The Nibelungenlied

It portrays the existential struggles and downfall of an entire people, the Burgundians, in a military conflict with the Huns and their king."--Jacket.

This Companion to the Nibelungenlied draws on the expertise of scholars from Germany, Britain, and the United States to offer the reader fresh perspectives on a wide variety of topics regarding the epic: the latest theories regarding manuscript tradition, authorship, conflict, combat, and politics, the Otherworld and its inhabitants, eroticism (in both the Nibelungenlied and Wagner's Ring), the twentieth-century reception both of the Nibelungenlied and of its most intriguing protagonist, Kriemhild, key concepts used by the poet, the heroic, feudal, and courtly elements in the work, and an analysis of archetypal elements from the perspective of Jungian psychology.

Written by an unknown author in the twelfth century, this powerful tale of murder and revenge reaches back to the earliest epochs of German antiquity, transforming centuries-old legend into a masterpiece of chivalric drama. Siegfried, a great prince of the Netherlands, wins the hand of the beautiful princess Kriemhild of Burgundy, by aiding her brother Gunther in his struggle to seduce a powerful Icelandic Queen. But the two women quarrel, and Siegfried is ultimately destroyed by those he trusts the most. Comparable in scope to the Iliad, this skilfully crafted work combines the fragments of half-forgotten myths to create one of the greatest epic poems - the principal version of the heroic legends used by Richard Wagner, in The Ring.

This book aims to make available the necessary background for an informed reading of the Nibelungenlied, the twelfth-century epic perhaps best known to non-Germans from Wagner's music dramas. Two traditions of scholarly thought exist about the Nibelungenlied. The first sees the poem as a development out of German heroic legend; the second focuses on the work's location in the contemporary literary context at the end of the twelfth century. The first and older school deals with the evolution of the story over time and the question of how short heroic poems attained epic compass in the later Nibelungenlied. The second seeks to interpret the poem in terms of the new emergence of Arthurian romance around 1200. The author attempts to bridge the gap between the two contending schools, suggesting that neither approach precludes the other. Although the Nibelungenlied poet drew the story itself from earlier heroic poems, the author makes clear that the poet absorbed impulses from other types of literature as well. The book is in three parts. Part I discusses literary antecedents, tracing the development of German heroic poetry from the Migration Age on, then describing narrative practice in the twelfth century, in historical and legendary epic on the one hand and romance on the other. Part II analyzes the Nibelungenlied in its immediate literary context, addressing possible sources and narrative innovations. The author relates the story of the poem to the immediate antecedent versions of the legend that are now preserved only in the Norse Thidrek's Saga, surveys recent general interpretations, and suggests a literary-historical analysis that can plot the Nibelungenlied more accurately on the literary map of the twelfth century. Part III comprises previously untranslated texts and summaries of source materials bearing on the Nibelungenlied.

Publisher Description

Filled with portrayals of deception, love, murder, and revenge—yet defying traditional medieval epic conventions for representing character—the Nibelungenlied is the greatest and most unique epic in Middle High German. The Klage, its consistent companion text in the manuscript tradition, continues the story, detailing the devastating aftermath of the Burgundians' bloody slaughter. William Whobrey's new volume offers both—together for the first time in English—in a prose version informed by recent scholarship that brilliantly conveys to modern readers not only the sense but also the tenor of the originals.