We meet M 2:30 pm - 3:45 pm in SC W211

WEEK 13 Middle High German

M 18 Apr.

• No class.

T 18 April

• Read the Nibelungenlied (free through UMass), first half. (Better translation HERE. Another translation is here.)
• Browse Orrin Robinson, "Old High German," in his Old English and its Closest Relatives. OHG is a prelude to the MHG of this poem.
• If you like, Fritz Lang's Die Nibelungen (1924). Lang was one of the great silent-movie directors of all time. An article on the sources of Lang's film (S. R. Hauer). And here is the Technicolor epic from Harald Reinl, Die Nibelungen (1966).
• BROWSE the original manuscript if you like; here is transcription of the manuscript in verse form (in OHG)

Topic: Display and Exteriority

Q. How does one display one's success? What external markers tell others that you are successful? How does ritual and display shape our understanding of personal worth? Consider the many court scenes in the poem, the descriptions of dress and pageantry. What is the political purpose of display in the poem's many courts? How do people achieve their goals through dress, refined speech, correct action? Compare that to a modern narrative style that pretends that we can see into people's minds.

W 19 April

• Read the Nibelungenlied (free through UMass). (Better translation HERE. Another translation is here.) Here it is in German.
• The opening strophes sung in German by Eberhard Kummer.
• A German documentary on the Treasure of the Nibelungs. (Part 2 ist hier.) Is it real? Lots of great scenery and pseudo-historical fictions. And a 2-part look at the background of the poem (in German)

Topic: Violence, Ambition, and Statecraft

Q. Consider the character of Hagen and of Kreimhild. How are they shaped by circumstances? What does each want? Are they after an ideal—an ideal state, an ideal life, an ideal love? Can their ambitions be realized? How? What purpose does it serve the narrative to have these issues played out in the court of Attila the Hun?

DUE FRIDAY: 1000-word paper on the sources of the Nibelungenlied.

You might compare a section to the Volsung Saga or any of the following (from Carol Larrington's Poetic Edda): "The Death of Sinflioti," "Gripir's Prophecy," "The Lay of Regin," "Lay of Fafnir," "The Lay of Sigrdrifa," "The First Lay of Gudrun," "Short Poem about Sigurd," "Brynhild's Ride to Hell," "Second Lay of Gudrun," "Third Lay of Gudrun," Oddrun's Lament," "Lay of Attli"

• Here is Theodore Andersson on some sources for Adventure 26 of the poem.

• Here is Albrecht Classen on the meaning of food in the poem.