Matting motive

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The Matt reduction motif is part of the medieval Minnesang occurring phrases ( Topoi ) of mutual surpassing. This literary stylistic device is particularly common in Minnesang in the form of Hohen Minne . The Matt reduction motive could from the terminology of chess have originated: Since this game was one of the knightly arts, incurred in chess exclamation was Matt and his testimony course (win the game) everywhere in the courts and could therefore be no difficulty understanding included in the Poetry .

meaning

The idiom was used to reinforce the portrayal of a towering and unreachable lady. Especially in the Hohen Minne variety, the mating motif is often part of the staging of the female figure and the display of her courtly values.

Example of an analysis

Reinmar , MF 159.1:

I praise you, if you do other frouwen,
then you don’t get any tac from me for good.
but swer ich des, si is at the statute,
dâs ûz wîplîchen virtues never stepped fuoz.
there is iu mat.

If I praise her as one does (it) to other women
, she never takes that from me as good (= appropriate).
But I swear, it is in a place (= place, place)
which female virtue has never (yet) set foot.
That mates you.

The mating motive is explicitly formulated in the last line of verse of the above text source: mhd. “Daz is iu mat” can be translated as nhd. “That puts you in checkmate”. This New High German translation of the line of verse can be interpreted in the context of the text with two different interpretations:

  1. All potential male advertisers are “checkmated” in their advertising efforts by virtue of the virtue of the lady. The female figure is thus declared even more clearly than inaccessible for men by the mating motif.
  2. Less virtuous ladies are of less value than the ideally courtly lady mentioned and are therefore “checkmated”. This interpretation of the last line of verse also clearly shows the unattainable remoteness of the female figure: in this case by comparing it with other women, instead of - as in the first interpretation - with male advertisers.

Both possible interpretations of the present mating motif thus underline the inaccessibility and unsurpassability of the courted lady, who - in the spirit of the variety of Hohen Minne - occupies a remote and unreachable position.

swell

  • Günther Schweikle: Minnesang , 2nd, corrected edition, (= Metzler Collection; Volume 244), Stuttgart / Weimar 1995, ISBN 3-476-10244-0
  • Günther Schweikle (ed.): Reinmar: Lieder. According to Weingartner's handwriting (B). Middle High German / New High German , Reclams Universal Library; No. 8318, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-15-008318-4