|
|
|
|
|
German Literature |
Heroic legends, among them the Lay of Hildebrand, date from the turn of the 8th century to the 9th century and are the earliest known works in Old High German (see German language). The Waltherius (10th century) is written in Latin. Low German and Saxon dialects are also used in these epics. Writings of the 9th to the 11th century, largely inspired by the church, include the works of the monks Rabanus Maurus Magnentius, Otfried, and Notker Labeo.
The succeeding period of Middle High German (12th–14th century) is characterized by chivalric poetry, such as the songs and lyrics of the minnesingers on courtly love and other subjects. Courtly epics, such as Gottfried von Strassburg's Tristan and Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, were often based on French troubadour and trouvère sources, while epics like the Nibelungenlied and Gudrun use Germanic traditions. A gradual decline of chivalric poetry is evident in the works of Ulrich von Lichtenstein, and the rise of the urban literary traditions is seen in such epics as Wernher der Gartenaere's Meier Helmbrecht (c.1250).
After 1400 more popular literary forms became dominant: folk songs, fables, folktales, and short plays. The aristocratic heritage of the minnesingers was replaced by meistersingers, notably Hans Sachs. The Reformation profoundly influenced the course of German literature, and Martin Luther's translation (1522–34) of the Bible propagated a unified High German language. Religious and scholarly writings were also affected by humanism; German humanists included Ulrich von Hutten and Conradus Celtes.
The Thirty Years War (1618–48) brought religious schism, widespread devastation, and, concomitantly, a consolidation of national consciousness resulting in a flowering of German literature with strong courtly and absolutist tendencies. Literary academies, arising in Hamburg, Nuremberg, and other cities, worked for the purification and development of the German language. Most influential was the Silesian school, which included Martin Opitz, noted for his metrical reforms, and the poets Hofmann von Hofmannswaldau (1618–79), Paul Fleming (1609–40), Andreas Gryphius, and Daniel Casper von Lohenstein. Leading writers of hymns were the Protestant Paul Gerhardt and the Catholic Angelus Silesius. Hans Jakob von Grimmelshausen's Simplicissimus (1669), a picaresque account of the Thirty Years War, may be considered the first German novel.
The great age of German literature began in the 18th century. The classicist theories of Johann Christoph Gottsched aroused violent critical reactions, indirectly paving the way for Friedrich Klopstock and especially for Gotthold Lessing, the greatest preclassical critic and dramatist. The period known as Sturm und Drang embraced the works of Johann Hamann, Johann Gottfried von Herder, and Jakob Lenz.
The period also encompassed the early works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich von Schiller. Goethe and Schiller were widely considered the greatest figures in the subsequent classical period, when artistic forms in general were characterized by restraint, lucidity, and balance. Their cultural ideals, expressed in the novel of self-formation or Bildungsroman, were also spread by C. M. Wieland and Friedrich Hölderlin, the age's greatest German poet.
At the end of the 18th century literary romanticism, initiated in Germany by the brothers Friedrich and H. W. von Schlegel and by Novalis, brought greater emphasis on subjective emotion. A new literary form appeared in the novelle, a prose tale often dealing with supernatural elements. Typical early romantic poets were Ludwig Tieck, Clemens Brentano, and Joachim von Arnim, who were also collectors and editors of folktales and folk songs, sometimes set to music by Robert Schumann and other composers.
Freiherr von Eichendorff, Adelbert von Chamisso, and Ludwig Uhland were other notable German romantics. The movement's historical tendencies were supplemented by the philological and folkloristic researches of the brothers Grimm. The writer E. T. A. Hoffmann was romanticism's greatest psychologist of the unconscious. Hovering between classicism and romanticism, Heinrich von Kleist's stories and plays were masterpieces of dramatic economy, other important playwrights were Franz Grillparzer and C. F. Hebbel.
The revolutionary literary movement known as Young Germany, which strove to arouse German political opinion, turned from romanticism to the more sober realism; its great leaders were Karl Börne and Heinrich Heine. Realism was consolidated in the influential social novels of Theodor Fontane, whereas Eduard Mörike and Adalbert Stifter adhered to a form of classicism. The theory of realism was further developed by the school of naturalism, represented by the young Gerhart Hauptmann.
