Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/543

Rh Helden- bnch. Minne- s'zi.ngcr. Walther £011 der Vogel- Weide. 311NNEsXNe£R.] call up a vision of the bleak coasts and changeful northern sea which are the scenes of their adventures. In the 15th century a German writer brought‘. together in a single volume which he called the Ilcldenb-zzc/¢———tl1e “ Book of l[eroes”——a number of old legendary tales that must l1ave been frequently on the lips of the people and of the wandering minstrels, while the knightly poets were singing of Tristram or of Arthur. This work, which was pzirtly written by Kaspar von der Rhiin, will not compare in imaginative force with its more famous rivals. The most powerful of the stories is probably the “Grosser tosengairten,” in which a monk, Ilsan, displays a very nnelerical, but truly Teutonic, passion for war. The age of chivalry was remarkable not only for its romances and epics but for its lyrics. All tl1e leading writers of the time exercised themselves in lyrical poetry, and it was laboriously cultivated by multitudes who did not feel equal to the task of a prolonged effort. Among those who gained more or less distinction may be named lleinrich von llorungen, Reinmar der Alte, a11d Gottfried von Neifen. The poets of this class were known as llinnesiinger, because their favourite theme was Minne or love. They began by imitating the troubadours, whose metres they often reproduced when not penetrated by the emotion which originally found in these forms a genuine expression. At a later stage it was considered a point of honour for each poet to invent a stanza of his own, whether or not those already existing were appro- priate to his feeling. Thus many of the minne songs pro- duce an impression of unreality and coldness, seeming at best to be but clever pieces of handiwork. But when the utmost deduction has been made, it is surprising how much of what was achieved by these ardent writers still appeals to us. The best among them strike notes which respond in every age to a master’s touch; and they do it with a fine sense of beauty, a trained instinct for the appropriate- ness of words, and an evident delight both in simple and in subtle melody. Perhaps no group of writers has ever had a deeper under- tone of sadness than is to be detected in the greatest of the ininneszinger. They had a vivid consciousness of the evanescence of human pleasure, an abiding feeling that cor- ruption lnrks behind the gayest forms and brightest colours. But they caught with proportional eagerness the passing rap- ture, letting no drop escape from the cup that would soon fall from their grasp. This intensity of feeling is reproduced in their lays, yet it was puriﬁed a11d generalized as it passed from the ﬂeeting reality to the permanent realm of art. Their treatment of love, although sometimes, accord- ing to modern ideas, extravagant and fantastic, often dis- plays genuine elevation of sentiment. They sing also in impassioned strains the loyalty of the vassal to his lord, the devotion of the Christian to his church. If they do not exhibit the soaring spiritual ambition of Wolfram’s Pm-zival, they have a kind of pathetic memory of a lost paradise, a vague longing, by some distant diﬂicult service, in battle with the inﬁdel, to attain to a world in which the discords of the present life may be forgotten or harmonized. And behind all their images is the background of nature, whose loveliness they do 11ot the less appreciate because they refrain from elaborately describing it. To the dwellers in dreary towers winter had often a eheerless and melancholy aspect ; but this made all the more enchanting the new life of sprintr. It is in hailing the returning warmth and colour of the young season that the minnesitnger attain their happiest triumphs. Of all the minnesitnger the ﬁrst place belongs without question to Valther von der Vogelweide, probably of Tyrol, whom Gottfried of Strasburg praises as heartily as he slyly depreciates Wolfram von Eschenbach. Walther lived some GERMANY 525 time at the Vartburg, and was the friend of King Philip and l"redericl< ll ; he died on a little estate which the latter gave him in ﬁef. Other Minnesiinger lavished praise on generous princes; Va1ther was of a more manly charac- ter, and seems always to have maintained an independent bearing. Besides the usual themes of the lyrical poetry of his time, he wrote with enthusiasm of his native land; he also frequently alludes to the strife between the spiritual and secular powers, and sternly rebukes the ambition of the papacy. Beyond all his rivals he gives us the impres- sion of writing with ease a11d delight. The structure of his stanzas does not hamper the movement of his feeling; it appears to provide the conditions of perfect freedom. Such a lyric as his l'm'cr dc)‘ Limlm an der Ilcicle, with its musical refrain Tcuz(Zar(ulei, although a master- piece of art, is exquisite in its childlike simplicity; it has the unaffected grace of a ﬂower, the spontaneity of a bird’s song. As the expression of all that was fantastic and ridiculous in the age of chivalry, must be mentioned the I"rcmemIienst of Ulrich von Lichtenstein, a work which was written about the middle of the 13th century, and had a certain popu- larity in its time. It is an autobiography, with a number of lyrics interwoven to give variety and animation to the narrative. The solemn gravity with which the author relates the amazing tasks imposed upon him by his mistress shows how easily the worship of womanhood degenerated into almost incredible ehildishness. Ulrich is sometimes compared to Don Quixote, but this is to do extreme in- justice to Cervantes’s hero. Amid all his illusions the fictitious knight maintains a certain pathetic dignity; the knight of reality passes from absurdity to absurdity with- out a touch of idealism to redeem his folly. And his lyrics are the tasteless manufacture of a thoroughly prosaic spirit. Several of the minnesitnger, Walther von der Vogelweide especially, display at times a strongly didactic tendency. From the beginning of the period this tendency was developed by writers who took little interest in poetry for its own sake, and it became more and more prominent as the purely lyrical impulse passed away. The didactic poet, however signiﬁcant his labonrs may be to his contempor- aries, has necessarily the stamp of commonplace for posterity; and the gnomie writers of the 13th century form no exception to this rule. But several of them have at least the interest that attaches to sincerity and earnest- ness. There is genuine enthusiasm for pure morality in the Welsrlze Gast of Thomasin Zerklar; and the li’esr:Izei¢Ie-n- hail of Freidank expresses so high a conception of duty, and expresses it so well, that the work was ascribed to Walther himself. Reinmar von Zweter and Heinrich Frauenlob came a little later, and they were followed by H ugo von Trimberg, whose Rezmcr sets forth un- impeachable lessons in homely and satirical verses. A higher tone is perceptible in Der lVz'nsbec/re, a collection of sayings in which we ﬁnd an echo of the reverence for noble women that marked the epoch at its dawn. Among didactic writings nmst be classed the well known Der Iﬁieg auf der ll'ar(b2n'g (“ The Contest at the Vartburg”). It includes the verses supposed to have been sung at a tournament of poets attended by Heinrich von Ofterdingen, Walther von der Vogelweide, and Volfram von Eschenbach. As Latin continued to be the speech of scholars, and the passion for metrical expression pervaded the higher classes, there was not much scope for the growth of prose. Never- theless, it is in this age that we ﬁnd the ﬁrst serious attempts to secure for German prose a place in the national literature. The Sachseizspiegel and the Sc/ewabenspzcgel, two great collections of local laws, although of 'a scientific character, and mainly interesting because of their social importance, had considerable inﬂuence in encouraging the Ulrich von Lichten- stem. Didactic poets. Beginnin of prose.