High love

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Hohe Minne describes a (literary) variety of Minne , which developed in Minnesang since around 1170/80 and is characterized by a new relationship between the sexes. The male lyrical self (the advertiser) talks about his unsuccessful advertising efforts for an inflated lady (the courted woman). The man realizes, accepts and finally appreciates his one-sided, unrequited and hopeless love; To this extent, this expression of love can be described as the man's testament. In Arthurian epic , despite the same ethical value system, a clearly different concept of love is developed.

The literary love concept of Hohen Minne

The relationship between the sexes is clearly defined: the advertiser is subordinate to the woman being courted and is often presented literally in literary works as a servant (mhd. Servant) of the lady. The concept of service is in the foreground in the concept of Hohen Minne. The relationship between the sexes thus shows parallels to the contemporary feudal system , but with the difference that the wages of the advertiser (cf. feudal man) within the Hohen Minne consist only of ideal values, in that it is derived from the lady, society or even only from himself himself receives recognition for his attitude. So the Hohe Minne is also referred to as a compensation minne, since the man strives for the ethical and moral perfection of himself through his love instead of the unreached and unattainable partnership. Since the reciprocated love of the male figure is mostly denied, one can often speak of Leidsang in Minnelied songs in the form of Hohen Minne, in which the wooing man is portrayed as a suffering subject. The courted woman, on the other hand, does not play an active role in the text. It appears as an object whose (courtly) values ​​only serve to justify the man's advertising efforts. One can therefore speak of a projection of the values ​​of an ideal male type onto the object of an ideal, high court lady.

Research approaches

Research to date has often reflected the prevailing tendencies of the so-called zeitgeist, from romanticism to historicism and nationalist thinking to aestheticism, ideological criticism , emphasis on sociological factors, feminism and gender studies .

Among other things, ecclesiastical influences are discussed as the cause of the literary phenomenon of the Hohe Minne and its spread: The Hohe Minne is a literarily formulated, ecclesiogenic collective neurosis of the secular aristocrats, who were the carrier of love poetry. In the variant of the Hohe Minne the existential fears of male aristocrats would have been reflected in literature. Triggers are the changing image of women and the conflict between the negative image of women, which (in this thesis as the Catholic Church superego declared) formulated, and its own instinctive desire of male nobles (in this thesis as it declared) been. The Hohe Minne is the literary expression of male fear of potency , since the male nobles were overwhelmed in their position of power, so that a literary concept of love developed in which the man takes the submissive position towards a lady.

Other approaches see the variety of Hohen Minne as part of male instinct sublimation, i.e. the transformation of sexual desires into substitute acts. Aspects of didactics also come into view: Via the detour of literature, a male rethinking of their own sexual behavior, i.e. a cultivation of instincts, could have been sought.

In relation to such psychologizing theses, the objection is that the same poets who put forward the model of renunciation of the Hohe Minne can sing about a sexually fulfilled love in the "Tageliedern". Under socio-historical aspects, the real mediaeval reality is pointed out above all. In the Hohen Minne model, the reality of feudal service is transferred to the I-Thou relationship in order to discuss possible solutions for a new experience of "love".

The unanimously recognized result of any serious research to date is that the highly complex phenomenon of Hohen Minne can only be made more understandable with complex explanations. Different phenomena like bridal mysticism and scholastic dialectic as well as (inter alia) Arabic and Provencal influences have to come into view. At the same time, the time background is to be taken seriously: the situation of a noble society in which marriage connections are fundamentally political decisions, so that sexuality, love and marriage can usually only be realized separately and on a different level. In view of a development in the 12th century, in which, in the sense of a civilization progress, personal self-awareness and an ethicization of the conduct of life are gaining in importance, the resulting new ways of seeing “love” in the role-play of minstrel are put up for discussion. One, but not the only, valid concept is the Hohen Minne model, whereby different accents within this concept can come into play both among the individual singers as well as with each individual singer himself.

Major minstrels

This chapter is followed by a list of well-known minnesingers who skillfully use the Hohen Minne variety in their songs. The ranking is purely alphabetical, so without any rating. Only Reinmar should be emphasized, because he is considered a master of portraying (male) suffering in the course of advertising for an unreachable lady.

literature

swell

  • Günther Schweikle: Minnesang , 2nd, corrected edition, (= Metzler Collection; Volume 244), Stuttgart / Weimar 1995 ISBN 3-476-10244-0
  • Ulrich Müller (Ed.): Minne is a swaerez spil . Therein: Ulrich Müller: The Ideology of Hohen Minne: An ecclesiogenic collective neurosis? Goeppingen 1986
  • Rüdiger Schnell: Causa amoris. Love conception and representation of love in medieval literature . Bern [u. a.] 1985. ISBN 3-7720-1595-6
  • Thomas Bein: Love and Eroticism in the Middle Ages . Graz 2003. ISBN 3-201-01806-6