KAISERCHRONIK AND ENEIDE

BY FRANK SHAW

I A little over forty years separate the Kaiserchronikl from Ve-,:ke Eneide;2 yet literary histories relegate them to widely different categories. De Boor? following Ehrismann: calls the former ‘vorhofisch‘ and the latter ‘fruh- hofisch‘. Both deal with the Kaiserchronik along with Lamprecht’s Alexander and Konrad’s Rolundslied, two works which are devoted to the lives of historical personages. While it would be frivolous to suggest that this grouping is wrong, it is nevertheless an interesting and worthwhile specula- tion to consider in how far we are conditioned by this division into thinking of the Kuiserchronik and the Eneide as two radically different works: the one an historical chronicle, the other a courtly adaptation of a Latin epic; the one concerned with large ideas which outlive and transcend the personal aspirations of any one individual, the other devoted to tracing the personal destiny of a single hero; the one political, the other psychological, albeit necessarily restricted to the confines of what the twelfth century conceived of as psychology; the one-in a word-at least purporting to be factual and only incidentally cast in a poetic form, the other a work of fiction, a poem in the exactest sense of that word.

That there are similarities between the works has been noticed: but only, as I hope to show, partially and not yet emphatically enough. To bring out these similarities more forcibly I propose to examine the two works from two points of view: firstly from the point of view of historical content, and secondly from that of psychological motivation, more specifically the treat- ment of minne. The gist of my argument will be that while the Kuiserchronik is rightly denied the designation ‘courtly’ (as I have tried to show elsewhere),6 the Eneide has had that designation too easily conferred upon it: that it is, in other words, not really as courtly as it is customarily thought to be; and that it has an historical component which justifies our thinking of it in conjunction with the Kuiserchronik.

I1 Ernst Friedrich Ohly7 has shown how the Kaiserchronik revised the accepted

interpretation of the Dream of Daniel (Daniel 7, CJ: Kuiserchronik 526-90). St. Jerome had ‘identified’ the fourth beast of Daniel’s vision, more terrible than the others, with the Roman Empire, and the eleventh horn which grew out ofits head with Antichrist, thus making Antichrist a direct offshoot of the Roman Empire. Fundamentally the Annolied,s which forms the basis for the first 660 verses of the Kuiserchronik, accepts St. Jerome’s interpretation, but mollifies his harsh condemnation of Rome to the extent of stressing

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Rome’s power instead of her destructiveness, and of putting Antichrist firmly into the future. This prepares the way for the poet of the Kaiser- chronik, who departs more radically from St. Jerome. Apart from the fact that he alters the order in which the four beasts appear to Daniel and identi- fies them differently (neither of which changes need concern us here), he separates the Antichrist portent from the Caesar (=Rome) portent, thus denying any inherent connection between the one and the other. This fact, taken in conjunction with the author’s obvious desire to glorify Rome and to stress the claim of the German kings to be the true heirs of Caesar, makes the Kaiserchronik into a luudatio of the Holy Roman Empire and into an earnest demonstration of the need for its continuation. Whereas in St. Jerome’s interpretation Antichnst must needs grow out of the Roman Empire, the Kaiserchronik sees the Roman Empire as the last bulwark against Antichrist: as long as the Roman Empire lasts, Antichrist cannot come.