Antinaturalistic movements grew stronger in the German imperialistic period. They became evident as symbolism and impressionism in poetry (Stefan George, Rainer Maria Rilke, Hugo von Hofmannsthal) and in the novel (Thomas Mann, Alfred Döblin, Hermann Hesse, Franz Kafka, Robert Musil, Hermann Broch) and as expressionism in verse (Georg Trakl, Georg Heym, Gottfried Benn) and drama (Frank Wedekind, Georg Kaiser, Bertolt Brecht). The literature of the Weimar Republic carried forward prewar traditions and excelled in formal experimentation and innovation. This activity was stifled by the rise of National Socialism, which forced leading writers like Thomas Mann and Arnold Zweig into emigration.
The postwar decades saw a gradual literary resurgence, with the social and critical novels of authors like Heinrich Böll, Günter Grass, and Max Frisch gaining prominance. Two important centers of literary activity were Group 47, organized by Hans Werner Richter in Germany, and the Vienna Circle, which attracted a number of experimental writers, such as H. C. Artmann and Ernst Jandl in Austria. East Germany's writers generally upheld the tenets of socialist realism, while those in the west were more varied.
From the 1970s to the 1990s, both groups were preoccupied with the Nazi period. Among the significant German writers were Ingeborg Bachmann, Horst Bienek, Johannes Bobrowski, Uwe Johnson, Arno Schmidt, Martin Walser, Peter Weiss, and Christa Wolf. Some of the German-language writers who have received the greatest recent international attention are the Austrian novelist Thomas Bernhard and the Romanian-Jewish poet Paul Celan.
See general histories of German literature by E. A. Rose (1960), August Closs, ed. (4 vol., 1967–70), J. M. Ritchie, ed. (3 vol., 1967–70), J. G. Robertson (6th ed. 1971), Henry B. Garland (2d ed. 1986), and Hermann Bschenstein (1990); W. T. H. Jackson, The Literature of the Middle Ages (1960); W. H. Bruford, Germany in the 18th Century (2d ed. 1965); H. T. Moore, Twentieth-Century German Literature (1967); Peter Demetz, Postwar German Literature (1970); A. K. Domandi, ed., Modern German Literature (2 vol., 1972); Alan Menhennet, The Romantic Movement (1981); Victor Lange, The Classical Age of German Literature (1982)
Yiddish is a member of the West Germanic group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Germanic languages; German language). Although it is not a national language, Yiddish is spoken as a first language by approximately 4 million Jews all over the world, especially in Argentina, Canada, France, Israel, Mexico, Romania, the United States, and the republics of the former USSR. Before the annihilation of 6 million Jews by the Nazis, it was the tongue of more than 11 million people. Growing out of a blend of a number of medieval German dialects, Yiddish arose c.1100 in the ghettos of Central Europe. From there it was taken to Eastern Europe by Jews who began to leave German-speaking areas in the 14th cent. as a result of persecution. By the 18th cent., Yiddish was almost universal among the Jews of Eastern Europe. It has generally accompanied Yiddish-speaking Jews in their migrations to other parts of the world. Phonetically, Yiddish is closer to Middle High German than is modern German. Although the vocabulary of Yiddish is basically Germanic, it has been enlarged by borrowings from Hebrew, Aramaic, some Slavic and Romance languages, and English. Written from right to left like Hebrew, Yiddish also uses the Hebrew alphabet with certain modifications. In 1925 the Yiddish Scientific Institute (YIVO) was established in Vilna, Lithuania. It served as an academy to oversee the development of the language. Later its headquarters were transferred to New York City, where in time it became the Yivo Institute for Jewish Research. Coping with the problem of dialects, this institute has done much to bring about the standardization of Yiddish. In the eyes of many, Yiddish has significance both as the language of an important literature and as an expression of the Jewish people.
