Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/542

Rh Wolf ram 'Oll Eschen- bach. Gottfried of S I -ur- 52-I mcnt. The master in whom these aspects were most fully represented was Wolfram von l-Ischenlrach, a member of a noble family of Franeoui-a, who was born during the reign of Frederick llarbarossa and died during that of his grand- son, Frederick II. He was one of a group of poets who established themselves at the 'artburg, the court of the brilliant landgrave llcrmann of Thuringia; and his chief poem, ’ur:im[, was composed there towards the end of the 12th century. Germany did not produce during the _Iiddle Ages a more truly poetic mind, and it is curious to observe how exactlyhe anticipated some of the qualities for which she long afterwards became famous. He l1as all the dreaminess, the sentiment, the passion for the ideal, whicl1 are, or rather at one time were, l1er most attractive charac- teristics. The hero, trained by his mother amid circ1un- stances of idyllic simplicity, suddenly passes into a world of movement and adventure, and he is brought by accident to the gorgeous palace of the Holy Grail, of whose kingdom he ultimately becomes lord. The object of the poem is evidently to depict the strivings of a restless but noble spirit, dissatisﬁed with passing pleasure, having always be- fore it a high and spotless aim. It is difficult for modern readers to detect the spiritual signiﬁcance of many of the scenes; the poet seems to escape from us into a far-oif region, whence his words reach us rather as dim echoes than as clear, ringing sounds. And some of the descriptions are in themselves tedious and superﬂuous, while advance from one stage of the tale to another apparently proceeds accord- ing to the arbitrary whim of the moment. Nevertheless, the character of Parzival is a true conception of genius, and enables us to understand, better than any other imaginative creation of merlizeval Germany, that discontent with life as it is, that sense of being haunted by visions of spiritual loveliness, which, throughout the .Iiddle Ages, existed side by side with unrestrained delight in the out- ward world. A complete, almost a dramatic, contrast to Wolfram von rims‘ Eschenbach is found in Gottfried of Strasburg, the greatest O. of his literary contemporaries. These two men are repre- sentatives of a distinction which incessantly recurs,—that between the poet who fashions spirits of a ﬁner mould than those we actually know, and the poet who contents himself with penetrating into the innermost recesses of existing character. Gottfried’s theme is Tristram and Iseult ; and the charming tale, which unfortunately he did not live to carry to the end, was perhaps never more beautifully told. There are no mystic longings ill the men and women he presents to us: they love the earth and the sky, with their gorgeous colours, graceful forms, and happy sounds; they care not to inquire what may lie behind these, or whether in the scheme of things there is a place for moral law. Few poets have set forth so powerfully the.fascination of youthful passion. In his glowing pictures we ﬁnd no shadowy ﬁgures like those of Wolfram, with step so light that they appear to be the ﬁgures of a dream; his images are clear, sharply cut, like those of the world from which they are taken. And although psychological analysis was unknown to him, the actions of his characters display keen insight into the secrets of human hearts when entangled in the most confused meshes. Medizcval romance bore its richest fruit in the works of these two great poets ; and most of their successors imitated one or other of them. Those who followed in Gottfried’s steps came nearest to a happy result, for Wolfram was one of those lonely and daring spirits in whose remote path it is G E R. M A N Y given to few to tread without stumbling. The best known I of Gottfried’s imitators was Conrad von 'iirzburg, who wrote on the Trojan war and many other subje.-ts, and is considered one of the most artistic of nlE:(ll:(:'-':tl writers. [LITERATURE signs of exhaustion, and romances began to make way for rough popular tales and rhymcd chronicles. Fortunately the poets of the age of chivalry did not all occupy themselves with the subjects of I"1'em-l1 romances. A few, whose names we do not know, turned towards the rich material in the metrical legends of their native land. Of these poets the most important was he who collected and put into shape the ancient ballads which make up the Nibel ll ntr/en lial. tell. owe something of their force to his genius; but he needed rather to arrange and to curtail than to invent, and, ultliough a genuine poet, he was not at all times competent for his task. The work includes the legends of Siegfried, of Gundicarius, or Giinther, king of llurgundy, of Dictericli, and of Attila; and the motives which bind them into a whole are the love and revenge of Kricmhild, the sister of Giinther and Siegfried’s wife. She excites the envy of Brunhild, the llurgundian queen, whose friend, llagen, one of Giiuther's followers, discovers the vulnerable point in Siegfried's enchanted body, treachcrously slays him, and buries in the Rhine the treasure he has long before con- quered from the race of the Nibelungen. There is then a pause of thirteen years, after which Kriemhild, the lwttcl‘ to effect her fatal purpose, marries Attila, king of the lluns. Tliirteen years having again passed, her thirst for vengeance is satiated by the slaying of the whole llurgundi-an court. The Germans justly regard this great epic as one of the most precious gems of their literature. It has little of the grace of courtly poetry; its characters are without subtlety or reﬁnement ; we are throughout in the presence of vast elemental forces. But these forces are rendered with extra- ordinary vividness of imagination, and with a profound feeling for what is sublime and awful in human destiny. The narrative begins with epic calmness, but swclls into a torrent, and (lashes vehemently forward, when the. injured queen makes a fearful return for her wrongs, and is herself swept away by the tragic powers she has called to her service. In the mana.gement of the story there are occa- sional traces of medizevalism ; but its spirit is that of a more primitive time, when the German tribes were breaking into the I’taina.n empire, when passions were untamed by Christian influence, and when the necessities of a wander- ing a11d aggressive life knit closely the bonds that united the chief to his followers. Deliberate villany hardly ap- pears in the poem; the most savage actions spring either from the unrestricted play of natural feeling, or from un- questioning ﬁdelity to an acknowledged superior. Here and there we come upon touches which indicate that the poet who preserved the ancient legends was not incapable of appreciating ﬁner effects than those at which he gene- rally aims. The sketch of the hospitable and chivalrous lliidiger, who receives the Burgundians on their way to the co11rt of Attila, and afterwards dies while unwillingly ﬁghting them in obedience to his queen’s command, is not surpassed in the most artistic of the media-val romances. Gmlrun is another cpic in which a poet of this period gave form to several old legends. They had for centuries been current along the coasts of Frieshunl and Scandinavia, and the society they represent is essentially the s-_nne as that of the .'ibclu7z_r/mliecI,——a society in which the men are rurle, warlike, and loyal, the women independent and faithful. Although full of serious episodes, Gaul?-Mn is as happy in its ending as the greater poem is tragic; and we feel throughout that the beautiful Princess (ludrnn of Seelaud, whom the .'o1-thmen have carried from her home, and on '.'llon1 the ('i‘ll';l Qzieen (lerlind heaps iudiguitie.-', will at last be restored to King llerwig, her brave aml passionate lav er. The characters stand out Towards the end of the 13th century the movement showed _ clearly in their rough vigour, and several happy strokes How far he modiﬁed them we cannot _';1,e;u,, In the form in which we possess them, they prob-al»ly enlietl. Gudrun