This is the explicit message of the whole poem. Starting with Julius Caesar, the poet surveys the whole of Roman history down to his own day (the reign of Conrad III), and sees this as proceeding in two massive steps towards a God-ordained perfection and permanence. The first step is the embracing of Christianity by Constantine the Great; the second is the trans- latio imperii from the ‘Romans’ to the Germans (he never really accepts the Byzantine emperors as true emperors). This very brief outline must sutfice to show how little the Kaiserchronik is concerned with such literary or poetic matters as individual character-portrayal, psychological motivation or the like. Its only close relation in the twelfth century is Otto of Freising’s De duabus civitabus. It has ideological affinities with the Rolandslied and the Vorau Alexander, the former being devoted to Charlemagne, a key figure in the ‘Heilsgeschichte’ of the Kai~erchronik ,~ the latter to the only other historical personage besides Julius Caesar to be mentioned in the Kaiserchronik’s idio- syncratic version of the Dream of Daniel.lo

It goes without saying that the literary connexions of Veldeke’s Eneide are of a very different nature. But while it is true that it looks forward to the courtly epic of Hartmann von Aue, it has also two features of a backward- looking nature, two relics of pre-courtly epic which justify my treating it in conjunction with the Kuiserchronik. One of these, its attitude to minne, will form the subject of the next section. It is with the historical content of the Eneide that I am concerned here. That the Eneide has an historical com- ponent was pointed out by Theodor Frings in the second of his Veldeke- strtdien.” The poem closes with a long prophetic passage in which Veldeke tells us how Eneas marries Lavine and has a son Silvius. Silvius begets Silvius Eneas, who begets another Eneas, who is the father of Roniulus and Remus, the founders of Rome. Romulus marries a woman who is descended from hs own great-grandfather’s half-brother Ascanius, Eneas’s son by Venus.

~~~ ~ ~~~ ~~

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Ascanius’s other name, we are told, was Julius, which means that Romulus’s wife is a member of the race of the Julii, and their son is Julius Caesar. Julius Caesar is succeeded by Augustus, during whose reign Christ is born (thus the contents of w. 13307-13420). There are two noteworthy things about this genealogy. One is its position at the end of the poem, the other is its eschatological flavour: it leads beyond the Roman reality of Virgil’s epic to the Christian view of Christ the Redeemer.

Virgil too had a ‘prophetic’ passage, but not at the end of the poem. H i s came in Book 6 of the Aeneid, during Aeneas’s visit to the shade of his father Anchises in Hades. Anchises foretells the future of his and his son’s descendants and their role in the foundation of Rome, ending (obviously) with Augustus. The Roman d’&bus keeps this passage at the same point in the poem (SnCas’s visit to Hell) and puts it, like Virgil, into the mouth of Anchises (Roman d’l%us 2933-68). But the French poet also adds a shortened recapitulation at the end of the poem (10137-56). Veldeke, however, saves up his big prophetic passage for the end, after placing only a brief one in the mouth of Anchises (3611-90). Frings convincingly explains this odd quirk of Veldeke’s by assuming a need on his part to link the end of the poem up with eschatalogical works known to him, namely the Annolied and the Kaiserchronik.12 He was, Frings continued, further justified in doing this because of Virgil’s medieval reputation as a prophet of Christianity. His French model, however, ignored this aspect of Virgil, and in any case lacked the literary precursors for an eschatological interpretation:

Dem Franzosen fehlte diese dichterische Uberlieferung. Er folgte der Quelle. Veldeke aber glaubte weiterzudenken im Sinne Vergils, der anirna naturuliter christiana, dem das Mittelalter j a eine Prophezeiung der Ankunft des Welter- losers in eines seiner Hirtengedichte hineindeutete. So setzte er dessen Geschlechtsregister den kriinenden Schldstein auf, der dem adventistischen Heiden noch verborgen bleiben muBte. Doch empfand Veldeke es gewiB als stilwidrig, diese religiose S teigerung der Darstellung der antiken Ho11e anzufugen, so s e k er ihr christliche Zuge verliehen hat. Andererseits bot sich ihm zu Ende ein giinstiger Ansatzpunkt fur einen Epilog im Stile der Zeit. Daher die Urnstellung und Gewichtsverschiebung auf den S ~ h l d . ’ ~

It is particularly noteworthy that the genealogy given by Anchises in Veldeke’s poem extends only as far as Romulus and Remus and the founding of Rome. Caesar, and above all Augustus, are thus saved up for the more impressive genealogy of the end. Frings14 refers to verbatim parallels between the part of Veldeke’s epilogue referring to Caesar and corresponding passages in the Kuiserchronik. These parallels are slight, but even without their help echoes of the Kuiserchronik and of the Annolied are distinctly perceptible in the epilogue of the Eneide.

