Old High German literature
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Old High German literature refers to literature written in Old High German, from the earliest texts in the 8th century to the middle of the 11th century.
Scope
The term "literature" as it is used in connection with Old High German has a broader scope than for later periods in the history of German: it is not restricted to imaginative works but encompasses everything written in the language, including prayers and theological works as well as verse narratives.
The earliest texts date from the second half of the 8th century: translation aids (
Language
The Old High German period sees the first attempts to use the Latin alphabet for writing German, something which Otfrid of Weissenburg, writing c. 830, recognized as fraught with difficulty.[5] As Murdoch explains, "Written down without prescriptive rules in more or less isolated monasteries, then, it is to be expected that Old High (and Old Low) German texts show a bewildering amount of linguistic variation."[6] The result is that there is no standard Old High German — each text presents a particular dialect (or dialect mixture), and in the absence of contemporary evidence for dialect boundaries, they have been termed "monastery dialects" (German Klosterdialekte).[7]
Genres
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Epic Poetry
The most famous work in OHG is the Hildebrandslied, a short piece of Germanic alliterative heroic verse which besides the Muspilli is the sole survivor of what must have been a vast oral tradition.
Lyric Poetry
Works include the short but splendid
Other Literature
Works include the Evangelienbuch of
Text collections
- ISBN 3-484-10707-3.)
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link- Braune, Wilhelm, ed. (1921). Althochdeutsches Lesebuch: Zusammengestellt und mit Wörterbuch versehen (8th ed.). Halle: Niemeyer.
- Steinmeyer, Elias von (1916). Die kleineren althochdeutschen Sprachdenkmäler. Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung.
- Schlosser, Horst-Dieter, ed. (2004). Althochdeutsche Literatur: Mit altniederdeutschen Textbeispielen. Auswahl mit Übertragungen und Kommentar. Berlin: Erich Schmidt. ISBN 978-3503079032.(with German translations)
- Müller, Stephan, ed. (2018). Althochdeutsche Literatur. Eine kommentierte Anthologie. Stuttgart: Reclam. ISBN 978-3-15-018491-2.(with German translations)
Notes
- ^ Bostock 1976, p. 3.
- ^ Müller 2018, pp. 17–18.
- ^ Bostock 1976, pp. 3–4.
- ^ West 2004, p. 227.
- ^ Archibald 2004, p. 142.
- ^ Murdoch 2004, p. 16.
- ^ Wells 1987, pp. 44, 50–53.
Sources
- Archibald, Linda (2004). "Otfrid of Weissenburg". In Murdoch, Brian (ed.). German Literature of the Early Middle Ages. New York, Woodbridge: Camden House. pp. 139–156. ISBN 1-57113-240-6.
- Bostock, J. Knight (1976). King, K. C.; McLintock, D. R. (eds.). A Handbook on Old High German Literature (2nd ed.). Oxford. ISBN 0-19-815392-9.)
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - de Boor, Helmut (1971). Geschichte der deutschen Literatur. Vol. Band I. Von Karl dem Großen bis zum Beginn der höfischen Literatur 770-1170. München: C.H.Beck. ISBN 3-406-00703-1.
- Gibbs, Marion; Johnson, Sidney, eds. (2002). Medieval German Literature: A Companion. New York, London: Routledge. ISBN 0-203-90660-8.
- Haubrichs, Wolfgang (1995). Die Anfänge: Versuche volkssprachlicher Schriftlichkeit im frühen Mittelalter (ca. 700-1050/60). Geschichte der deutschen Literatur von den Anfängen bis zum Beginn der Neuzeit. Vol. 1/1 (2nd ed.). Tübingen: Niemeyer. ISBN 978-3484107014.
- Murdoch, Murdoch, ed. (2004). German Literature of the Early Middle Ages. The Camden House History of German Literature. Vol. 2. New York, Woodbridge: Camden House. ISBN 1-57113-240-6.
- Sonderegger, Stefan (2003). Althochdeutsche Sprache und Literatur (3rd ed.). de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-004559-1.
- Wells, C. J. (1987). German: A Linguistic History to 1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-815809-2.
- West, Jonathan (2004). "Late Old High German Prose". In Murdoch, Brian (ed.). German Literature of the Early Middle Ages. New York, Woodbridge: Camden House. pp. 227–245. ISBN 1-57113-240-6.
- Young, Christopher; Gloning, Thomas (2004). A History of the German Language through texts. London, New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-18331-6.
External links
- Bibliotheca Germanica: Althochdeutsche Epoche (manuscript images with transcription and Modern German translation)