Joachim Heinzle (review)

Abstract

MLR, 96. , 200I MLR, 96. , 200I pragmatic requirements of actual kingship:in political reality the decision not to fightcan be a positive one even if we would not expect it from an Erecor a Gawein, and the distinction allows us to recognize that Ginther is not necessarily a weak characterin this passage. One must wonder, however, whetherwe dojustice to the courtlyideal ifwe filterout elements of moderation and responsibilityand regardas knightlyonly thatwhich is left. UNIVERSITY OF REGENSBURG GRAEME DUNPHY Einfiihrungin die mittelhochdeutsche Dietrichepik. By JOACHIM HEINZLE. (de Gruyter Studienbuch) Berlin and New York: de Gruyter. 999. xii + 22I pp. I I illus. DM 44. It seems a long time since we had a readableintroductionto the extensive corpusof medieval poems dealing with Dietrich von Bern. To be sure, in 1964 de Gruyter themselves published Roswitha Wisniewski's revision of Hermann Schneider's Deutsche Heldensage (Volume 32 in the old Sammlung Goschen), a work that replaced Otto Jiriczek's Die deutsche Heldensage in the same series, first published in i894, revisedin 1897, and even translatedinto English in 1902. These older volumes, of course, treated of much more than the Dietrich poems, but on a rathersuperficial level (a mere fifteen pages were devoted to the Dietrich poems in the Schneider/ Wisniewski volume), and of course these have long since become hopelessly outdated. Of more recent date, and much more useful, was Werner Hoffmann's Mittelhochdeutsche Heldendichtung (Berlin:Erich Schmidt, 1974), which devoted some sixty pages to Dietrich. For the past twenty years the standard book has been Joachim Heinzle's Mittelhochdeutsche Dietrichepik. Untersuchungen zur Tradierungsweise, Uberlieferungskritik undGattungsgeschichte spdter Heldendichtung (Munich:Artemis, 1978), but this, the author's Habilitationsschrift, was hardly an introductorysurvey. More accessible, but again perhaps better suited to the needs of the researcherthan to those of the relative beginner, was Wisniewski's Mittelalterliche Dietrichdichtung (Stuttgart:Metzler, 1986),Volume 205 in the Sammlung Metzler.But no one knows the field better than Heinzle, and for sheerreadabilityand reliability,his new book could hardlybe bettered.It is writtenin the author'susualforthrightstyle,Martin's edition of DietrichsFluchtand Wierschin's edition of Ecke, for instance, being summarilydismissedas 'unbrauchbar',while Simrock'snineteenth-centuryverses are declaredto be 'unertraglich'. The book covers essentially the same ground as Wisniewski's Mittelalterliche Dietrichdichtung, though in somewhat briefer compass. It comprises four main sections, the first of which, 'Dietrichsage und Dietrichdichtung', surveys the historical background of Theodoric the Great and the emergence of clerical and vernaculartraditionslinkedto the Theodoric-Dietrich figurefromthe sixthcentury to the early modern period. The second deals with the historical epics (Dietrichs Flucht,Rabenschlacht, and so on), topics such as the textual witnesses, the content, differentversions, authorship,and interpretationbeing discussedas appropriatein each case. Similarly in the third section, devoted to the 'aventiurehafte Dietrichepen', which, one hopes, will receive fresh attention now that the various versions of the Eckenlied are now at last conveniently availablein the new Altdeutsche Textbibliothek edition by FrancisBrevart(Tubingen:Niemeyer, 1999).The shortfinal section of Heinzle's book outlines the role of the printed Heldenbuch (scarcely mentioned in Wisniewski'sstudy)in ensuringthe survivalof knowledge of Dietrich in the post-earlymodern period. pragmatic requirements of actual kingship:in political reality the decision not to fightcan be a positive one even if we would not expect it from an Erecor a Gawein, and the distinction allows us to recognize that Ginther is not necessarily a weak characterin this passage. One must wonder, however, whetherwe dojustice to the courtlyideal ifwe filterout elements of moderation and responsibilityand regardas knightlyonly thatwhich is left. UNIVERSITY OF REGENSBURG GRAEME DUNPHY Einfiihrungin die mittelhochdeutsche Dietrichepik. By JOACHIM HEINZLE. (de Gruyter Studienbuch) Berlin and New York: de Gruyter. 999. xii + 22I pp. I I illus. DM 44. It seems a long time since we had a readableintroductionto the extensive corpusof medieval poems dealing with Dietrich von Bern. To be sure, in 1964 de Gruyter themselves published Roswitha Wisniewski's revision of Hermann Schneider's Deutsche Heldensage (Volume 32 in the old Sammlung Goschen), a work that replaced Otto Jiriczek's Die deutsche Heldensage in the same series, first published in i894, revisedin 1897, and even translatedinto English in 1902. These older volumes, of course, treated of much more than the Dietrich poems, but on a rathersuperficial level...