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Obviously the comparison I am drawing here between the Kuiserchronik and the Eneide is not a close one, and it is not my intention to suggest, on the strength of one brief passage, that Veldeke is writing an historical epic, or that he subjects the whole of his poem to the overriding principle of historical necessity. Nevertheless, the placing of this march-past of future generations at the end of the poem instead of in its more organic position during Eneas’s visit to the shade of his father, coupled with the explicit reference to Christ a t the end of the genealogical prophecy (vv. 13412-20), shows how concerned Veldeke is that we should grasp this additional dimension.

What importance should be attached here to the ‘Stauferpartien’ (uu. 8375- 8408 and 13224-54), by means of which Veldeke links up the action of his poem with his own contemporary reality, is a question I do not propose to enter on here. I cannot, however, conclude this section without pointing out that I am not unaware of Gabriele Schieb’s disapproval of those who interpret the whole of the Eneide as a religious epic.15 She is right thus to admonish Ohly, who does indeed overstate his case in identifying the five generations between Eneas and Augustus with the five ages of the world which preceded the birth of Chst.16 But she cannot deny the presence of an additional historical dimension in Veldeke’s poem, which one would hardly expect to find in a courtly epic.

111 The second point of view from which I wish to examine the Eneide is that

of psychological motivation, more speclfrcally that of mime . Three people fall in love in the course of the Eneide: Dido with Eneas,

Lavine with Eneas and Eneas with Lavine. The latter love, being mutual, ends happily; the former with Dido’s suicide-although obviously both Veldeke and his French predecessor were restricted in their choice of out- come for all these love-situations by what Virgil had provided. Still, this did not prevent them from inflating the action of the twelfth book of their original to about a quarter of the length of the whole poem by making what had in Virgil been a god-ordained marriage into a gradually awakening mutual love, strengthened, if anything, on the part of Lavine by her mother’s insistence on Eneas’s worthlessness as compared with Turnus.

This gradual awakening of love is well described: there are long mono- logues and laments (9991-10496, 10965-11338, 11339-11540); a letter is thrown down from the battlements (10713-10964) ; the lover’s male com- panions laugh at their fellow-soldier’s love-sick state (I 1567-1 1604). Yet this ought not to prevent us from noticing the absence of two features essential to courtly love: motivation from within the character of the lover and an experience on the lover’s part of a sense of moral elevation.

‘KAISERCHRONIK’ A N D ‘ENEIDE’ 299

By motivation from within the character of the lover I mean some clear indication that the lover’s character is ‘ripe’ for love, as Parzival’s is when he meets Condwiramurs or Gawan’s when he meets Orgeluse. In such cases there is a long period of preparation which takes the form either of precepts received, misapplied and readjusted (Parzival), or of flirtation with other women, coupled with reflexion on their ‘mime-potential’ (Parzival-Liaze, tf. especially 195.7 s44. : Gawan-Obilot, Gawan-Antikonie). That the ‘true love’, when it occurs, has an elevating effect need not be stressed in the case of Parzival and Gawan. A more subtle example of this is offered by Erec, whose career before he meets Enite is one of progressive humiliation. He is struck across the face by a dwarf in the presence of the Queen, sets off unarmed into the forest in pursuit of the offender and at nightfall, finding nowhere to sleep, is reduced to taking refuge in a ruin as the guest of an old impoverished couple. At this deepest point he sets eyes on Enite, daughter of the old couple, and perceives the scheme and the salekeit shining through her soiled dress (33641). From here on his fortunes rise. He champions her in the sparrow-hawk contest, marries her and brings her as his bride to Arthur’s ~ 0 ~ t . l 7 Although in this bald paraphrase the story may sound like a bad Victorian romance, the effectiveness of the action in context is not to be overlooked, nor its clear moral allegory. The humiliation is as clearly educative as the more characteristically knightly exploits of Gawan or the instruction imparted to Parzival, and the elevation no less manifest.lg

None of this is to be found in the Eneide. Veldeke has taken over (via the Roman d’&has) from Virgil the motif that the match between Eneas and Lavine was inevitable because the gods had ordained it (3942 sqq.), but never- theless duplicated the motif by implanting in the minds of Eneas and Lavine a compulsive love which would (theoretically) bring thein together anyway, whether the gods had told Latin to arrange the match or not. But the essential word in the last sentence is ‘implant’. There is no suggestion of readiness or ripeness, nor is the love in any way elevating. The lovers are no lcss subject to the machinations of Venus (Eneas’s mother !) and her two ( !) sons Amor and Cupido than Virgil’s characters are to thc decisions of the Council of the Gods.

