German Studies MEDIEVAL LITERATURE
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German Studies MEDIEVAL LITERATURE By DAVID A. WELLs,Pro.ftssoroJGermanat Birkbeck College, University ofLondon I 0 GENERAL Kurze Geschichte der deutschen Literatur, von einem Autorenkollektiv, ed. Kurt Bottcher, Hans Jiirgen Geerdts, and Rudolf Heuenkamp, Berlin, Yolk & Wissen, 832 pp., is the third, revised edition of a literary history which first appeared in I 98 I (see YWMLS, 43: 8o3; 908). W. Spiewok supplies the chapter 'Von den Anfiingen his zum Ausgang des I5. Jahrhunderts', pp. I5-82, a traditional survey of dates and essential facts in which the chief authors and works are characterized with clarity. The early humanist works are treated by S. in the first part of the following chapter on the I 6th c. The illustrations and maps are a notable feature of the volume, which is by no means as concise as its title might suggest. Kulturgeschichtliche Tahellen zur deutschen Literatur, ed. Gunter Albus. r. Von den Anfling en his 187o. u. Von 187I his zur Gegenwart, 2 vols, Berlin, Yolk & Wissen, I986-87, 536, 6I2 pp., is a new attempt to provide a tabulated chronological survey of literature in parallel with other cultural developments. From 700 B.c. until I475 (pp. I I-I48 in vol. I) three columns supply information on, respectively, political history; wider cultural developments including economics, science, voyages of discovery, etc.; and literary and artistic monuments. From I476 on five columns are introduced, two incorporating information on foreign and Ger. literature respectively. The work yields many intriguing, if unconnected, facts, and an essential adjunct to its use is the alphabetical index of all named persons with their dates and the years against which they feature in either volume. Hilkert Weddige, Einfuhrung in die germanistische Medi{wistik, Munich, Beck, 364 pp. with 24 pis, is a bold attempt to stimulate interest in the period and its scholarly foundations. The first half of the book reviews definitions of the basic terminology and the aesthetic justification of medieval studies, with introductions on the transmission ofliterature, oral, and written culture, the medieval Christian understanding of the world, rhetoric, metrics, and feudal society. The second part surveys the chief genres and works of the MHG classical period. There is constant reference to texts and sources in what must rank as a highly successful condensation of a vast range of scholarship. Altdeutsche Texte, ed. Heinz Mettke, 2nd ed., BI, 489 pp., is a reissue of the admirably wide-ranging anthology first published in I 970 ( YWMLS, 34: 482). Only the OHG section has bibliographical notes, M. explicitly Medieval Literature making no attempt to update these; they remain a good introduction to the older critical literature. Rudiger Brandt, Kleine Einfuhrung in die mittelalterliche Poetik und Rhetorik. Mit Beispielen aus der deutschen Literatur des II.-I6. Jahrhunderts (GAG, 460), 1986, 64 pp. The Writings of Medieval Women, transl. and introd. Marcelle Thiebaux (GLML, B 14), xix + 250 pp., is an attractive anthology of literature in translation, including excerpts from the Itinerarium ofEgeria, letters of Amalasuntha, work by and about 6th-c. religious, Dhuoda's Liber Manualis (also the subject of Y. Bessmertny, MA, 93: 161-84), Hrotsvitha, Anna Comnena, Hildegard of Bingen, Elisabeth of Schonau, Matilda of England, the women troubadours, Marie de France, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Julian of Norwich, and Christine de Pizan. Whether the fact that the authors happen to be women really confers any homogeneity on these works spanning a thousand years is questionable. But much of this material has not been previously available in English, and T. adds helpful introductory bibliographical leads for further study. Daemmrich, Themes, which appears simultaneously in a German-language edition, is a particu larly good short 'theoretical, historical, and bibliographical guide to literary motifs and themes', tending to give critical surveys rather than mere repetition of the material found in earlier such works. With greater or lesser attention paid to medieval aspects, all the following lemmata supply food for thought: Abelard and Heloise, Abraham, Alchemy, Arthurian Legend, Chase, Death, Disease, Fatal Woman, Father Son, Faustus, Grail, Incest, jew, Light, Madness, Merlin, Monster, Paradise, Prodigal Son, Quest, Revenge, Satan, Sun, Wanderer. Other headings, such as Adventure, Dream, are no less obviously deficient in the account taken of our period. To it Rothe, Titel, devotes relatively little space, but has some informative comments on the particular prominence of metaphorical titles and of the affinity of the roles of the opening and the conclusion of texts. A. Feitsma, W. Jappe Alberts, and B. Sjolin, Die Friesen und ihre Sprache (N, 32), 47 pp., includes a survey of medieval Frisian history and culture besides introductions to the language and literature of the different regions. F. P. Knapp, Weber, Handbuch, pp. 27-45, broadly surveys the medieval literature of Bavaria-a dubious conception to 1350, and D. Breuer, ib., pp. 133-52, the period 13jo-1750. W. Williams-Krapp, NdW, 26, 1986: 1-7, notes the late medieval distinc tions between niderlant and oberlant. D. H~ Green, Fest. Stackmann, pp. 1-20, expounds his argument in favour of private reading as a means ofreception, and T. Cramer, Daphnis, 15, 1986:261-76, the medieval view of poetic creativity. Bibliographie jruhneuhochdeutscher Que !len. Ein kommentiertes Verzeichnis von Texten des I 4·-I 7. }ahrhunderts (Bonner Korpus), ed. Walter Hoffmann .