See Marvin I. Herzog et al., eds., The Field of Yiddish: Studies in Language, Folklore, and Literature (1969); Max Weinreich, History of the Yiddish Language (1980); David Katz, Grammar of the Yiddish Language (1987)
Dutch is a member of the West Germanic group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Germanic languages). Also called Netherlandish, it is spoken by about 14 million inhabitants of the Netherlands, where it is the national language, and by slightly more than 250,000 people in the Western Hemisphere. The written and spoken forms of Dutch differ significantly. For example, written Dutch exhibits far greater formality than spoken Dutch in both grammar and vocabulary. One reason for this divergence is that written Dutch evolved from the Flemish spoken in the culturally advanced Flanders and Brabant of the 15th cent., whereas modern spoken Dutch grew out of the vernacular of the province of Holland, which became dominant after the 16th cent. (see Flemish language). Also, written Dutch is relatively uniform, while the spoken language has a number of dialects as well as an official standard form. The Roman alphabet is used for Dutch, and the earliest existing texts in the language go back to the late 12th cent. Among the words with which Dutch has enriched the English vocabulary are: brandy, cole slaw, cookie, cruiser, dock, easel, freight, landscape, spook, stoop, and yacht. Dutch is noteworthy as the language of an outstanding literature, but it also became important as the tongue of an enterprising people, who, though comparatively few in number, made their mark on the world community through trade and empire.
See Coenraad Bernardus van Haeringen, Netherlandic Language Research (2d ed. 1960); W. Z. Shetter, An Introduction to Dutch (3d ed. 1968); B. C. Donaldson, Dutch: A Linguistic History of Holland and Belgium (1983)
Flemish is a member of the West Germanic group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Germanic languages). Generally regarded as the Belgian variant of Dutch (see Dutch language) rather than as a separate tongue, Flemish is spoken by approximately 5 million people in Belgium, where it is one of the official languages, and by another 200,000 persons in France. So closely are Flemish and Dutch related that the difference between them has been compared to the difference between American and British English; however, some scholars hold that they have diverged sufficiently since the 16th cent. to be described as separate languages.
Afrikaans is a member of the West Germanic group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Germanic languages). Although its classification is still disputed, it is generally considered an independent language rather than a dialect or variant of Dutch (see Dutch language). Afrikaans is spoken by close to 6 million people, most of whom live in the Republic of South Africa, where it is an official language, and in Namibia. At least half of its native speakers in South Africa are not white. It arose from the Dutch spoken by the Boers, who emigrated from the Netherlands to South Africa in the 17th cent., but in its written form it dates only from 1861. The grammar has been considerably simplified. Its vocabulary is essentially similar to that of Dutch; Afrikaans has absorbed quite a few words from the Khoisan languages, Bantu (such as words designating local flora and fauna), and English.
Frisian is a member of the West Germanic group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Germanic languages). It has a number of dialects and is spoken by more than 300,000 people, most of whom speak West Frisian and live in Friesland, a province of the Netherlands. North Frisian is spoken along the North Sea coast of Germany and on the Frisian Islands, and East Frisian is spoken farther inland in NW Germany. Speakers of various dialects are also found in the United States. Frisian is a subject of instruction in the schools of Friesland and also has a literature of its own. Of all foreign languages, it is most like English.
See Koen Zondag, ed., Bilingual Education in Friesland (1982)
English is a member of the West Germanic group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Germanic languages). Spoken by about 450 million people throughout the world, English is the native language of more people than any other except Mandarin Chinese. An official language of about 45 nations, it is also used extensively as an auxiliary language, probably by another 400 million persons. Thus it serves about one out of every six people in the world.
English is the mother tongue of about 56 million persons in the British Isles, from where it spread to many other parts of the world owing to British exploring, colonizing, and empire-building from the 17th through 19th centuries. It is now also the first language of an additional 215 million people in the United States; 17 million in Canada; 14 million in Australia; 3 million in New Zealand and a number of Pacific islands; and approximately 16 million others in different parts of the Western Hemisphere, Africa, and Asia. As a result of such expansion, English is the most widely scattered of the great speech communities. The United Nations uses English not only as one of its five official languages but also as one of its two working languages.
There are many dialect areas; in England and Scotland these are of long standing, and the variations are striking; the Scottish dialect especially has been cultivated literarily. There are newer dialect differences also, such as in the United States, including regional varieties such as Southern English, and cultural varieties, such as Black English. Standard forms of English differ also; thus, the standard British (“the king's English”) is dissimilar to the several standard varieties of American and to Australian, Canadian, New Zealand, and Indian English.