Much the same idea has already been expressed by Hugh Sacker,lg who refers to Ludwig Wolff’s article on the mythological motifs used by courtly epic poets in their portrayal of love.20 WolfT, however, draws a parallel between the suddenness of love and religious experience and traces this characteristic of love through to T~is tan .~~ I cannot at the moment subscribe to this argument and am moreover disposed to see the mythological appara- tus of the Eneide as more unique than Wolff does. This is (as I take it) also Sacker’s view, and his linking of the compulsive minne with the historical necessity of the poem ( i d wolde ofte ne wolde)22 is a great help to understanding

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it. However, I should like to go a stage further than Sacker and link this historical necessity with the ‘heilsgeschichtlich’ or eschatological necessity we found in the genealogy at the end of the Eneide. I see the element of inevitability in the action not as a functionless left-over from Virgil, but as an integral part of Veldeke’s poem.

Before pursuing this idea further, I must return to minne. I have not seen comparisons drawn between the treatment of minne in the Eneide and that in the Astrolabius episode which the Kaiserchronik relates as an event of the reign of the Emperor Theodosius. Astrolabius, a Roman youth who has hitherto obstinately resisted the Emperor’s attempts to convert him to Christianity, one day climbs a wall in pursuit of a lost ball and finds on the other side a statue of Venus which beckons to him. He falls in love with the statue, gives it his ring and promises to love (minnen) it all his life. Rescued from the enclosure by his friends (it was, the poet tells us, one of the enclosures erected at the order of Constantine the Great around the heathen statues of Rome), he shows all the well-known signs of minne- well known to readers of the Eneide, that is-such as insomnia, paleness, physical weakness, inability to eat, with the difference that these are here attributed to diabolical possession (wit dem tievel wart er besezzen, 13153). Realizing that none but a Christian priest can help him, Astrolabius approaches the Emperor’s chaplain Eusebius, who, fortunately for Astro- labius, had in his youth read books of necromancy (13217-18) and is thus able to persuade the devil to give him back Astrolabius’s ring. Astrolabius is thus released and is converted to Christianity along with many other heathens- an event which brings great joy to the Emperor (13359-76).~

The differences between this and the minne passages of the Eneide are great, and it would be futile to try to suggest that Heinrich von Veldeke was as opposed to the phenomenon minne as the poet of the Kaiserchronik was. He is using the stock symptoms of the Ovidian minng4 in order to repudiate this m i m e and show it to be the work of the devil. But it is never- theless striking that, different though Veldeke’s intention may be, he still does not dissociate his minne in any striking manner from that described by the poet of the Kaiserchronik: he allows it to remain compulsive and inflicted from without (Cupid’s arrow, etc.) and concentrates largely on its sickness- like symptoms. Admittedly, the prospect is offered of these unfortunate symptoms being transmuted into their antithetical virtues ( k i t becomes 1% 9872; ungeniac gives way to raste, 9873 ; arbeit togemac, 9875; rouwe to wunne ende vroude, 9877-8 ; druven causes hogen mut, 9879, etc.), but this is merely an extension of the Ovidian duke malum oxymoron.25

What 1 am saying here is that an awareness of the compulsive nature of m i m e and of its sickness-like symptoms is not in itself evidence of courtly intention or inspiration. We must beware of seeing the medieval literary

‘KAISERCHRONIK’ A N D ‘ENEIDE’ 301

