objective; his delight in it is that of the conscious artist who See also:sees his work growing under his hands . Gottfried's poem, in other words, is See also:free from the obtrusion of those subjective elements which are in so high a degree characteristic of Parzival; in spite of the tragic character of the story, Tristan is radiant and serene, and yet uncontaminated by that See also:tone of frivolity which the Renaissance introduced into lgve stories of this kind . Parzival and Tristan are the two poles of the German Court epic, and the subsequent development of that epic stands under the influence of the three poets, Hartmann, Wolfram and Gottfried; according as the poets of the.13th century tend to imitate one or other of these, they fall into three classes . To the followers and imitators of Hartmann belong See also:Ulrich von Zatzikhoven, the author of a Lanzelet (c . 1195); Wirnt von Gravenberg, a Bavarian, whose Wigalois (c . 1205) shows considerable imaginative power; the versatile Spielmann, known as " Der Stricker,"; and Heinrich von dem Tiirlin, author of an unwieldy epic, Die Krone (" the See also:crown of all adventures," c . 1220) . The See also:fascination of Wolfram's mysticism is to be seen in Der jiingere Titurel of a Bavarian poet, Albrecht von Scharfenberg (c . 1270), and in the still later See also:Lohengrin of an unknown poet; whereas Gottfried von Strassburg dominates the Flore and Blanscheflur of Konrad Fleck (c . 1220) and the voluminous romances of the two See also:chief poets of the later 13th century, See also:Rudolf von See also:Ems, who died in 1254, and Konrad von Wiirzburg, who lived till 1287 . Of these, Konrad alone carried on worthily the traditions of the great age, and even his art, which excels within the narrow limits of romances like Die Herzemoere and Engelhard, becomes diffuse and wearisome on the unlimited See also:canvas of Der Trojanerkrieg and Partonopier and Meliur . The most conspicuous changes which came over the narrative poetry of the 13th century were, on the one hand, a steady encroachment of See also:realism on the See also:matter and treatment of the epic, and, on the other, a leaning to didacticism . The substitution of the " history " of the chronicle for the confessedly imaginative stories of the earlier poets is to be seen in the work of Rudolf von Ems, and of• a number of See also:minor chroniclers like Ulrich von Eschenbach, Berthold von Holle and Jans Enikel; while for the growth of realism we may look to the Pfaffe Amis, a collection of comic anecdotes by " Der Stricker," the admirable See also:peasant romance Meier Helmbrecht, written between 1236 and 1250 by Wernher der Gartenaere in See also:Bavaria, and to the adventures of Ulrich von Lichtenstein, as described in his Frauendienst (1255) and Frauenbuch (1257) . More than any single poet of the Court epic, more even than the poet of the Nibelungenlied, See also:Walther von der Vogelweide summed up in himself all that was best in the group of poetic literature with which he was associated—the Minnesang . The early Austrian singers already mentioned, poets like Heinrich von Veldeke, who in his lyrics, as in his epic, introduced the French conception of Minne, or like the manly See also:Friedrich von Hausen, and the Swiss imitator of Provencal See also:measures, Rudolf von Fenis appear only in the See also:light of forerunners . Even more original poets, like Heinrich von Morungen and Walther's own See also:master, Reinmar von See also:Hagenau, the author of harmonious but monotonously elegiac verses, or among immediate contemporaries, Hartmann von Aue and Wolfram von Eschenbach, whose few lyric strophes are as deeply stamped with his individuality as his epics—seem only tributary to the full rich stream of Walther's genius . There was not a form of the German Minnesang which Walther did not amplify and deepen; songs of courtly love and lowly love, of religious faith and delight in nature, patriotic songs and political Spriiche—in all he was a master . Of Walther's life we are somewhat better informed than in the See also:case of his See also:con-temporaries: he was born about I17o and died about 1230; his art he learned in Austria, whereupon he wandered through South Germany, a welcome See also:guest wherever he went, although his vigorous championship of what he regarded as the national cause in the political struggles of the day won him foes as well as See also:friends . For centuries he remained the accepted exemplar of German lyric poetry; not