Germanic poetry

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The Germanic poetry , even old Germanic poetry called, is a Versdichtung whose outstanding feature of alliteration , the alliteration is that the meaningful words with the same initial sound emphasizes the root syllables.

Historical development and context

Germanic poetry in "original" form is nowhere preserved. It consisted of performed, freely improvised or memorized and traditional verse art. They were presented orally by specialists such as the so-called cult speaker Þulr , the Old English Scop and the Old Norse Skáld . A neutral written recording of such lecture texts was and is - until today - impossible. The discovery of the Latin book and written culture subjected the entire text culture of the Germanic peoples (not just poetry alone) to a radical and long-lasting transformation. A transitional and mixed state between oral and written poetry prevails for almost a millennium (500–1500). At best, fragments of the old poetry are handed down in the scriptural literature of the Germanic peoples of the Middle Ages, which was inspired by Christian influence . The Germanic cultures cultivated indigenous poetry even before the Christian missionary work in Europe; much survived the conversion that stood outside the Roman and Christian poetry. Germanic poetry originated in the context of oral traditions ; it only became literary when the Goths , Germans , English and Scandinavians were literate by Christian monks and missionaries . Texts of Germanic poetry and storytelling are preserved as literature, for example in the Edda , the Skaldendichtung and the Old Norse sagas , but it can never be determined with certainty whether these forms and genres have been taken over from purely oral culture or whether they represent new literary developments. The rhyming great epic of the Anglo-Saxons and Saxons ( Beowulf , Heliand ) is not considered an autochthonous form today, but rather as inspired by the Latin epic.

Regional sealing traditions

The Germanic cultures in Europe are divided into three different branches: Continental Germanic in northwestern, eastern and south-southeastern Central Europe, North Germanic in Scandinavia and Iceland, as well as the Anglo-Saxon cultures of England , each with their own languages ​​- Old High German, Old Saxon, Old English and Old Norse - in which orally poetry is used has been. Germanic poems only became written through the influence of the Christian mission.

Goths

The scriptures of the Goths developed by Bishop Wulfila for his translation of the Bible probably did not serve to transmit secular poetry. Theological monuments in the Gothic language are known almost exclusively : Bible, teaching and legal texts. Otherwise, the Gothic elite used the script and language in which they had learned to read: Greek or Latin.

Central Europe

In the old German idiom , in the period from 750 to 1150, mostly functional literature was created that served Christian conversion and the spread of teaching. The existing indigenous Germanic poetry of continental European-Germanic cultures did not develop into written literature during these four centuries, but remained oral. In the monasteries, poetry was in Latin; at the courts of the nobility, Latin for the "higher" culture and oral German poetry ( hero poetry ) for the entertainment of the nobility, who were generally still ignorant of the written language, coexisted . In the place of the allotted rhyme, however, the final rhyme appeared as early as the 9th century, an 'invention' of sacred poetry (cf. Otfried von Weißenburg ). However, people are poorly informed about both the materials and the forms of non-religious nobility poetry between the 9th and 12th centuries. It was not until the 12th century, inspired by France, that the amalgamation of vernacular verse, secular and knightly material, entertainment function and book form succeeded.

Germanic poetry, as it lived on outside the clergy, arose entirely in the oral milieu of the illiterate and oral tradition. Indigenous Germanic poetry was cultivated in England and Scandinavia well into the High Middle Ages .

England

In ancient English culture , the relationship between indigenous poetry and foreign traditions was gradually different. Legal texts and annals were written in Old English. In addition, there was a history of monasteries that made use of Latin ( Bedas Historia ecclesiastica around 730 or the Vita Alfredi around 900). The church tolerated Germanic poetry as an artistic expression of the population: Old English and Latin, secular and ecclesiastical material existed side by side, especially in the northern English monasteries, committed to various subject areas, which was not successful in either Central Europe or Scandinavia. This poetic tradition broke off with the arrival of the Normans at the latest .

Scandinavia

In general, the Scandinavian north is considered to be the keeper of Germanic poetry, although Denmark , Sweden and Norway left little behind. When writing established itself in these cultures around 1200, knightly literary genres ( verse novels , ballads ) came into fashion at the same time .

Iceland

Iceland, where most of the Germanic poetry preserved today was written down in the 13th century, made up for the great losses suffered by the other regions. The works that were created there shape our conception of Germanic poetry today, possibly wrongly. Without the productivity of medieval Icelandic writers, there would be little to be said about Germanic poetry. Only in the democratic environment of medieval Iceland was there a secular education that could withstand the scholarship in the monasteries. Although the Christian influence was considerable here too, indigenous forms and contents were able to assert themselves. The influence of the French-speaking chivalric novels also reached Iceland later. The Icelandic sources also attest to the influence of Irish poetry brought to Iceland through trade and Christian slaves. In terms of the form and content of its poetry, Icelandic poetry contains much of the originally Germanic. On the other hand, the proportion of new, independent developments cannot be overestimated. The more recent research tends more and more to the judgment that Icelandic poetry represents a special development of Germanic poetry rather than its conservation. In particular, the prosaic saga literature with its own style and culture-specific topics must be mentioned in this context. The saga literature is written literature from the beginning.