fashion of courtly love too much as if it were a static and homogeneous cult. A knowledge of Ovid’s love-poetry (which we may certainly assume in the twelfth century) is only the first stage in the process that ends with courtly love. Until it is fused with the code of chivalry, it is merely a learned attribute with which poets decorate their works, like the rhetorical techniques they learnt from the Ancients, or even (as in the case of Veldeke) the material of their stories. The love of Lavine for Eneas (to say nothing of Dido’s love for him) has nothing ennobling. It is as demonic as the power the statue of Venus has over Astrolabius, solely with the difference that in the latter instance the poet is strictly censorious (he is, after all, writing a conversion legend), whereas in the former he is the forerunner of a new literary fashion and uses the Ovidian techniques approvingly. Moreover, it is surely signifi- cant that even if the devil is not held directly responsible for Dido’s, Lavine’s and Eneas’s infatuation in the Eneide, a heathen goddess is, and precisely the same heathen goddess who captivated Astrolabius. Heinrich von Veldeke may not deplore minne, as the poet of the Kuiserchronik does, but it is certainly not the elevating experience for his characters that it is for those of Hartmann von Aue.26 It is no accident that Hartmann unequivocally repudiates com- pulsive mime of the kind Veldeke’s characters are subject to in such episodes as that of Mabonagrin (Joie de la curt) in Erec.

Iv An historical perspective beyond the time and place of the protagonist,

a portrayal of the characters’ psychology which shows little subtlety and little individuality-both acknowledged features of the Kuiserchronik-these prove to be not entirely absent from Veldeke’s Eneide. Indeed, it is not out of the question to suggest that both the Kuiserchronik and the Eneide betray a ‘deterministic’ attitude to their material. In the Kuiserchronik even emperors are the pawns of historical necessity; in the Eneide all the main characters have to forego their own wishes (Eneas has to leave Dido, Latin has to give his daughter to Eneas, love is a compulsion). This lack of freedom may be understandable in an historical chronicle, even without the ‘heilsgeschicht- liche Orientierung’ referred to above: the author of a chronicle always knows what was, to the personages he portrays, s t i l l in the hture. In the Eneide it is less understandable. For the argument that Veldeke was writing according to a ‘Vorlage’ applies equally well to Hartmann, to Wolfram or Gottfried. But here there is a clear sense of narrative freedom, of sheer ‘Fabulierfreudigkeit’, and the characters are human. Nor is it enough to put t h i s difference down to a greater ease in the use of language.27 There is a fimdamental change in the whole cast of thought between Veldeke and the true courtly epic, away from ideology to worldliness. The Eneide is simply not yet a secular epic, even though it is the first epic poem of any rank

302 ‘KAISERCHRONIK’ A N D ‘ENEIDE’

written in the German tongue by a secular poet. Veldeke seizes all too readily upon Virgil’s underlying political intention and exploits it for his own purposes. Cupid’s darts are more than a stylistic makeshift employed by a poet unused to explaining the workings of the human mind; they are an ideological device revealing the unfreedom of the human mind as perceived by the poet. The ‘Renaissance of the Twelfth Century’ is, at the most, heralded in Veldeke’s poem, but not by any means realized, for all Josef Quint’s eloquent pleading of the contrary case.28

NOTES

1 Kaiserchronik eines Regensburger Gcistlichm, hrsg. Edward S c k d e r (Monumenfa Gennaniae Historica- Deutsche Chronikm), Berlin 1895 (reprinted 1964 in Deutsche Neudrucke, Reihc Texfe des Mittelalters). There is no way of dating the Kaiserchronik more accurately than ‘after 1147’ (the chronicle ends abruptly during the narration of events of that year). The absence of any reference to the canonization of Charlemagne (1165) makes it unlikely that the poem was written after that date. Around 1150 is the date usually given.

