A Short Introduction to the German
Literary Culture of the High Middle Ages
Traditionally known among literary scholars as
--the Blütezeit, or “period of flourishing.”
--or, the Stauferzeit – the reign of the Hohenstaufen emperors:
Frederick I (“Barbarossa”), Henrich VI, Frederick II
-- “Court Literature” (literature produced at the courts of
powerful nobles, who were the patrons of the poets)
The Historical Context
--The “Twelfth Century Renaissance” (Charles
Haskins)
--The beginning assimilation of new philosophical
and scientific texts (early Scholasticism)
--The Crusades
--Gothic architecture and art
The rise of “literatures” in
the vernacular languages
-- Strong influences from French literature, which
developed earlier.
-- “Literatures”– the relationship between “orality”
and “literacy” is dynamic.
-- The “Aufführungssituation,” or “situation of
performance.” Literature was originally a
performative art.
-- The importance of the ministeriales in literary
culture.
The significant genres
Lyric Poetry
-- Love Songs
-- political / didactic poetry
Epic Poetry
-- Heroic Epics
-- “romanz” (Romance)
Drama – None to speak of in the “strict” sense.
Cultural Developments
during the Blütezeit:
--The literature of the Blütezeit demonstrates a welling up of
religious / spiritual experience among lay people (in this
case necessarily the lay nobility).
-- The convergence of this religiosity / spirituality with the
values and interests of the lay nobility gives rise to a
variety of interesting literary themes and structures.
-- The court literature of the High Middle Ages – particularly
the romances – endeavor to accommodate sometimes
conflicting values and interests . . .
. . . and achieve this by virtue of an increased
“indeterminacy” or open-endedness.
What is the right way to live?
Walther von der Vogelweide
I sat on a stone and crossed my
legs and put my hand against
my chin and thought anxiously
about the right way to live in
this world. I could not figure
out how to bring three things
together in such a way that one
would not ruin the other two.
Two of these things are honor
and possessions – the interest in
one of these often damages the
interest in the other. And the
third is the grace of God, which
is the crown of the other two.
Romance as a new Narrative Art Form
• The “matter of Rome” and the “matter of
Britain.”
• Romance: a verse narrative about love and
adventure (the definition expands to include
prose vernacular narratives that began to be
produced in the 13th century).
• Note that love and adventure are inherently
worldly, “secular” concerns.
From M. Bakhtin,
The Dialogic Imagination,
Chapter: “Epic and Novel”
• On epic poetry: “The epic world achieves a
radical degree of completeness not only in
its content but in its meaning and values as
well. The epic world is constructed in the
zone of an absolute distanced image,
beyond the sphere of possible contact with
the developing, incomplete and therefore
rethinking and re-evaluating present.”
Bakhtin on the “Novel”
(and by implication, Romance, as its older relative)
•
Basic idea: the novel engages the present in all of its “open-endedness.”
•
On the “novelization” of other genres ( a long quote– just remember the last idea!):
“What are the salient features of this novelization of other genres suggested by us?
They become more free and flexible … they become permeated with laughter,
irony, humor, elements of self-parody and finally – this is the most important thing
– the novel inserts into these other genres an indeterminacy, a certain semantic
open-endedness, a living contact with unfinished, still evolving contemporary
reality (the openended present).”
--For our time-period, substitute “romancing”for “novelization.”
Gottfried von Strassburg’s Tristan
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Gottfried was among the more educated of the medieval authors and
presumably lived in Strasbourg – hence, in “urban” surroundings.
His Tristan was composed ca. 1210 and based on the Tristan of an AngloNorman poet named Thomas.
The Tristan narrative material was part of the “Matter of Britain” (sometimes
found in the orbit of King Arthur)
Other, earlier versions of the Tristan story were produced by Béroul (in
French) and Eilhart von Oberge (in German) – Gottfried says they didn’t get
the story right!
The versions of Thomas and Gottfried are the poetically and rhetorically most
accomplished ones.
Gottfried’s poem, in particular, is known for its rhetorically polished and
adorned verses, and for its challenging aesthetic conception:
--the conception in a nutshell, the adulterous love of Tristan
and Isolde is an “Absolute”
--Worth repeating: the conception in a nutshell, the adulterous
love of Tristan and Isolde is “Absolute”
From the Prologue of Gottfried’s Tristan:
-- Referring to the story of Tristan
and Isolde:
“This is bread to all noble
hearts. With this their death
lives on. We read their life, we
read their death, and to us it is
as sweet as bread.
Their life, their death are our
bread. Thus lives their life, thus
lives their death. Thus they live
still, and yet are dead, and their
death is the bread of the living.”
The Nibelungenlied
• The Nibelungen material has its origins in the migration period (5th and
6th centuries)
• In contrast to the courtly narratives, it is basically “Germanic” and
“epic” (remember Bakhtin’s conception of epic poetry).
• The Nibelungenlied is one of numerous versions of the story of
Siegfried and the Burgundian Kings, who die in the end in a battle at
the court of Etzel (Attila the Hun).
• The Nibelungenlied was composed ca. 1210 by an anonymous poet
(anonymity being typical in the authorship of epic poetry)
• though considered “epic poetry,” the Nibelungenlied has been largely
shaped by the contemporary romances.
Romancing Epic Poetry:
The Nibelungenlied
The character Siegfried shows an interesting double-nature
that demonstrates the influence of the romances, with their
concerns of love and adventure, on the hero:
--He is a fighter of mythic proportions, who has slain a
dragon, and bested whole armies single-handedly – the
corresponding epic terms: degen, recke.
-- He also participates in courtly festivals, tournaments, and
falls in love with the beautiful Kriemhilde: the love causes
him sometimes to become weak-kneed and turn red as a
beet. Besides being a degen, he is also a rîter!
In the end the logic of the heroic epic asserts itself. Ther is no
courtly happy ending.
Conclusion
• A reiteration of a position, or argument, that I
made earlier:
-- Romance (stories of love and adventure)
introduce an “indeterminacy” into medieval
narrative art.
-- narratives thus get closer to being able to
express “reality” as something that is open-ended
and indeterminate (i.e. subject to chance,
contingency, local influences, etc.)