The Beginnings of German Literature: Comparative and Interdisciplinary Approaches to Old High German by Cyril Edwards (review)

Abstract

MLRy 99.1, 2004 237 case of Broiler for Brathdhnchen is given on map 36. Some of these, however, are regionalisms antedating the division of Germany in 1949, like Eierkuchen on map 24, which also shows, typically,how many characteristic 'Austrianisms' do not stretch into the westernmost provinces of Tyrol and Vorarlberg: the Hungarian loan Palatschinke is restricted to eastern Austria. The maps are produced on the same pattern as in the earlier volumes, with symbols at each point of investigation giving an immediate visual impression of the areal distribution of each variant. Each map is accompanied by a clear and informative textual account in the introductory section, which also contains details of variants and occasional comments by the informants. Taken together,this is an invaluable reference work for the specialist and general user, and Jurgen Eichhoff is to be congratulated on seeing it through to its conclusion in the face of considerable difficulties. University of Manchester Martin Durrell The Beginnings of German Literature: Comparative and Interdisciplinary Approaches to Old High German. By Cyril Edwards. (Studies in German Literature, Linguistics and Culture) Rochester, NY: Camden House. 2002. xviii+ 197 pp. ?7o;?5o. ISBN 1-57113-235-x (hbk). Cyril Edwards's collection of seven essays (three of them expanded versions of previously published papers) on differentaspects of Old High German writing make a fascinating contribution to Old High German studies. At the same time, however, the book repeatedly makes it clear just how tenuous many of our judgements are likely to remain, even (or perhaps especially) with a variety of differentapproaches. Edwards's primary concerns are with the manuscript transmission ofthe earliest Old High Ger? man poetic texts, and the justification for the comparative approach in literary terms lies in their generic isolation (p. xv) in a largely Latin context. Two (revised) papers on the Wessobrunner Gebet look first at the analogues to the work (and also at the possible echo of the biblical phrase tohu wa-bohu as an equivalent?or a source??for enteo ni uuenteo), concluding that the author may have been an Anglo-Saxon drawing on his own traditions, but whose German was not perfect. The necessarily speculative nature of the conclusion to the first paper is repeated throughout. The second (written with Jennie Kiff-Hooper) looks at the other contents of the manuscript containing the Gebet, notably at the illustrations of the Holy Rood story (Judas is, however, rather oddly described as being put in a dry lake, rather than a well or cistern, lacus), and at the manumission written by Bonefacius, possibly (but in spite ofthe support here from Bischoff, only possibly) by the same hand as the Old High German. The investigation locates the Wessobrunner Gebet to eighth-century Bavaria, but there are still plenty of ifs and maybes. An essay on the way the manuscripts of the Hildebrandlied and the Muspilli have been treated over the years is largely descriptive, a small cautionary tale of earlier Germanistik, and it is followed by two pieces on the so-called charms, especially those from Merseburg. These are probably the most difficult Old High German texts to write about, and Edwards makes clear the differenttypes of difnculty: do we take them in their present written context, or tryto relate them to historical events, or look for analogues in other cultures, or tryto reconstruct some kind of (pre-Christian) Urtext? Fascinating though the search for analogues may be, what we actually have is a fairly large number of Christian or Christianized prayers, almost all expressly dependent upon the will of God for their efficacy?amen, drohtin uuerthe so. I would demur at the comments here on 'the official hostility of the Church' (p. 91). The Church condemned magic, it is true, but the charms in the form we have them are not magic 238 Reviews spells but, effectively,collects. Edwards rightlynotes that their survival depends upon their putative efficacy,however. The second essay, in which conjectures are offered on the Merseburg pieces, is in a way safer,though conjectures are unprovable. What is interesting is that the names of the pagan gods preserved in these texts (and in the epilepsy charms) precisely are so confused. Did...