Will Hasty, ed. German Literature of the High Middle Ages. Rochester: Camden House, 2006. 338 pp. $90.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-57113-173-7.

Reviewed by Edward T. Potter (Department of Foreign Languages, Mississippi State University)
Published on H-German (January, 2007)

Medieval German Literature Flourishes Again: New Perspectives on the Literature of the High Middle Ages

The Camden House History of German Literature is touted by its publishers as "one of the most ambitious undertakings in the field of German literary history in years."[1] The ten-volume set covers the breadth of German literature from the beginnings up until postmodernism and post-unification literature and is meant to "constitute the most detailed history of German literature in the English language."[2] The third volume in this ambitious undertaking is dedicated to the literature of the High Middle Ages and covers works from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The volume brings together eighteen individual essays written by an international group of scholars of German Studies based in the United States, Germany, Austria, Great Britain and New Zealand and working in the fields of literature and history.

In his introduction, Will Hasty gives a wide-ranging and substantive overview of the period in question, enabling the readers to situate themselves within the socio-historical context in which the literature was created. In the introduction, he covers periodization, the development of Middle High German as a literary language, the political backdrop of the Holy Roman Empire, the role of class and gender in the production of and in illustrations in medieval literature and the critical reception of the literature of the High Middle Ages from its rediscovery in the later Enlightenment to more recent times. As he points out, the German High Middle Ages have long been considered by literary scholars to have been a Blütezeit, or high point, in German literature, and Hasty points to the appropriateness of this term, for "a vibrant literary culture in the German vernacular emerged in the form of narrative and lyric poetry that continued to shape the cultural horizons of German-speaking peoples to the present day" (p. 2).

This volume of essays is divided into four larger sections. Part 1, "The First Flourishing of German Literature," which covers the period from approximately 1180 to 1220, and part 3, "Continuity, Transformation, and Innovation in the Thirteenth Century," which covers the period from 1220 on, are very similar to each other in that eleven of the twelve essays in these sections focus on a single author. Within this format, the essays in these sections offer a broad overview of what is known of the author's biography and the creation and reception of the author's works, while at the same time presenting an in-depth analysis of particular texts. To some readers, this focus on individuals might seem quite traditional in terms of literary history. The rationale behind this organizational principle is, however, reflective of the period in literary history that the volume sets out to treat. In his introduction to the volume, Hasty eloquently points out that the period around 1200 witnesses the rise of the individual author in the vernacular: "Writers of Christian-Latin literature tended to remain anonymous, consistent with the subordination of the individual to generic and communal traditions that is characteristic of monastic and clerical cultures. With the beginnings of the vernacular poetry of the High Middle Ages, we witness the emergence of the author as a 'known quantity' in many of the vernacular genres.... [I]t ... seems appropriate to say that in the court poetry of the Blütezeit, the authors themselves emerge for the first time, on a broad scale, as a visible, active, and creative force" (pp. 11-12).

A broader thematic and generic focus is found in the second and fourth sections of the volume. Part 2, "Lyric and Narrative Traditions," focuses on significant genres of medieval literature: didactic poetry, Minnesang, heroic narratives and mystical writings, while part 4, "Historical Perspectives," handles the topics of mobility, politics, society and violence in court literature. The emergence of individual authors is thereby complemented with generic and thematic considerations placing authors and works within a broader context.

Part 1 of the volume offers solid, in-depth evaluations of six poets working around 1200. Albrecht Classen analyzes the love lyrics and the Eneit of Heinrich von Veldeke, paying special attention to the ways in which this particular writer adapts classical and Romance models to create vehicles for the exploration of the innovative concept of courtly love. Rodney Fischer gives a thorough overview of Hartmann von Aue, covering the nebulous biographical data available about the author and treating various critical interpretations of Hartmann's lyric poetry, his major Arthurian romances and his courtly legends. Rüdiger Krohn places the Tristan of Gottfried von Strassburg within the larger context of other Tristan material, emphasizing Gottfried's innovative interpretation of the characters' adulterous love as spiritualized and utopian yet imperfectly happy due to society's disapproval. Marion E. Gibbs and the late Sidney M. Johnson, to whom the volume is dedicated, offer a thorough overview of Wolfram von Eschenbach's major works, paying homage to his innovative originality. In a brief yet fascinating article, Nicola McLelland attempts to rehabilitate Ulrich von Zatzikhoven's Lanzelet (c.1194/5), long dismissed as derivative. McLelland points out the innovative nature of Ulrich's use of varied genres within the text and directs our attention to the powerful roles played by female figures in the text. Hasty discusses the work of Walther von der Vogelweide, offering detailed explications of several typical poems and situating Walther's work within the context of the German literature of the High Middle Ages. Hasty ends with an overview of the reception that Walther's work has received in the ensuing centuries.

Each of the essays in part 2 of the volume deals with one of the major medieval literary genres. Nigel Harris's essay on didactic poetry is a welcome contribution on an under-researched genre. Harris gives a detailed overview of the various themes, forms, texts and authors within this literary category and prods the scholarly community to tend the fertile ground of these texts, which include Sangsprüche, religious and political lyrics, advice poems and discourses on love: "[I]n spite of the enormous cultural significance, potential for interdisciplinary study, and literary stimulation offered by many of the works ... they tend to remain neglected both in scholarship and on university syllabi" (p. 138). In yet another thought-provoking contribution to this volume, Hasty provides us with a comprehensive overview of Minnesang. He traces the historical development of medieval German love lyrics from Der von Kürenberg to Walther and beyond to the parodic love lyrics of Neidhart. In his article, Hasty also pays special attention to Minnesang as performance, emphasizing the role-playing in which the lyrical narrator is involved as well as the role that music played in the presentation of these poems. Susann Samples examines German heroic narratives in dialogue with each other and with their medieval socio-political reality as they interact with and react against courtly literature and its valorization of courtly love (minne) and adventure (âventiure). The Nibelungenlied becomes for her "a political narrative that sets out to document the systematic breakdown of social and political order ... attribut[ing] the unfolding dynastic tragedy to the irreconcilable clash between courtly-chivalric and feudal-aristocratic values" (p. 167). She goes on to plot the Klage, Kudrun and various heroic narratives of the Dietrich von Bern cycle in terms of their positions on courtly love and on feudal-aristocratic codes of loyalty and honor. Finally, Sara S. Poor takes on the topic of mysticism, concentrating on women writers such as Hildegard von Bingen, Elisabeth von Schönau, Beatrice van Nazareth, Hadewijch and Mechthild von Magdeburg. In her contribution, Poor not only analyzes the mystical writings of these women, but also engages in a productive and thought-provoking examination of medieval concepts of authorship and their relation to gender.

