German Literature

I

Introduction

German Literature, literature written in the German language from the 8th century to the present, and including the works of German, Austrian, and Swiss authors. It may be divided into periods corresponding generally to successive phases in the development of the German language and to the growth and unification of Germany as a nation. See also Austrian Literature; Switzerland: Literature.

II

Old High German Period (800-1100)

The oldest known literary work in German is the epic Hildebrandslied (Lay of Hildebrand), which survives in a fragment dating from about ad 800. This work describes, in mixed Low and High German alliterative verse, the confrontation and the beginning of a battle between the legendary hero Hildebrand and his son. Other legends deal with such heroic personalities as Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths; Attila, king of the Huns; and Siegfried, identified by some authorities as the German chief Arminius, who defeated the Romans in the Teutoburger Wald, a forest in Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen) in ad 9.

This pagan tradition was disowned by the Roman Catholic church, which remained the dominant force in German literature from the 4th to the 12th century. As early as 381 Ulfilas, bishop of the Goths, translated the Bible into the vernacular, and an anonymous priest wrote Muspilli (900; translated 1885), an alliterative poem in Bavarian dialect depicting the destruction of the world by fire on Judgment Day. Another important work, written in the old Low German dialect, is the epic Heliand (9th century; translated 1830), in which Christ is represented as a German prince with feudal retainers as his disciples.

Under the Frankish ruler Charles Martel and his successors, many abbeys were founded, among them the famous Saint Gall (now in Switzerland) and Fulda in Germany. In these abbeys the monks preserved ancient literature as well as the history of their own time. During this period, however, the major literary works were written in Latin, with German used primarily in translations from the older language. An example of an epic written in Latin is the Walthariuslied (930?; Lay of Walter, 1858) by Ekkehard I the Elder of Sankt Gallen, which tells of the escape of the hero Walter and his bride from the court of Attila. In addition to such epics, written for the royal courts, a popular oral literature developed during the 9th and 10th centuries. It consisted largely of tales and ballads, which were not written down until about the 14th century.

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III

Middle High German Period (1100-1370)

Although prose writing and drama were found primarily in the form of didactic religious works throughout the Middle High German period, poetry developed as a mode of secular expression, and epic, lyric, and satiric forms appeared, giving voice to the virtues of chivalry and courtly love. The Spielleute, or wandering minstrels, entertained their listeners with stories of adventure sometimes based on the experiences of warriors returning from the Crusades. Among the epic poems of the period, König Rother (King Rother, 1150?) had the greatest success. Another important style was the court epic, which reached its highest form in the works of Hartmann von Aue, Gottfried von Strassburg, Wolfram von Eschenbach, and Heinrich von Veldeke. Although the works of such French writers as Chrétien de Troyes and others served as models for the German epics, the German writers expressed their own ideals, found their own form and style, and very often added depth to the stories. A variation of the court epic was the epic in which an animal was the central figure. Reinecke Fuchs (1180?; Reynard the Fox, 1840) by Heinrich der Glîchezaere is the best example. The greatest of the German epics is the Nibelungenlied, set down in the early 13th century by an unknown author.

Lyric poetry during the Middle High German period developed in the form of the Minnesang, or courtly lyric, composed by the lyric poets known as minnesingers. The great master of this type of poetry is Walther von der Vogelweide. His works, which include love songs, religious lyrics, and epigrams, express personal and political idealism and assert his independence of papal authority.

In the second half of the 13th century the nature of the epic began to change as characters from the middle class and the peasantry were introduced. The peasantry, once an object of derision, became increasingly important in literature, figuring prominently in such works as Meier Helmbrecht, a 13th-century tale of peasant life.

IV

The Reformation (1500-1700)

The rise of the middle class in the 14th and 15th centuries and the struggles of the peasants against the nobility culminated in the great 16th-century religious revolution known as the Reformation. This movement was reflected in literature, especially by Martin Luther, whose translation of the Bible established New High German as the literary language of Germany. In secular literature the aristocratic Minnesang was discarded in favor of the Meistergesang (“master song”), written by guilds of artisans known as Meistersinger. Also popular were the simple lyric poems later collectively titled Volkslied (“folk songs”). The Schwank, a farcical form of comic anecdote, gave popular expression to the stories of sly rogues such as Till Eulenspiegel. In the famous Das Narrenschiff (1494; The Ship of Fools, 1509) the humanist poet Sebastian Brant satirized more than 100 contemporary forms of foolishness and immorality. Another successful author was Johann Fischart, a satiric poet and polemical writer for the Protestant cause, who based his material on the adventures of Gargantua and Pantagruel, characters created by the French satirist François Rabelais. This period marked the first appearance in literature of the legendary scholar Johann Faust in the anonymous prose fiction Historia von Dr. Johann Fausten, published in 1587.

Late in the 15th century German drama, hitherto restricted to passion plays and other religious spectacles, began to take on secular form in the Fastnachtsspiele (“Shrovetide plays”), allegorical comic dramas performed during the carnival season. Worldly elements gradually penetrated even the religious Christmas and Easter plays. Among the important dramatists of the Reformation period were Burkard Waldis, who also wrote satiric fables, Nikodemus Frischlin, and Hans Sachs, a poet and dramatist who was noted for his Fastnachtsspiele.

An attempt to bring French influences into German literature was made during the early 17th century by the critic Martin Opitz. In his principal work, Das Buch von der deutschen Poeterey (Book of German Poetry, 1624), Opitz demanded that German writers imitate contemporary French models in style, meter, and pattern. Although some of the literary academies carried his rules to extremes of complicated formality, several poets, influenced by Opitz, achieved an increased individuality of expression. Among them were Simon Dach; Paul Flemming; Johann Scheffler, commonly called Angelus Silesius; and Baron Friedrich von Logau. Protestant poetry of the 17th century reached its height in the hymns of Paul Gerhardt.

The development of German literature was halted for more than a generation by the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648). The effects of the conflict can be seen in the work of the novelist Hans Jakob Christoph von Grimmelshausen. His tale of a disillusioned farmer’s son, Der abenteuerliche Simplicissimus (1669; The Adventurous Simplicissimus, 1912), is the first great novel in the German language. Such comedies as Peter Squenz (1663) by the satirist Andreas Gryphius also describe the disillusionment and disenchantment that inevitably followed the war.