Germany, like the other Northern nations, had primitive war songs sung
by the bards. Her mythology is akin to the Scandinavian, and like the
latter she assigns a high place to women. Tacitus says: "It is believed
that there is something holy and prophetic about them, and therefore
the warriors neither despise their counsels nor disregard their
responses."
This German paganism was eminently fanciful--it peopled the earth, air
and sea with supernatural beings--the rivers had their Undines, the
caverns their Gnomes, the woods their Sprites, and the ocean its Nixes.
Besides these, there were a host of mythological figures--the Walkyres
or bridal maidens, the river maids; and the white women, Hertha and
Frigga. These legends have formed a rich treasure house from which
later German authors have freely drawn for song or story. Before the
Christian age Germany had no literature and the first national work
that can be dignified by the name is a translation of the Bible into
Moeso-Gothic by Ulphilas, a bishop of the Goths, in the fourth century
A.D. This is a Catholic work that antedated Luther by a thousand years.
Bishop Ulphilas invented an alphabet of Runic, Greek and Roman letters,
and this translation of the Bible remained the only literary monument
of the Germans for four hundred years. The minstrel lays of this period
were later collected by Charlemagne, of which two specimens have come
down to us. Like the Icelandic, Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian, old English,
and old Saxon, they are in a measure called alliteration, that is, a
repetition of the sound without the regular rhyme at the end of lines,
or such as we call rhyme. This circumstance made Klopstock, at a later
period, try to banish rhyme as not being correct according to ancient
usage. One of these poems, the Hildebrand-lied, belongs to the time of
Theodoric the Great. The songs collected by Charlemagne, were later
remodelled and have come down to us as the Heldenbuch and the
Nibelungen-lied. The intellectual light in Germany went out with the
death of Charlemagne, except in the cloisters.
The Normans on the West and the Hungarians in the East menaced the
country, and the only important literary work of the time is a poem
written by a monk at the close of the ninth century. It is called
"Ludwig's Lied;" and celebrates the triumph of Louis over the Normans.
Roswitha, a nun in the tenth century, wrote some Christian dramas in
Latin that are remarkable as coming from the pen of a woman in the
Middle Ages.
The invasions of the Hungarians and Slavs in the eleventh century
effectually prevented the blossoming of any literary effort, except for
some poems known as the Lombard Cycle, in which the rude pagan legends
of antiquity were blended with the dawnings of Christianity. But in
1138, when Conrad III became Emperor of Germany, his accession was
followed by the Crusades, which spread a flame of enthusiasm and
chivalry among the Germans.
In 1149 Conrad and Louis VII of France joined forces to lead a Crusade
to the Holy Land, and thus the German and French nobility became
intimately acquainted, and Provencal poetry soon began to have an
effect on German literature.
Emperors and nobles held court and received their foreign guests with
splendid display and hospitality. Poets and singers were welcomed, and
the chivalric literature was soon taken up by the Suabian minstrels who
became known as the Minnesingers.
From 1150 to 1300 was the golden age of Suabian literature and German
chivalry. During this period numerous romances of chivalry were
translated into German.
They have been divided into different classes, or cycles.
The first, and most ancient, have to do with Arthur and the Knights of
the Round Table. Their origin is Anglo-Norman, and they were probably
taken from old Welsh chronicles in an early age, and were known in
Britain and Brittany before the poets began to put them in rhyme.
The most popular of these romances was the San Graal, or Holy Grail, a
subject that has engaged some of the best poets of all countries. In
this legend the Cup, which was supposed to have been used at the Last
Supper, in some way is brought to Golgotha during the Crucifixion, and
is used to preserve some of the blood that flows from Christ's side,
when it is opened by the soldier's spear. Joseph of Arimathea is
thought to have brought this precious Cup to Europe, and to have given
it into the keeping of Sir Parsifal. Knowledge of its whereabouts was
then lost, so that knights and heroes make it the object of long and
fruitless quests.
The second cycle of romance has to do with Charlemagne, and is mostly
in the form of translations from French literature.
The third, or classic cycle, relates to the great ones of ancient
times, presented in the role of chivalry. These embrace stories of
Alexander the Great, the Aeneid, and the Trojan war. During this period
there were two classes of songs in Germany; the minstrelsy, most in
favor with the nobility; and the old ballads, which were most popular
with the people. The latter were gradually collected by different poets
of the time, especially by Wolfram of Eschenbach and put into epic
verse, in which form they have come down to us as the Heldenbuch (or
book of heroes), and the Nibelungen-lied.
The Heldenbuch relates the deeds of Theodoric and Attila and the
outpouring of the Goths into the Roman Empire. In the Nibelungen-lied
the hero is Siegfried, the Achilles of the North, the embodiment of
beauty, courage and virtue. The same personages are met with in these
German legends, as in the Scandinavian mythology, only in the latter
they take on a more godlike form. The German Brunhild, in the
Scandinavian story becomes a Valkyriur.
