German Literary History - (Volume 1)

Author: Fan Dacan
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-11-01
Features: This volume of literary history includes ancient German oral literature, medieval monastic literature, knightly-courty literature, early bourgeois literature, and Baroque literature of the 17th century, covering a time span of approximately 1,700 years from the beginning of the Common Era to the end of the 17th century. It involves nearly ten ancient and modern languages, such as German, Latin, Italian, Old English, Old French, Old Dutch, as well as Old High German, Middle High German, and Modern High German. It is neither the purpose of this book nor within my ability to elaborate in detail on every change, phenomenon, writer, and work experienced by German literature over these two thousand years and to write an academic monograph or an encyclopedic reference work. In this book, the author aims to achieve two goals: First, to broadly outline the development of German literature from its inception to the end of the 17th century, providing a basic framework for the literary history of ancient and modern Germany. Like the literatures of many European nations, the literature of the German people has also undergone developmental changes, such as the transition from oral transmission to written records, the shift from monastic dominance in literature to the rise of secular literature, and the change from feudal aristocratic control of the literary scene to the bourgeoisie becoming the masters of literature. Second, while broadly outlining the developmental trajectory of this volume of literary history, the author endeavors, to the best of their ability, to introduce relevant materials, such as important literary phenomena, literary schools, literary genres, as well as influential writers and works, to partially fill the gaps in the existing introductions to the literary history of ancient and modern Germany. Regarding ancient German oral literature, we know that there are "labor songs," "combat songs," "holy songs," "wedding choruses," and so on. These "songs" were created by the Germanic people during their collective labor.