merely the Minnesinger who followed him, but also the See also:Meistersinger of the 15th and 16th centuries looked up to him as one of the founders and lawgivers of their art . He was the most influential of all Germany's lyric poets, and in the breadth, originality and purity of his See also:inspiration one of her greatest (see WALTHER VON DER VOGELWEIDE) . The development of the German Minnesang after Walther's death and under his influence is easily summed up . Contemporaries had been impressed by the dual character of Walther's lyric; they distinguished a higher courtly lyric, and a lower more outspoken form of song, free from the constraint of social or literary conventions . The later Minnesang emphasized this See also:dualism . Amongst Walther's immediate contemporaries, high-born poets, whose lives were passed at courts, naturally cultivated the higher lyric; but the more gifted and original singers of the time rejoiced in the freedom of Walther's poetry of niedere Minne . It was, in fact, in accordance with the spirit of the age that the latter should have been Walther's most valuable See also:legacy to his successors; and the greatest of these, Neidhart von Reuental (c . 118o–c . 1250), certainly did not allow himself to be hampered by aristocratic prejudices . Neidhart sought the themes of his hofische Dorfpoesie in the See also:village, and, as the See also:mood happened to dictate, depicted the peasant with humorous banter or biting See also:satire . The lyric poets of the later r3th century were either, like Burkart von Hohenfels, Ulrich von Winterstetten and Gottfried von Neifen, echoes of Walther von der Vogelweide and of Neidhart, or their originality was confined to some particular form of lyric poetry in which they excelled . Thus the See also:singer known as " Der Tannhiuser " distinguished himself as an imitator of the French pastourelle; Reinmar von Zweter was purely a Spruchdichter . More or less common to all is the consciousness that their own ideas and surroundings were no longer in harmony with the aristocratic world of chivalry, which the poets of the previous See also:generation had glorified . The solid advantages, material prosperity and increasing comfort of life in the German towns appealed to poets like Steinmar von Klingenau more than the unworldly ideals of self-effacing See also:knighthood which Ulrich von Lichtenstein and Johann Hadlaub of See also:Zurich clung to so tenaciously and extolled so warmly . On the whole, the Spruchdichter came best out of this See also:ordeal of changing fashions; and the increasing interest in the moral and didactic applications of literature favoured the development of this form of verse . The confusion of didactic purpose with the lyric is common to all the later poetry, to that of the learned Marner, of Boppe, Rumezland and Heinrich von See also:Meissen, who was known to later generations as " See also:Frauenlob." The Spruchdichtung, in fact, was one of the connecting links between the Minnesang of the 13th and the lyric and satiric poetry of the 15th and 16th centuries . The disturbing and disintegrating element in the literature of the 13th century was thus the substitution of a utilitarian didacticism for the See also:idealism of chivalry . In the early decades of that century, poems like Der Winsbeke, by a Bavarian, and Der welsche Gast, written in 1215–1216 by Thomasin von Zirclaere (Zirclaria), a native of See also:Friuli, still See also:teach with uncompromis-See also:ing idealism the duties and virtues of the knightly life . But in the Bescheidenheit (c . 1215—1230) of a wandering singer, who called himself See also:Freidank, we find for the first time an active antagonism to the unworldly See also:code of chivalry and an unmistakable reflection of the changing social See also:order, brought about by the rise of what we should now call the middle class . Freidank is the spokesman of the See also:Burger, and in his terse, witty verses may be traced the germs of German intellectual and literary development in the coming centuries—even of the See also:Reformation itself . From the See also:advent of Freidank onwards, the satiric and didactic poetry went the way of the epic; what it gained in quantity it lost in quality and concentration . The satires associated with the name of Seifried Helbling, an Austrian who wrote in the last fifteen years of the 13th century, and Der Renner by See also:Hugo von Trimberg, written at the very end of the century, may be taken as characteristic of the later period, where terseness and incisive wit have given place to diffuse moralizing and allegory . There is practically no Middle High German literature in prose; such prose as has come down to us—the tracts of See also:David of See also:Augsburg, the powerful sermons of Berthold von Regensburg (d . 