Colloquia Germanica
cg
0010-1338
Francke Verlag Tübingen
Es handelt sich um einen Open-Access-Artikel, der unter den Bedingungen der Lizenz CC by 4.0 veröffentlicht wurde.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/91
2006
393-4
WILL HASTY (ED.): German Literature of the High Middle Ages. Camden House History of German Literature 3. Rochester: Camden House, 2006. 338 pp. $ 90.
91
2006
Ernst Ralf Hintz
cg393-40383
Besprechungen / Reviews W ILL H ASTY (E D .): German Literature of the High Middle Ages. Camden House History of German Literature 3. Rochester: Camden House, 2006. 338 pp. $ 90. With volume three of the Camden House History of German Literature, Will Hasty has edited a useful contribution to our field that is likely to benefit students of medieval German literature for many years. By the same token, this volume and those that precede it do not constitute a conventional «history of literature» as we know it within the nineteenth and twentieth-century tradition of Germanistik. The unifying interpretative perspectives apparent in literary histories from Wilhelm Scherer to Gustav Ehrismann, DeBoor/ Newald to Karl Bertau have become as much of an anachronism as the Universalgelehrter. Symptomatic of the growing specialization at the end of the twentieth century is the literary history of German literature edited by Joachim Heinzle, whose plan encompassed three volumes, each in two parts written by specialists in the given period. In achieving this end, the academic authors of individual volumes still required panoramic as well as specific knowledge. Indeed, Wolfgang Haubrichs’ Volume 1/ 1 is arguably the best contemporary exponent of this dying traditional genre. The title of the Camden House series is, therefore, somewhat of a misnomer. Hasty’s editorial concept is a continuation of this progression toward scholarly specialization into our century. Nevertheless, his plan has validity and is well conceived. Sara S. Poor, speaking of her piece on «Early Mystical Writings,» accurately refers to it as «This essay» (186). This appellation may apply by extension to the entire volume. It is a collection of essays, of which the preponderance is of high quality. After introducing the literary Blütezeit as his chief focus, Hasty aptly divides the volume into four parts. Of the first and third, Hasty notes: «The organization of this volume endeavors to do justice to a complex literary and cultural period in which we see both the emergence of significant individual authors such as Wolfram, and the cultivation of literary traditions in which the creativity of individual authors is still bound to a great degree to generic and communal considerations of different kinds» (11). Accordingly, Part I, «The First Flourishing of German Literature,» begins with Albrecht Classen’s essay on Heinrich von Veldeke, in which he comments on the author’s courtly love poems along with the epic, Eneit, as «the crucial foundation from which classical Middle High German literature could rise» (33). Rodney Fisher then examines the first of the «classical» paragons of the period, Hartmann von Aue. Fisher’s essay is a useful introduction to Hartmann’s work, and it concludes well with references to the modern reception of Gregorius and Heinrich. In the fascinating essay that follows, «Gottfried von Strassburg and the Tristan Myth,» Rüdiger Krohn skillfully looks at Gottfried’s work with regard to its volatile societal themes such as its «doppelte Wahrheit,» which underscores «the contradiction between the demands of love and those of society» (55). Marion E. Gibbs and Sidney M. Johnson make one 384 Besprechungen / Reviews of the best contributions to the volume with their essay on Wolfram von Eschenbach. It is especially useful because they not only use their expertise to discuss Parzival and Willehalm, but also the «Songs» and Titurel. In doing so, they provide an insightfully contextualized literary panorama of Wolfram’s work. The editor is to be commended for including Ulrich von Zatzikhoven’s Lanzelet in a brief but informative essay by Nicola McLelland. The first section concludes with Will Hasty’s succinctly written article on Walther von der Vogelweide, in which he evaluates Walther’s multi-genre poetic work in the light of recent scholarship. Regarding Minnesang, he notes: «… the focus has shifted to new accents and perspectives that Walther succeeds in giving to the love lyrics» (111). Part II, «Lyric and Narrative Traditions,» does well to begin with Nigel Harris introducing «Didactic Poetry.» His informative essay offers a compact, yet comprehensive overview of a genre that has often been underrated. In doing so, he accurately demonstrates the latitude of «the term kunst, meaning art, but also knowledge and skill» (131). With regard to major exponents of this wider definition, he concentrates on Freidank’s Bescheidenheit and Thomasin von Zerclaere’s Der welsche Gast, which has lately enjoyed considerable scholarly attention. To his credit, Harris also mentions both Der Winsbecke and Die Winsbeckin, Der Stricker’s Frauenehre, and Frauenbuch from Ulrich von Liechtenstein. This fine essay concludes with the observation that «for all their remarkable diversity, many of the texts we have looked