Hero seal

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Hero poetry (also heroic epic , heroic epic , heroic song , heroic saga ) is the collective term for all poetic forms that focus on a figure of the heroic age .

Greek tradition

The Homeric epic ( Iliad and Odyssey ) is considered the oldest heroic poem in Europe . The Greek poetry of gods and heroes is also the most extensive on the continent. Our knowledge of Greek heroic poetry ranges from references and reports such as those given by the early chronicler Hesiod , the writer Plutarch or the historian Thucydides to original, highly demanding poetic works such as Homer's epics or the tragedies of Aeschylus , Sophocles or Euripides . The rich tradition of hero poetry can be broken down into cycles, such as the poetry about the Titans , the Argonauts or the Trojan War . They can also be assigned to certain landscapes and cities such as Crete , Boeotia , Thebes or Corinth . According to Siegbert Warwitz, the often anonymous transmission of the poems and legends does not allow the conclusion that they were “folk poetry”. This view that hero poetry "emerged from the midst of the whole people" was still held by folklorists of the Romantic era such as Wilhelm Grimm . Rather, according to his interpretation, it seems more obvious that (as is often the case even in our science-oriented time) the substances and poetry have become independent and the authors and poets have gradually been forgotten.

The Greek hero poetry had a strong charisma, especially on the classic German poetry of the 18th and 19th centuries. Century, for example with Goethe , Schiller or Kleist . So is z. B. Goethe's Faust II is hardly understandable for today's reader without a profound knowledge of Greek mythology and heroic poetry. Heinrich von Kleist placed a female heroine, the Amazon Penthesilea , in the limelight of recent poetry. But ancient playwrights such as the Roman tragedy poet Quintus Ennius or the French Jean Racine also drew on Greek heroic poetry for their own works.

Germanic tradition

Old English, Old High German, Old Norse

Are based on the epic poem historic people and events (in the Germanic area mostly those from the period of mass migration ), but also mythical figures and ideas as the events to Sigurd, the Dragonslayer (bread af Sigurdarkvidu) or Helfahrt the Valkyrie Brunnhilde (Helreid Brynhildar) .

According to Warwitz, it is controversial among medievalists whether (as Felix Genzmer , Hans Kuhn , later also Hermann Schneider think) the heroic poetry emerged from the material of popular heroic legends, i.e. the legends already existed before poetry, or vice versa (as Andreas Heusler and his school or Jan de Vries believed) that poets and song singers only created these legends with their songs.

The earliest poetic form of heroic poetry is the so-called hero song , which was developed as an epic, compact form of poetry in the Germanic culture in the 5th to 8th centuries. Old English songs like the Finnsburlied , Old High German like the Hildebrandslied and Old Norse songs like those in the Edda , such as the Wölundlied (Volundarkvida) or the Old Atlilied (Atlakvida) can be differentiated regionally and historically, at least in fragments.

The heroic songs were performed by heart in the Germanic royal courts by wandering singers and usually not recorded. The Hildebrandslied , which rhymes with the staff, is the only German hero song that has survived at least in part.

Middle High German

The legendary material of the old songs was further developed in the Middle High German era in expansive verse narratives in accordance with the changed zeitgeist. The grand epics about Siegfried and the Nibelungs were created , about the historical figures Theodoric the Great ( Dietrich von Bern ) and the King of the Huns , Attila , whose name Etzel , used in Middle High German heroic poetry, can be derived from the previous form Attila according to the law .

Female figures

The Valkyrie, painting by Peter Nicolai Arbo 1865
Hjörvard's Death, painting by Peter Nicolai Arbo

Individual female figures were repeatedly given leading roles alongside the men, both in the brief song poetry of prehistoric times and in the great epic of the Middle Ages. This is how a whole circle of songs was created about the Valkyrie Brünhilde , Queen of Iceland. The women acted as drivers of their husbands' revenge campaigns, but also as active fighters themselves. The name Brynhildr, Brünhilde, also Brünnhilde, originally means " who fights in a Brünne (= battle tank) ". Brünhild (e) challenges their male suitors to an all-around battle for life and death. In the Song of the Nibelungs, Kriemhild beheads the murderer of her husband Siegfried himself with the sword. Hjörvard is active in the Icelandic Hervarar saga as a fighting warrior in men's clothes. In the fore song (Hervararkviða) her own hero song is dedicated.