1272), Germany's greatest medieval preacher, and several legal codes, as the Sachsenspiegel and Schwabenspiegel—only prove that the Germans of the 13th century had not yet realized the possibilities of prose as a See also:medium of literary expression . M . THE TRANSITION PERIOD (1350–1600) (a) The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries.—As is the case with all transitional periods of literary history, this epoch of, German literature may be' considered under two aspects: on the one hand, we may follow in it the decadence and disintegration of the literature of the Middle High German period; on the other, we may study the beginnings of modern forms of poetry and the preparation of that spiritual revolution, which meant hardly less to the Germanic peoples than the Renaissance to the Latin races—the See also:Protestant Reformation . By the middle of the 14th century, knighthood with its chivalric ideals was rapidly declining, and the conditions under which medieval poetry had flourished were passing away . The social change rendered the courtly epic of See also:Arthur's See also:Round Table in great measure incomprehensible to the younger generation, and made it difficult for them to understand the spirit that actuated the heroes of the national epic; the tastes to which the lyrics of the great See also:Minnesingers had appealed were vitiated by the more See also:practical demands of the rising middle classes . But the stories of chivalry still appealed as stories to the people, although the old way of telling them was no longer appreciated . The feeling for beauty of form and expression was lost; the craving for a moral purpose and didactic aim had to be satisfied at the cost of See also:artistic beauty; and sensational incident was valued more highly than See also:fine character-See also:drawing or inspired poetic thought . Signs of the decadence are to be seen in the Karlmeinet of this period, stories from the youth of Charlemagne, in a continuation of Parzival by two Alsatians, Claus Wisse and Philipp See also:Colin (c . 1335), in an See also:Apollonius von Tyrus by Heinrich von Neuenstadt (c . 1315), and a Konigstochter von Frankreich by Hans von Buhel (c . 1400) . The story of Siegfried was retold in a rough ballad, Das Lied von hurnen Seyfried, the Heldenbuch was recast in Knittelvers or doggerel (1472), and even the Arthurian epic was parodied . A no less marked symptom of decadence is to be seen in a large See also:body of allegorical poetry analogous to the Roman de la See also:rose in France; Heinzelein of See also:Constance, at the end of the 13th, and Hadamar von Laber and See also:Hermann von Sachsenheim, about the middle of the 15th century, were representatives of this movement . As time went on, prose versions of the old stories became more general, and out of these developed the Volksbucher, such as Loher and Mailer, Die Haimonskinder, Die schone Magelone, Melusine, which formed the favourite See also:reading of the German people for centuries . As the last monuments of the decadent narrative. literature of the middle ages, we may regard the See also:Buck der Abenteuer of Ulrich Fuetrer, written at the end of the 15th century, and Der See also:Weiss, konig and Teuerdank by the See also:emperor See also:Maximilian I . (1459—1519) of the See also:play was removed to the See also:churchyard or the See also:market-place; thus the opportunity arose in the 14th and 15th centuries for developing the Weihnachtsspiel, Osterspiel and Passionsspiel on See also:secular lines . The enlargement of the See also:scope of the religious play to include legends of the saints implied a further step in the direction of a complete separation of the drama from ecclesiastical ceremony . The most interesting example of this encroachment of the secular spirit is the Spiel von Frau Jutten—Jutta being the notorious See also:Pope See also:Joan—by an Alsatian, Dietrich Schernberg, in 1480 . Meanwhile, in the 15th century, a beginning had been made of a drama entirely independent of the church . The mimic representations—originally allegorical in character with which the people amused themselves at the great festivals of the year, and more especially in See also: |