at exemplify the desire to unite, integrate, and harmonize that was common to so much high medieval culture» (138). The next contribution is another from Will Hasty, on «Minnesang - The Medieval German Love Lyrics.» He again offers a well-written essay that covers the major figures in this genre, beginning artfully with an early reference to the courtly love songs in Heinrich von Melk’s Von des tôdes gehugede, where the poet graphically reveals to a «lady» the rotting corpse of her courtly lover and thus characterizes ex negativo the courtly culture of worldly love. Hasty next examines the controversial notion of Sangspruch and the poets representative of it. The reader will note some redundancy in this piece after reading the Nigel Harris essay. Yet these overlapping discourses on many of the same poets may also prove beneficial to the overall work by calling our attention to the commonality of perspective in many medieval genres. Part II contains two final essays. Susann Samples writes on the imposing topic of «The German Heroic Narratives,» and in doing so provides a useful overview - one that promises to be especially interesting for medievalists outside the immediate field of medieval German studies. Sara S. Poor lends clear contour to her essay on «Early Mystical Writings» by noting: «The religious and mystical literature of the German Middle Ages thus differs in one important respect from the secular tradition: it includes a number of significant texts written by women» (185). Part III, «Continuity, Transformation, and Innovation in the Thirteenth Century,» contains well-crafted essays that deal with the interplay of narrative traditions that shaped the literary landscape of a century that had long been viewed erroneously as «post-classical» and «epigonal.» The section begins with «Wirnt von Gravenberg’s Wigalois and Heinrich von dem Türlin’s Diu Crône,» a contribution by Neil Thomas, who aptly compares the differing ideological thrust of each work: «While Wirnt shows how the Arthurian ideal can be safeguarded only if it allies itself Besprechungen / Reviews 385 with the spiritual forces of the Christian religion,» Diu Crône is, by contrast, «an unequivocal endorsement of a secular, Arthurian ideal which clearly maintained its appeal in Germany well beyond the ‘classical’ period of the first decade of the thirteenth century» (212). The essays that follow also maintain a high standard, namely, Michael Resler’s concise article on «Der Stricker»; Elizabeth A. Anderson’s essay on «Rudolf von Ems»; the essay on «Ulrich von Liechtenstein» by Ulrich Müller and Franz Viktor Spechtler; Rüdiger Brandt’s article on «Konrad von Würzburg»; and finally a welcome mention by Ruth Weichselbaumer of «Wernher der Gärtner» and his work, Helmbrecht, as symptomatic of the late thirteenth-century socioeconomic paradigm shift in German-speaking lands. In the fourth and final part, «Historical Perspectives,» Hasty wisely includes two valuable essays dealing with significant social and historical issues that frame the previous essays well, William H. Jackson’s «Court Literature and Violence in the High Middle Ages» and «Mobility, Politics, and Society in Medieval Germany» by Charles R. Bowlus. The reader will discover that the bibliography of «Primary Literature» and «Select Secondary Literature» occasionally reiterate the end notes in the individual essays. Yet, with an editorial project of this magnitude, a modicum of repetition is to be expected. In sum, Will Hasty and his contributors are to be commended for a volume well done. Truman State University Ernst Ralf Hintz J AMES A. S CHULTZ : Courtly Love, the Love of Courtliness, and the History of Sexuality. Chicago & London: U of Chicago P, 2006. 242 pp. $ 39. Tristan and Isolde were not heterosexuals; they were aristophiliacs. This claim, startling on the surface, is substantiated in James A. Schultz’s important book on courtly love as it is found in Middle High German masterworks from the period around 1200. It is not easy to come up with a new theory of courtly love. Schultz succeeds where other scholars with much longer books have failed by convincing us to unthink our Freudian and Lacanian convictions about sexuality and take a new look at the key texts to find out what they actually say (and do not say). The astringent readings he performs reveal a system of love that truly deserves the name «courtly» because it exists only through courtly forms and functions. Courtly love is the love of the courtliness through which individuals gain distinction and public acclaim (xviii). In the introduction, Schultz develops his sophisticated theoretical standpoint by asking his readerships to become aware of their own blind spots. He requires medievalists who have not paid attention to work in the history of sexuality to attend to its findings, particularly regarding heterosexuality. Like homosexuality, it is a recent invention whose strictures about the origins of desire in physical dimorphism distort our understanding of the distant past. Schultz also requires historians of sexuality who tend to focus on transgression not to overlook the authorized sexuality of dominant social groups such as the medieval nobility. He refers to studies inspired by
