German literature

This article provides a summarized overview of the major developments of German literature, that is to say, the novels, poetry, and plays written in the German language from the earliest stages (ca. 9^th century) until the present day. Although there are many different ways to organize such material, such as by genre or period, it is here more convenient to divide the article primarily according to period since genres and subgenres develop and change through time.

Definition and division

We include in this article the literature of all peoples and authors produced in recognized dialects of German at all stages of historical development. For modern literature this means including not only literature produced in the modern Federal Republic of Germany but also that written by authors from Austria and Switzerland.

For older literature, this definition becomes more problematic as it is not always easy to correlate historic linguistic, historic, and ethnic divisions according to modern political divisions. For instance, the position of older Dutch literature before ca. AD 1100 as a separate literature is considerably arbitrary since the territory of what is now Belgium and the Netherlands was at that time fully incorporated into a political and linguistic German continuum. Nevertheless, since World War II Dutch medieval literature has been treated as a separate entity. Similarly, the inclusion of the small corpus of Gothic texts under the heading of German literature, not uncommon among literary scholars of the nineteenth century, is no longer generally accepted.

Early Middle Ages (until ca. AD 1050)

Very little survives from the earlier parts of the Middle Ages what could be classified as literature in the modern sense. Since Latin was the primary language of the educated in the first milennium AD and Christianity was by far the most imporant topic of instruction, practically everything that has come down to us of the literature of early medieval Germany, with some notable exceptions, is either written in Latin or reflects attempts to communicate religious material in the vernacular. Much of it is translation from Latin, although “translation” in the Middle Ages should not be conceived of as word-for-word reproduction of the original and often could include considerable adaptation by scholars, translators, and copyists. A good deal of interest in the earliest German texts are of a linguistic and historical rather than literary nature.

Among the earliest texts of interest are glosses, such as the Abrogans, and translations of Latin Christan texts, such as the Old High German Isidor (a fragment of a translation of Isidor of Seville’s “De fide catholica ex veteri et novo testamento congtra iudeos”) and Tatian (a translation of Tatian’s famous Gospel harmony). Notable is also the work of the Swiss monk Notker III of St. Gall, who created a prodigious output in educational texts in both theology and science.

Judging by surviving material from other Germanic countries, Germany must have had its store of oral poetry, but only very little of it survives. Among the scraps are the fragmentary Muspilli (a German apocalyptic poem), though it is influenced by Christian thought. The only truly Germanic poem to have come down to us and also the oldest literary text in German is the Lay of Hildebrand (German Hildebrandslied). It tells the story of father and son meeting as combatants in opposing armies. Though the end of the poem is missing, the fatalistic tone suggests a tragic ending of the conflict, something that is confirmed by a later version of the story recorded in Old Norse.