Secondary sources

Due to the very fragmentary tradition of authentic Germanic poetry, secondary sources are of great importance. Testimonials about composition and Versbildungstechniken , about the manner of the presentation and content of the seals are found first in Latin in Tacitus , in the Roman Emperor Julian (360), whose ear the songs of the Alemanni offended at the Greek Priscus , the listened to two poets at Attila's court, and the Goths Jordanes (around 550), who described the historical origins and culture of the Goths from his own perspective.

Sources in the Germanic languages ​​can be found in the vocabulary , in the terms for poets and poetry , in the traditional proverbs , the poems of the skalds and in the Icelandic sagas . A designation that has been preserved can often testify to what was lost in the matter. From Icelandic texts we learn names of the various poems such as kvíða , drápa or flokkr , which, however, cannot be transferred to early Germanic poetry. Poetological textbooks such as the Skáldskaparmál report on language and style . The Dane Saxo Grammaticus wrote a Danish story, again in Latin, in which he relied on Icelandic sources and passed down quotations from Scandinavian poetry in addition to prosaic stories. We owe extensive poetic material to Snorri Sturluson and his circle, and to Icelandic scholarly early history in general ; especially in the Skáldskaparmál, the teaching of the poetic language, the Snorra Edda . And again it is the old Norse tradition that shapes the image of Germanic poetry; the old German and old English tradition is far less favorable.

Training techniques

The verse line

Germanic poetry basically uses the long line for its content , which is made up of two half lines . This characteristic line of verse developed from the verse in the form of the half line, which was expanded to a long line with a second line. Such a verse consists of four bars . Each of these bars (or accents ) represents a stressed syllable . Of these four elevations, two may in turn have a stronger emphasis ( main elevation ). In contrast to the Skaldic verse, the number of syllables in Eddic is variable. The two half lines of the Germanic long line form a semantic unit. The second half line is also syntactically related to the first: It must not have more, rather fewer syllables than the first half line. The two half-lines are separated by a caesura : the fourth bar must be at the end of a word or a sentence. The alliance connects the two half-lines to a syntactic-semantic unit. Ideally, a long line contains three bars (Old Norse stafr ) that are unevenly distributed over their length. The first two bars (secondary bars) are in the first half line, the third bar, the main bar, which characterizes the meaningful word, receives the second half line. In the Nordic poems, the third bar must always lie on the first bar of the second half line. In addition to this, there are also long lines with two or four rods or two rods twice in the regional Germanic poetry traditions. In addition to the long line with four elevations, there is in Germanic poetry, v. a. in meter Ljóðaháttr , also the verse line with three measures.

The rhyme

Germanic poets combine three different rhyme forms in their poems , the characteristic forms:

All abbreviations and internal rhyme meet the structure of the Germanic language.

The stanza

A continuous strophic structure was not common in Germanic poetry from the beginning. The oldest poems attested to in writing, such as the Hildebrandslied , were unstrophic. In this phase, stanzas were probably only reserved for ritual poetry and served in an oral environment for better memorability and transmission. Only the Nordic Eddic and Skaldic poetry always seems to have been strophic. Stanzas give Germanic poetry a formal framework and summarize content and thematic sequences. However, content can also be designed across stanzas. The four Germanic stanzas are most abundantly represented in the Nordic Edda and are best studied there:

The scaldic stanza is probably one of the most elaborate poems of its kind in the world. The Nordic skalds created particularly ingenious, complicated word art in this genre, which made high demands on rules of order and poetic style.

The Dróttkvætt (the Hofton) is based on the Germanic long line with its two half lines. The skald combined four of these half-lines (two long lines) in a half- strophe ( old Norse helmingar ); a semi-stanzas formed one of the Scaldic stanzas as they are passed down in many of the Icelandic Íslendinga sögur ( Icelandic sagas ) as Lausavísur (loose stanzas). Such a skaldic stanza consisting of two semi-stanzas forms a semantic unit. A special feature of this stanza is the often complete disregard of the syntax of natural everyday language , as the meaningful half lines or long lines are interwoven and thus fragmented. But not only the syntactic rules were broken by the skalds, the colloquial vocabulary was so complicated by synonyms ( Heiti and Kenningar ) that most skald stanzas could only be understood by those who participated in the situation in which such a stanza originated or the had the necessary (mythological) background knowledge. The themes of the skaldic stanzas, quite different from the Eddic ones, were not mythological, but often spontaneous ( impromptu ) reactions to current events or personal experiences. The difference between Eddic and Skaldic is not only based on anonymity or authorship. It also corresponds to the difference: collective-individual (subjective).

Synonyms: Heiti and Kenningar

Poetic synonyms such as Heiti and Kenningar are found not only in Eddic poetry, but also in v. a. in the scald poetry, and there especially in the price song . Heiti and Kenningar are paraphrases that are used instead of the actual names and terms. Both not only convey content, they also enable ornamental variations of the poetic language of the skald and represent a poetic means of focusing the recipient's attention on important text passages:

  • Heiti are one-part paraphrases for a noun, often god names, archaic terms, less often loan words . Particularly in the Þulur there are lists of such Heiti under certain terms, often corresponding to Nordic myths .
  • The Kenningar (Sing. Kenning) are two-part or multi-part descriptions of terms that consist of several words or form a compound word.

Heiti and Kenningar assume a mythological background knowledge for their understanding .

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