2 Henric van Veldekeu, Eneide. hrsg. Gabriele Schieb and Theodor Frings (=Deutsche Texfe des Mittelalters, Band LVIIT). I: Einleitung. Text, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1964; iI: Untersuchungen, 1965; m: [Schieb and others] Worferhch. 1970. Four-6fths of Veldeke’s Eneide were completed by 1174, the rest before 1190.

3 Helmut de Boor [and Richard Newald], Ceschichfe der deufschen Literafur von den A n t n g m bis zur Qgenwurt. The Kaiserchronik is dealt with in Volume I, Veldeke’s Eneide in Volume 11-both Miinchen: Beck, 1962.

4 Gustav Ehrismann, Geschichte der deutschen Literafur bis rum Ausgung des Miffelalters, Miinchen: Beck, 1959 (reprint). Ehrismann places the Kaisnchronik in II.1, the Eneide in IL2.i.

5 See note 11. 6 Frank Shaw, ‘Ovid in der Kaiserchronik‘, ZfdPh 88, 1969, pp. 378-389. 7 Emst Friedrich Ohly, Sage und Irgende in der Kaiserchronik, Miinster 1940 (reprint 1968 by the

Wissenschaftliche Buchgessellschaft, Darmstadt), pp. 45 $44. 8 Dus Annolied, hrsg. v. Max Roediger ( =Monumenfa Germuniae Historica-Deictsche Chroniken), Berlin

1895 (reprinted 1968), vv. 179-262. 9 Eberhard Nellmann, Die Reichsidee in deutschen Dichtungen der Salier- undfiiihen Stauferzit (=Philo-

logische Studim und Quellen 16), Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag, 1963. The term‘heilsgeschichtlich orientiert’

10 Both the Kaiserchronik and Lamprecht’s A l e x d e r are handed down to us in the Vorau Codex. On the relevance of this fact, and on the signifiificance of the arrangement of this codex as a whole, see Karl Konrad Polheim, Die deutschen Gedichfe der Vorauer HandschriJ, Graz: Akademischer Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1958.

11 Theodor Frings and Gabriele Schieb, Drei Veldekesfudim, Berlin: Akademic-Verlag, 1949 (=Abh. d. Df. A k . d. Wiss. Berlin, phil.-hist. K1. 1947, Nr. 6), pp. 23-38.

12 Frings, op . cit., p. 21. Frings, op. cif., pp. 25-6.

14 Frings, op. cif., pp. 24-5. 15 Gabriele Schieb, Heinrich von Vcfdeke, Stuttgart: Metzler, 1965, p. 49.

occurs on p. 173.

16 Friedrich Ohly, ‘Ein Admonter Liebesgr& ZfdA 87, 1956. pp.-13-23. 17 For a more detailed interpretation of this part ofErcc see Ernst Scheunemann, Arfushofund Abmteuer.

Z c h n u n g luifirchen Daeins in Hurfmanns Erec, Breslau: h4aruxhke & Berendt, 1937, pp. 12-40. Of course. what I am describing here is only the ‘Vorgeschichte’. That the whole process of humiliation and justification has to be reputed merely supports my argument that a certain ‘ripeness’ is a prerequisite for minne.

1s I have omitted Iwein deliberately so as not to overburden my argument. It is a negative expression of&e same idea: Iwein’s character is not ‘ripe’ when he meets Laudine; he rushes into the marriage, and &e whole basis of the match has to be Mstablished; c$ Hendricus Sparnaay, ‘Iwein’, Zur Sprachc und fiwatur dcs Mittelalters, Groningen: Wolters, 1961, pp. 21630.

