The Song of Nibelungen Bodies and How They are Described, Idealised and Eroticized. Part I. Der Helt Was Wol Gewahsen...

Elina A Sarakaeva

doi:10.46539/cmj.v1i1.7

Abstract

The discovery of the medieval heroic epic “Das Nibelungenlied”in the XIX century Germany coincided with the search for new national mythology and symbols within the movement of Romantic medievalism. The heroic epic got a country-wide recognition asa great literary work that was supposed to serve as a source of German values and to reflect the German national character. With this approach the characters of the epic were re-constructed as embodiments of these German values, as ideals to follow. The article analyses the iconography of these characters, the “nibelungs”: the way they were visualized and depicted in fine arts and fiction and what ideological concepts were ascribed to their bodies and appearances. The first part of the article compares the descriptions of Nibelungen characters in the works of German authors of XIX-XXI centuries and compares them to the descriptions in the original text of the poem to see how cultural codes are constructed and interpreted through visualization of human bodies.

Highlights

The discovery of the medieval heroic epic “Das Nibelungenlied”in the XIX century Germany coincided with the search for new national mythology and symbols within the movement of Romantic medievalism
The visual representation of these new notions and images manifested itself in the works of German writers inspired by the epic. Such literary adaptations were abundant in the course of XIX - the beginning of XX centuries and almost every writer used descriptions of their characters’ bodies and facial features as an artistic means of character representation, as a way to show what kind of people they were, who was good and who was bad
The outstanding German author Bertoldt Breht makes fun simultaneously of these appeals to imaginary archetypes of German heroes and their presumed Nordic appearance in his poem “Siegfred had red hair”: Siegfried hatte ein rotes Haar / Und Hagen Tronje liebte ihn sehr; (Siegfried had red hair / And Hagen Tronje was very much in love with him) (Brecht, 1993, p. 492). Both the appearances of Nibelungen heroes and their relations are twisted: Siegfried is red haired not blond, Hagen is in love with him and kills him out of homosexual desire

Summary

Introduction

The discovery of the medieval heroic epic “Das Nibelungenlied”in the XIX century Germany coincided with the search for new national mythology and symbols within the movement of Romantic medievalism. Keywords the nibelungenlied; heroic epic; nibelungs; description; body; appearance; medieval literature; imagery

Results

Conclusion