The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries witnessed the decline of the
romanticists, the loss of most of the Southern culture, and all the
literature of this time is at a low ebb, partly owing to the wars of
the Germans against the Huns.
The fourteenth century was productive of one class of literature that
was common to all Europe; namely, simple and humorous fables and
satires. "Reynard the Fox" was one of the earliest of these fables, and
remained a great favorite with the Germans, being finally immortalized
by Goethe. The same author has made us familiar with a personage who
figures in an interesting legend of the fifteenth century. Doctor
Faust, or Faustus, is a magician who by unlawful arts gains a mastery
over nature. This legend became the foundation of a number of stories
and dramas, and was put into verse by Christopher Marlowe, the English
dramatist.
The end of the sixteenth century saw a craze for Latin in Germany. The
national tongue was neglected and national poetry was translated into
Latin verse. German poets wrote in the same classic language, and the
university lectures were all delivered in the same tongue. The
seventeenth century saw the Thirty Years' War, during which all
literary activity was completely paralyzed, and in the course of these
thirty years a whole generation, especially among the lower classes,
had grown up unable either to read or write. But after the Treaty of
Westphalia matters began to improve, and a desire to cultivate the
native language awoke. In 1688 German superseded Latin in the
universities. Novels were published; and about this time appeared a
German translation of Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" that became very
popular. Poets wrote plays in the style of Terence, or copied English
models; and even in the present day the Germans recall with pride the
fact that the Shakespearean plays were appreciated by them during and
after the Elizabethan age much more than they were by the English
Nation.
Science under Leibnitz also began to take shape in this century, while
Opitz wrote operas in imitation of the Italian style; and translations
from the Italian Marini came into vogue. In the eighteenth century
arose the Saxonic and Swiss schools of literature, neither of which was
devoted to national works. Gottsched, the founder and imitator of
French standards in art and poetry, is known as the leader in the
Saxonic school at Leipsic, and an advocate of classical poetry.
Bodmer cultivated the English style, and retired to Switzerland with
his friends, where they founded the Swiss school. The English lyric and
elegiac poets had a wonderful influence in Germany. The followers of
this school who were, or pretended to be, poets, began to write
"Seasons" in imitation of Thomson; and the novels of the time were full
of shepherds and shepherdesses. The craze spread to France, where the
French Court took up the fad of living in rustic lodges, and Marie
Antoinette posed as a shepherdess tending sheep. Each of these poets
had numerous followers, of whom Rambler is known as the German Horace.
Frederick the Great preferred French works, and no one seems to have
thought of starting a German school except Klopstock, who stands almost
alone in the literature of his time and country. A man of lofty ideals,
he believed that Christianity on the one hand and Gothic mythology on
the other, should be the chief elements in all new European poetry and
inspiration. Had he been encouraged by the German Court he would have
been as powerful for good in German literature during the eighteenth
century, as Voltaire was powerful for evil in France. Wielland, a
friend of Klopstock, and a romantic poet, might have been the German
Ariosto had he not abandoned poetry for prose. He tried to copy the
Greek, in which he failed to excel. During this conflict in Germany
between the French and English school, German literature was much
influenced by Macpherson's Ossian, and Scotch names are found in a
great many German works of this period. The literature of Germany
attained its highest beauty and finish in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries; and its people may well be proud of the splendid names that
adorn that period. The Gottingen School, which embraced Goethe and
Schiller, includes love, philosophy and the classics for its theme,
with a touch of the bucolic, modelled after Virgil, as in the "Louise"
of Voss. But it remained for the Romantic School, founded by Novalis,
the two Schlegels and Tieck, to oppose the study of the classic antique
on the ground that it killed all native originality and power. They
turned to the Middle Ages, and drew from its rich stores all that was
noblest and best. The lays of the Minnesingers were revived--the true
German spirit was cultivated, and the romantic German imagination
responded readily, so that during the dark period of the French
invasion, the national feeling was preserved pure and untouched by
means of these stirring and patriotic songs of the past.
About the same time as the advent of the Romanticists in Germany
appeared Walpole's "Castle of Otranto" in England, which is supposed to
belong to the same school of literature and to have been influenced by
the German. Scott was also numbered in this class; and it is from these
old German legends of the Minnesingers that Richard Wagner has drawn
the material for Lohengrin, Parsifal, and others of his magnificent
operas. In one department German scholars have attained a high
standard, and that is as historians of ancient classical literature.
Their researches into the language, religion, philosophy, social
economy, arts and sciences of ancient nations, has brought to light
much for which the student of literature will always be their debtor.