19 Hugh Sacker, ‘Heinrich von Veldeke’s Conception of the Amcis, CLL NS 10,1957, pp. 210-18. 20 Ludwig WOW, ‘Die mythologischen Motive in der Liebcsdarstdung dcs hobchen Romans’, ZfdA

84. X952/3, PP. 4770-

~~

‘ K A I S E R C H R O N I K ’ A N D ‘ E N E I D E ’ 3 03 ~~

The ‘demonic’ nature of minne in Tristan (4 Gottfried Weber, Gottfriedc von Sfrazburg ‘Tristan’ und die Krise des hochmittelalterlichen Weltbildes um 1200.2 vols., Stuttgart: Metzler, 1953, therein esp. Vol. I , pp. 133 sqq.) is a problem I do not wish to enter into here.

Sacker (op. cit., p. 212) quotes 3966 ich wofde ojii ne wolde (Latin explains to Eneas how the gods had destined his daughter to be his wife) as an example of historical necessity. The same verse recurs as an expression of the compulsive nature of mime (si wolde ofte ne wolde. 10043 and 10464).

Ohly, Sage (see note 7) points to the dose similarity between the ‘Astrolabiuslegende‘ in the Kaiser- chronik and a story in William of Mahesbury’s Degestis regum Anglorum (Rolls Series, vol. go, pp. 256-8). Here there are, of course, no minne symptoms; but Venus is e q d y demonic.

24 Ohly, op. cit.. p. 206. 25 Willibdd Schrotter, Ovid und die Troubadours, Halle 1908, pp. 171-2. He gives three examples from

the Amores. of which only two (both from the same poem) appear convinang to me: ‘Vive’ dcus ‘posifo’ siquis mihi dicaf ‘amore!’, / deprecer-usque adea duke puella malum est (Locb 2.9B. 25-6) and tu [Cupido] levis es multoque tuic venfosior a h , / gaudique ambigua dasque negusquefides (z.gB. 49-50).

z6 Why then does Hartmann use the Eneide as an allegorical parallel to his own Erec, as he does by having dax lange lief von Troid engraved on the harness of Enite’s horse (7545-81)’ (For a detailed study of this passage see Peaus W. Tax, ‘Studien zum Symbolischen in Hartmanns “Erec” I , ZfdPh 82, 1963. pp. 29-44.) A very naive answer is perhaps that it does not follow, because we see Hartmann as an ‘advance’ on Veldeke, that Hartmann should necessarily have been aware of it in his own day. The debt which all epic poets of the ‘mittelhochdeutsche BlUtezeit’ felt they owed to Veldeke was immense, and rightly so.

2’E.f. Hubert Roetteken, Die epische Kunst Heinrich von Veldeke und Harfmanns von Aue, Halle: Niemeyer, 1887.

z8 Josef Quint, ‘Der Roman d’Eneas und Veldekes Eneit als friihhohche Umgestaltung der Aeneis in der “Renaissance” des 12. Jahrhunderts’, ZjdPh 73, 1954, pp. 241-67. Only after the first draft of this was completed did I manage to get hold of Quint’s article, which I find puts forward a view of the Eneide diametrically opposed in almost every respect to my own.

SOME COMMENTS ON THE LANGUAGE OF DER ARME HEZNRZCH

BY HILDA SWINBURNE

DISCUSSIONS of Hartmann’s language and style have often stressed the clarity and balance to be found in all his works. In Der a r m Heinrich, however, the clear and siniple narrative style, unmarred by any obtrusive displays of linguistic virtuosity such as appear in Hartmann’s other poems, proves, on analysis, to be more subtle than at first appears. Certain forms of expression are used in a way which appears to give individuality to the characters in the story; and certain words and phrases, repetitions and variations, are used significantly, but with a significance which only emerges gradually as the story unfolds.

Certain points of this sort have been noted elsewhere. Sir Henry is three times compared with Job-a repetition which is also a variation, for the point of comparison changes: like Job, Sir Henry suffers sudden adversity (128 E);l unlike Job, he does not suffer patiently (137 C); and like Job, he has been tested by God (136 C). The three comparisons are thus on different levels, the first referring to the physical events of the story, the second to the knight’s reaction to his illness, and the third to the designs of God