Romanesque tradition

In the Romanesque tradition, the old French Roland song with Charlemagne and the main hero Roland , written between 1075 and 1110, is at the center of the heroic poetry.

Non-European tradition

An important non-European heroic epic is the Persian (now Iran ) national epic Shahname (The Book of Kings) by Abū l-Qāsem-e Ferdousī (940-1020) with over 50,000 verses. The Schahname has a peculiarity in that the legends about the hero Rostam are preceded by stories of the creation of human civilization (mythical age) and followed by historical reports that go back to the time of the Sassanids . In Schahname, Ferdousī combines myths of the past, Zoroastrian ideas and Iranian history and thus creates an independent, non-Islamic identity for Iran, which continues to have an impact up to the present day.

Written development

With the development of book culture and based on the literary great epics in Latin and Persian, the heroic song was expanded to become a heroic epic, which is filled as an epic large form with broad descriptions and numerous subplots. The European development began in England with the Beowulf (10th century), in France in the 11th century ( Chanson de geste ) and then in the 12th century spanned Spain ( Cantar de Mio Cid ) and the German-speaking area, its oldest and most famous epic the Nibelungenlied is. The Old and Central Irish Táin Bó Cuailnge can also be counted among the heroic poetry.

The heroic epic with its material from the Germanic heroic saga is in contrast to the courtly knight epic , which takes its material from French, Latin or oriental sources .

In the late Middle Ages , the rhymed heroic epics were combined in large collections ( hero books ) and some of them, dissolved in prose, found a large readership as folk books . In the 15th to 17th centuries, the old material appeared in the German-speaking area in the shorter form of the ballad , in printed songbooks and on flying pages such as the Younger Hildebrand's Song . How far back this sung strophic form of hero poetry goes back historically is controversial.

