Hero song

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A heroic song is a short epic poem in verse centered on a character from the heroic age . Hero songs are the earliest poetic form of heroic saga in most cultures . The great epics of the Middle Ages grew out of them. They are generally anonymous, still belong to a phase of oral tradition and are mostly only fragmentary or handed down in writing as part of later great epics.

The Germanic hero song

In the Germanic culture, the hero song was developed in the 5th to 8th centuries as a highly compressed epic form of poetry. The heroic songs were sung by heart by singers at the Germanic royal courts and usually not recorded. The only surviving Old High German hero song is the Hildebrand song with the staff . The Old Norse Atlilied and the Old English Finnsbur link are also typical representatives of the Germanic hero song. Many other songs have been lost, but their former existence can be inferred in individual cases from references in the Latin historiographic literature.

Emperor Charlemagne was loud Einhards Vita Karoli Magni , chap. 29, write down "barbaric (i.e. Germanic) and very old heroic songs" in which the deeds and wars of ancient kings were sung about. Except for Einhard, however, this collection, which was apparently made for Karl's private use, is nowhere documented. So if it existed at all, then at some point it will have perished along with the private archives of the Carolingian emperors. Karl's son Ludwig the Pious has been wrongly held responsible for the loss of his father's collection of heroes' songs in modern times. In fact, there is no evidence that Ludwig the Pious had any writings destroyed.

The Younger Hildebrandslied is not referred to as a hero song, but as a hero song . The audience's expectations had changed, which is why there is a conciliatory outcome. Heroes are still being reported. But this Hildebrand is closer to a courtly Christian image of man. He lets himself be captured and led to the woman. The modern development of the poetry led to the ballad .

literature

  • Alfred Ebenbauer : Heldenlied and ›Historisches Lied‹ in the early Middle Ages - and before. In: Heinrich Beck (Hrsg.): Hero sagas and hero poetry in Germanic. Supplementary volumes to the Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde Volume 2. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1988, ISBN 3-11-011175-6 , pp. 15–34.
  • Hans Fromm: The heroic song of the German high Middle Ages. In: Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 62, 1961, ISSN  0028-3754 , pp. 94-118.
  • Otto Gschwandler: Oldest genres of Germanic poetry. In: Klaus von See (Ed.): European Early Middle Ages. New Handbook of Literary Studies Volume 6. Aula-Verlag, Wiesbaden 1985, ISBN 3-89104-054-7 , pp. 91–123.
  • Andreas Heusler : Song and epic in Germanic poetry. Dortmund 1905 (reprint: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1956).
  • Jan de Vries : Hero song and legend. Francke, Bern 1961, ISBN 3-317-00628-5 .

Web links

Wiktionary: Heldenlied  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Single receipts

  1. ^ Andreas Heusler: Song and epic in Germanic sagas. Dortmund 1905 (Reprint: Darmstadt 1956)