Graduate Studies

MPhil in European Literature & Culture | Course content | Modules | GE Medieval

MPhil in European Literature & Culture

German | GE Medieval

The formation of medieval German literature: a problem for literary history
(Convenor: Dr Mark Chinca)

Around the middle of the eleventh century, the writing of texts in the German language starts again after an interruption of around 150 years. This is the beginning of a literary tradition that has continued unbroken to the present day. Yet this first period of a continuous German literary history (extending from roughly 1050 to around 1170) is still largely neglected, and on the rare occasions when it is studied, it tends to be viewed from the perspective of the so-called Middle High German 'Blüaut;tezeit' - the flowering of love-lyrics and chivalric romances on the model of French literature at the courts of the secular nobility in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. The result of this perspective is that the early MHG period is treated predominantly as a prelude, with literary historians scanning it for incipient developments of what was to follow - signs of writers' 'emancipation' from religious genres and habits of thinking and representing, flashes of awareness of 'fictionality', reflections of the concerns of a lay public, and so on.

This module aims to conduct an experiment in thinking literary history without teleology or hindsight, in the conviction that the early MHG period deserves to be considered positively, for what it is, rather than negatively, for what it is not yet. Modes of textual production and reception are far from being primitive or still in a state of development. Narrative techniques are highly diversified and accomplished, and the scale and ambition of manuscript production (including text-illustration) outstrip anything attempted by other vernacular cultures of the same period. Finally, it may be possible to revisit and revise literary history's characterization of the 'Blüaut;tezeit', to show how it owes as much to the preceding German tradition as it does to imitating French and Occitan influences.

Since it would be unfeasible to cover the entire literary output of the period in just six seminars, each year will focus on one major genre or theme. For Lent 2010 this focus will be on historical narrative. A separate reading-list is available.

Module prerequisites: No previous experience of studying medieval literature is assumed. Participation does require however an advanced ability in reading academic German, as well as a reading knowledge of Middle High German. Interested students who do not already have the latter can acquire it by attending the introductory course in MHG held for undergraduates in the Michaelmas term (Tripos papers Ge4 and Ge14).

Reading list for Lent 2010 topic: Historical narrative

Gisela Vollmann-Profe, Wiederbeginn im hohen Mittelalter (= Geschichte der deutschen Literatur von den Anfängen bis zum Beginn der Neuzeit, ed. Joachim Heinzle, vol. I/2) 2nd edition, Tübingen 1994 (read all for overview of period)
Dieter Kartschoke, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur im frühen Mittelalter, Munich 1990, pp. 284-306
David Perkins, Is literary history possible? Baltimore / London 1992 (for general problems of method in literary history)
Relevant articles in Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters. Verfasserlexikon, 2nd edition

Primary texts
Das Annolied, ed. Eberhard Nellmann, 6th edn, Stuttgart 2005 Die Kaiserchronik eines Regensburger Geistlichen, ed. Edward Schröder, MGH Dt. Chroniken 1,1, Hanover 1892, repr. Munich 2002
Das Rolandslied des Pfaffen Konrad, ed. Dieter Kartschoke, 2nd edn, Stuttgart 1996
Pfaffe Lambrecht: Alexanderroman, ed. Elisabeth Lienert, Stuttgart 2007

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