Minne-Sang: The Conjunction of Singing and Loving in German Courtly Song

Abstract

Minnesang, that fashionable entertainment which lodged itself in the German courts in the second half of the twelfth century, has remained enigmatic and confounding to literary historians since the beginnings of modern scholarship in the nineteenth century.' Though the Minnesainger borrowed liberally from their courtly confreres to the West, the essence of their art seems to us to dwell further out on the axis of irreality than is the case with the troubadours and troveres. The Minnesinger absents himself from the sturdier tangibilities and the more accessible zest of the Romance traditions. His cerebral calisthenics betray a penchant for abstraction and a passion for ambiguity. His reasonings are tortuous. Of all the genres which developed in the twelfth-century heyday of courtly literary activity, Minnesang is doubtless one of the most difficult to explain or interpret in a satisfactory way. Nonetheless I should like here to make some remarks which I hope might unclutter the approaches to Minnesang and facilitate something of an understanding and perhaps even an appreciation of the art. But first, as a proemium to my central argument, I must make some amplification on the phenomenon of love within courtly fictions or, if you prefer, the notion of Courtly Love. Amour courtois, that most notorious concept in courtly literary studies, has, of course, been keeping literary historians busy for nearly a century2 and, though I do not intend to provoke a direct confrontation with this perennial scholarly spectre, it would surely be unwise to skirt the issue altogether.' I should disclose at the outset that I do not for a minute believe in Courtly Love. I find it, however, like many ghosts and imaginaries, like Santa Claus and the Square Root of Minus One, a practical aid in the building of analytical structures, an operative, so to speak, rather than a real substance or quality. Accordingly, I should like to offer clarification on two points which may bring the concept of Courtly Love, real or imagined, into sharper focus. My first point is this: whether or not there is or was such a thing as Courtly Love, it should be clear that, in the courtly entertainments around the year of 1200, love existed as a theme, an important theme, and, in many cases, the only important theme. The second point is more germane to my later argument: the love which forms the nucleus of