literature

  • Heinrich Beck , Hermann Reichert , Heinrich Tiefenbach : hero, hero poetry and hero legend. In: Heinrich Beck, Dieter Geuenich, Heiko Steuer (eds.): Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde 14. de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1999, ISBN 3-11-080063-2 , pp. 260–282.
  • Heinrich Beck (Hrsg.): Heroic saga and heroic poetry in Germanic . (= Supplementary volumes to the Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde 2). de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1988, ISBN 3-11-011175-6 .
  • Alfred Ebenbauer , Johannes Keller (ed.): The Nibelungenlied and the European hero poetry. 8th Pöchlarner hero song talk. Fassbaender, Vienna 2006, ISBN 3-900538-87-5 .
  • Felix Genzmer : Prehistoric and early historical time. In: Heinz Otto Burger (Hrsg.): Annals of German literature. History of German literature from its beginnings to the present. JB Metzler, Stuttgart 1952, pp. 1-36.
  • Felix Genzmer: The Germanic heroic saga and their poetic renewal , In: Wirkendes Wort 5 (1954/55) p. 1 ff
  • Otto Gschwandler: Oldest genres of Germanic poetry. In: Klaus von See (Ed.): European Early Middle Ages. New Handbook of Literary Studies 6. Aula, Wiesbaden 1985, ISBN 3-89104-054-7 , pp. 91-123.
  • Andreas Heusler : Nibelungen saga and Nibelungenlied. 6th edition, Ruhfus, Dortmund 1965.
  • Andreas Heusler : Song and epic in Germanic poetry. Dortmund 1905 (reprint Darmstadt 1956).
  • Herbert Kolb: Medieval hero poetry. In: Propylaea history of literature . Vol. 2: The medieval world . 600-1400. Berlin 1982, pp. 446-460. ISBN 978-3-549-05806-0 .
  • Hans Kuhn : heroic legend before and outside of poetry. In: Hermann Schneider (Hrsg.): Edda, Skalden, Saga : Festschrift for the 70th birthday of Felix Genzmer. Universitätsverlag Winter, Heidelberg 1952, pp. 262–278, again in: Karl Hauck: Zur Germanisch-Deutschen Heldensage (= ways of research 14) pp. 173–194.
  • Victor Millet: Germanic hero poetry in the Middle Ages. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-11-020102-4 .
  • Niedner, Felix, Neckel, Gustav (eds.): Edda , Thule Collection, Volume 1: Heroic Poetry , Verlag Diederichs, Düsseldorf-Cologne 1963
  • Erwin Matthias Reifegerste: The Hervarar saga. An annotated translation and research on the origin and integration of their traditional stories. = The saga of Hervör (= Old Norse Library. Vol. 6). Norden Reinhardt, Leverkusen 1989, ISBN 3-927153-01-X
  • Friedrich Rückert : Firdosi's Book of Kings (Schahname) Sage I-XIII. Edited from the estate by EA Bayer. 1890. Reprint: epubli GmbH, Berlin, 2010. ISBN 978-3-86931-356-6 .
  • Meinolf Schumacher : Introduction to the German literature of the Middle Ages . WBG, Darmstadt 2010, pp. 91-106 ("Heldenepik") ISBN 978-3-534-19603-6 .
  • Jan de Vries : Hero song and legend. Francke, Bern 1961, ISBN 3-317-00628-5 .
  • Siegbert A. Warwitz : The old Germanic heroic poetry and its relationship to the heroic saga , Münster 1963
  • Klaus Zatloukal (ed.): Middle High German hero poetry outside of the Nibelungen and Dietrich circles (Kudrun, Ortnit, Waltharius, Wolfdietriche). 7th Pöchlarner hero song talk. Fassbaender, Vienna 2003, ISBN 3-900538-78-6 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Siegbert Warwitz: The old Germanic hero poetry and its relationship to the hero saga , Münster 1963
  2. ^ Wilhelm Grimm: Die deutsche Heldensage 1829 (photomechanical reprint as 4th edition, obtained from R. Steig, Darmstadt 1957, page 417)
  3. ↑ Warwitz, ibid, pp. 84–86
  4. ↑ Otto Gschwandler: Oldest genres of Germanic poetry. In: Klaus von See (Ed.): European Early Middle Ages. New manual of literary studies 6th auditorium, Wiesbaden 1985
  5. ^ Siegbert Warwitz: The old Germanic heroic poetry and its relationship to the heroic saga , Münster 1963, pp. 84-90
  6. ^ Felix Genzmer: Vorzeitsaga and Heldenlied , In: Festschrift for P. Kluckhohn u. H. Schneider , Tübingen 1948 (revised copy by K. Hauck, Zur Germanisch-Deutschen Heldensage , 16 essays on the new state of research, Darmstadt 1961, p. 102 ff)
  7. ↑ Hans Kuhn: Heldensage before and outside of poetry , In: Edda, Skalden, Saga, Festschrift for F. Genzmer , Heidelberg 1952, p. 262 ff
  8. ^ Hermann Schneider, In: K. Hauck, Zur Germanisch-Deutschen Heldensage , 16 essays on the new state of research, Darmstadt 1961, p. 322
  9. ^ Heusler Andreas: song and epic in Germanic sagas. Dortmund 1905 (Reprint Darmstadt 1956)
  10. ^ De Vries, Jan: Hero song and hero saga. , Francke, Bern 1961
  11. ^ Felix Niedner, Gustav Neckel (ed.): Edda , Thule Collection, Volume 1: Heldendichtung , Verlag Diederichs, Düsseldorf-Cologne 1963
  12. ↑ Erwin Matthias Reifegerste: The Hervarar saga. An annotated translation and research on the origin and integration of their traditional stories. = The saga of Hervör (= Old Norse Library. Vol. 6). Norden Reinhardt, Leverkusen 1989
  13. ↑ See for example Ulrich Mattejiet, Táin Bó Cúailgne , in: Lexikon des Mittelalters , Volume 8, Sp. 437f.