The essays in part 3 of the volume are dedicated to significant thirteenth-century poets, sometimes known as "postclassical" poets, who "responded in different ways to the literature of their hallowed predecessors (as which the earlier authors were generally seen, even when the later authors diverged from their predecessors' literary conceptions quite intentionally and sharply, as they often did) ... [by] quite consciously employ[ing] different structural models and literary styles" (p. 15). In this section, Neil Thomas examines Wirnt von Gravenberg's Wigalois and Heinrich von dem Türlin's Diu Crône as two different interpretations of and reactions to the work of Wolfram. In an interesting intertextual analysis, Thomas compares and contrasts Wirnt's text, which he sees as an attempt to "harmoniz[e] ... Arthurian and theocratic elements" which seem incompatible in Parzival, and Heinrich's text, which is for Thomas "an unequivocal endorsement of a secular, Arthurian ideal" in which "metaphysical realms are little more than a poet's fancy" (p. 209, 212). Michael Resler's contribution on Der Stricker examines, among other things, the poet's innovations in his courtly romance Daniel von dem Blühenden Tal and the interplay of entertainment and didacticism in his shorter poetic works. In her essay on Rudolf von Ems, Elizabeth A. Andersen writes about the influence of patronage on Rudolf's literary production, the indebtedness of the poet to Latin sources and his engagement with the work of writers such as Gottfried von Strassburg. Ulrich Müller and Franz Viktor Spechtler examine the Frauendienst, regarded as the first "Ich-Roman" in the German language, and the Frauenbuch of Ulrich von Liechtenstein. Rüdiger Brandt gives an excellent overview of the works of Konrad von Würzburg, placing him in his socio-historical context in thirteenth-century Basel. Most interestingly, Brandt points out Konrad's indebtedness to Middle Latin literature and calls for scholars to investigate this relationship further. Ruth Weichselbaumer writes on Wernher der Gärtner's Helmbrecht and examines the work's construction of social order and disorder, its affinities to the poetry of Neidhart and its reception in the late Middle Ages and beyond.

The essays of part 4 of this volume provide the reader with socio-historical context for the literature of the High Middle Ages. In a fascinating article, William H. Jackson explores the tensions in medieval society between, on the one hand, the need for violence as part of aristocratic self-representation (honor, âventiure) and feudal conflict resolution and, on the other hand, the desire for restraint or social order. Jackson provides us with the historical background on the various political attempts to limit violence, then offers us interesting analyses of literary texts as constructions of the contemporary attitudes toward violence. Furthermore, he points out the salient role played by class in the evolution of warfare, for as genuine warfare, as opposed to jousting, became the province of non-noble men, the need for restraint tended to evaporate. Charles R. Bowlus's article focuses on "Mobility, Politics, and Society in Medieval Germany"; he describes in detail the various highly-mobile social groups of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries: nobles and higher-ranking clergy, but also certain peasants, miners, artisans, merchants, poets, crusaders and pilgrims, all of whom made use of the contemporary "transportation infrastructures" in the form of both water and land routes (p. 282). Given that these articles provide the reader with some of the socio-historical context within which the literary works were created, it might have been more logical to situate them at the beginning of the volume.

In addition to these thorough and thought-provoking essays, the volume includes ten black-and-white illustrations which reproduce miniatures from the fourteenth-century Codex Manesse. Although they are not as evocative as color reproductions, they nonetheless help the reader both to visualize later artistic representations of the authors in question and to engage with medieval (albeit late medieval) modes of pictorial representation. An extensive bibliography of primary and selected secondary sources is organized into sections on editions, general references, critical literature on genres and critical literature on authors and works. Notes on the contributors include relevant publications for further reading and an extensive index aids readers who are looking for specific information.

Thoughtful, solidly researched and written in an engaging style, these essays are as instructive as they are a pleasure to read. This volume will be a valuable resource for medieval Germanists in their scholarship, for it gives an overview of the current state of critical opinion on a broad range of important authors, works and genres, providing the scholar of Middle High German literature with thoughtful opinions to argue with or against. These essays will also prove helpful to instructors teaching courses or portions of courses on medieval German literature, as the essays give a solid overview of the material under discussion. The chapters in this volume will help students by expanding their knowledge of the period and pointing them in the right direction to explore topics further. The texts of the essays are clear and well written and would be appropriate for the general reader, although many may find the volume prohibitively expensive. Also worthy of mention is the fact that the numerous illustrative quotations are helpfully provided in both the original Middle High German and in English translation.

Notes

[1]. The Camden House History of German Literature Main Page. Camden House. 1 December 2006. http://www.camden-house.com/ . Path: Camden House History of German Literature.

[2]. Ibid.

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Citation: Edward T. Potter. Review of Hasty, Will, ed., German Literature of the High Middle Ages. H-German, H-Net Reviews. January, 2007.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=12742

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