Today's English is the continuation of the language of the 5th-century Germanic invaders of Britain. No records exist of preinvasion forms of the language. The language most closely related to English is the West Germanic language Frisian. The history of English is an aspect of the history of the English people and their development. Thus in the 9th cent. the standard English was the dialect of dominant Wessex. The Norman Conquest (11th century) brought in foreign rulers, whose native language was Norman French; and English was eclipsed by French as the official language. When English became again (14th century) the language of the upper class, the capital was London, and the new standard (continued in Modern Standard English) was a London dialect.
It is convenient to divide English into periods—Old English (or Anglo-Saxon; to c.1150), Middle English (to c.1500), and Modern English; this division implies no discontinuity, for even the hegemony of French affected only a small percent of the population. The English-speaking areas have expanded at all periods. Before the Normans the language was spoken in England and Scotland, but not in Cornwall, Wales, or, at first, in Strathclyde. English has not completely ousted the Celtic languages from the British Isles, but it has spread vastly overseas.
Like other languages, English has changed greatly, albeit imperceptibly, so that an English speaker of 1300 would not have understood the English of 500 nor the English of today. Changes of every sort have taken place concomitantly in the sounds (phonetics), in their distribution (phonemics), and in the grammar (morphology and syntax). The changes are more radical than they appear, for Modern English O and A are diphthongs. The words home, stones, and name exemplify the fate of unaccented vowels, which became u, then u disappeared. In Old English important inflectional contrasts depended upon the difference between unaccented vowels; so, as these vowels coalesced into u and this disappeared, much of the case system disappeared too. In Modern English a different technique, word order (subject + predicate + object), is used to show what a case contrast once did, namely, which is the actor and which the goal of the action.
Although the pronunciation of English has changed greatly since the 15th cent., the spelling of English words has altered very little over the same period. As a result, English spelling is not a reliable guide to the pronunciation of the language.
The vocabulary of English has naturally expanded, but many common modern words are derived from the lexicon of the earliest English; e.g., bread, good, and shower. From words acquired with Latin Christianity come priest, bishop, and others; and from words adopted from Scandinavian settlers come root, egg, take, window, and many more. French words, such as castle, began to come into English shortly before the Norman Conquest. After the Conquest, Norman French became the language of the court and of official life, and it remained so until the end of the 14th century.
During these 300 or more years English remained the language of the common people, but an increasingly large number of French words found their way into the language, so that when the 14th-century vernacular revival, dominated by Chaucer and Wyclif, restored English to its old place as the speech of all classes, the French element in the English vocabulary was very considerable. To this phase of French influence belong most legal terms (such as judge, jury, tort, and assault) and words denoting social ranks and institutions (such as duke, baron, peer, countess, and parliament), together with a great number of other words that cannot be classified readily (e.g., honor, courage, season, manner, study, feeble, and poor). Since nearly all of these French words are ultimately derived from Late Latin, they may be regarded as an indirect influence of the classical languages upon the English vocabulary.
The direct influence of the classical languages began with the Renaissance and has continued ever since; even today Latin and Greek roots are the chief source for English words in science and technology, (e.g., conifer, cyclotron, intravenous, isotope, polymeric, and telephone). During the last 300 years the borrowing of words from foreign languages has continued unchecked, so that now most of the languages of the world are represented to some extent in the vocabulary. English vocabulary has also been greatly expanded by the blending of existing words (e.g., smog from smoke and fog) and by back-formations (e.g., burgle from burglar), whereby a segment of an existing word is treated as an affix and dropped, resulting in a new word, usually with a related meaning.
See H. L. Mencken, The American Language (rev. 4th ed. 1963); G. W. Turner, The English Language in Australia and New Zealand (1966); Mario Pei, The Story of the English Language (new ed. 1968); Paul Roberts, Modern Grammar (1968); M. M. Orkin, Speaking Canadian English (1971); Thomas Pyles and John Algeo, The Origins and Development of the English Language (3d ed. 1982); W. F. Bolton, A Living Language (1982); Braj Kachru, ed., The Other Tongue (1982); Richard Hudson, Invitation to Linguistics (1984); John Baugh, Black Street Speech (1985); The Random House Dictionary of the English Language (2d ed. 1987)
|
Last modified: June 16, 1999
(Best viewed with MS Internet Explorer) |
