Die politischen Lieder Walthers von der Vogelweide. by Friedrich Maurer; Die Lieder Walthersvon der Vogelweide unter Beifügung erhaltener und erschlossener Melodien, I. Bändchen: Diereligiösen und die politischen Lieder. by Friedrich MaurerReview by: Edwin H. ZeydelModern Language Notes, Vol. 70, No. 8 (Dec., 1955), pp. 615-617Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3040463 .

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poem (Exhortation pour la Paix, 115) is again a bit of Roman elegy undetected by Laumonier or Hallowell:

Les vaines de leur col noyrcissent de colre. (Ronsard, ed. crit., 9. 21)

Ora tument ira, nigrescunt sanguine venae. (Ovid, Ars Amatoria, 3.503)

Cornell University JAMES HUTTON

Friedrich Maurer, Die politischen Lieder Walthers von der Vogel. weide (Tubingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1954. viii + 136 pp. DM 14). Friedrich Maurer, Die Lieder Walthers von der Vogel. weide unter Beifiugung erhaltener und erschlossener Melodien, I. Bandchen: Die religiosen und die politischen Lieder (Tubingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1955. 96 pp. Altdeutsche Textbibliothek Nr. 43). THESE two slender volumes represent the boldest but probably the best founded advance in Walther scholarship since the work of Lachmann almost 130 years ago, and the revised text and Untersuchungen (1934) of the late Carl von Kraus in our own age. To those who are familiar with the work of Biitzler and Gennerich, and who have read Maurer's own article on the " Wiener ilofton " in the Annals of the Finnish Academy of Science (1954), Maurer's latest achievements will not come as a complete surprise, for there the groundwork had already been laid. In brief, Maurer had fortified the not altogether new principle (and. proved it, I think) that the great majority of Walther's so-called " Spriiche " were polystrophic, and not monostrophic, and that they were not chanted or recited, but sung. In other words, most of the " Spriiche " are distinguishable from the " Lieder " only in theme and subject matter. The fact that the Miinster fragments also contain fragments of melodies (2. Phi- lippston and K6nig Friedrichston), and the existence of a counter- facture of the Wiener Hofton in the Colmar Liederbuch (also one of the Ottenton) seem to provide clear evidence that the various " Spriiche " in these meters were sung to the preserved melodies.

Throughout Walther scholarship of the last 130 years the " Spriiche" with identical melodies have been separated and dis- membered into monostrophic parts according to a real or fancied chronology. Maurer now brings together the various monostrophes to restore as far as possible the polystrophic poems which Walther

VOL. LXX, December 1955 615

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intended. His principle is that while all the strophes in the same " Ton " do not necessarily constitute a single " Lied," yet uniformity of form and melody adds up to uniformity of theme and occasion.

Three monostrophic " Spriiche " remain after Maurer has pieced the rest together as parts of polystrophic poems, namely 104, 23 (Tegernsee), 85, 25 (ich sah hie), and 104, 33 (daz milter man). But he admits the existence of very difficult questions relating to strophic sequence and dating. Each " Ton," he feels, prevailed for a comparatively brief period and was devoted to a single theme and subject, often treated, however, in the seemingly offhand, illogical method of the minnesinger who in his stanzas jumps from one aspect of a theme to another.

The old chronological system of arranging Walther's poems must be changed to conform to Maurer's pattern. A political song may, for example, have been written in 1203 but deal with more or less related events of, say 1198 and 1202. The genesis, Maurer thinks, was sometimes gradual. At any rate, the important factor is not the genesis but the purpose.

Had Maurer wished, he could have made this process clearer to the modern reader, it seems to me, by references to the quite similar practice of Goethe in a much later age. To quote a case in point: Goethe wrote ten stanzas of his " Epilog zu Schillers Glocke " for a memorial service in 1805, shortlv after Schiller's death. Stanza 12 was added in 1806 for another memorial service, while parts of stanzas 5 and 6, as well as stanza 13, were occasioned by the tenth anniversary by Schiller's death. How difficult and, in the final analysis, how unimportant is the genesis of the finished poem as compared with its purpose!

Let us now see concretely how Maurer proceeds in Die politischen Lieder. Sub Reichston he brings together (with melody): 8, 4-17 (ich saz) as stanza 1; 8, 28-9, 15 (ich horte) as stanza 2; and 9, 16-39 as stanza 3 (ich sach). This is followed by 1. Philippston: 19, 29-20, 3 is stanza 1; 18, 29-19, 4 is stanza 2; 19, 5-16 is stanza 3; 19, 17-28 is stanza 4; 20, 4-15 is stanza 5. There follow: (with melody) the Wiener Hofton, 13 stanzas (24, 18; 22, 3; 20, 16; 22, 18, etc.), the 1. Atzeton (with melody), 3 stanzas, the 2. Philippston (with melody), 4 stanzas, the 2. Atzeton, 7 stanzas, etc. (7 more " T6ne," 2 melodies) and in conclusion the " Elegie," and the crusad- ing songs, which are also considered political songs, and finally the three monostrophes. Melodies are given wherever possible, Gunther

616 Modern Language Yotes

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Birkner being responsible for this phase of the work. A ten-page conclusion sums up the results.

The more recent volume in the " Altdeutsche Textbibliothek" (again with melodies) does not contain much more text than the earlier work, adding the " religious " songs, but it omits the extensive justification for choice of stanzas, sequence, etc. which the former volume required. In a subsequent volume of the " Textbibliothek " the songs of love and of nature will follow, but these will not require nearly as much rearrangement as did the poems in the present booklet.

It would be nothing short of miraculous if Maurer had succeeded in hitting upon the exact disposition of the newly constituted polystrophic poems, in the exact sequence that Walther intended. Maurer himself wonld be the last to make such a claim, especially since scribes who lived only a few generations after Walther had already lost sight more or less completely of the arrangement intended by the poet. But that some sort of arrangement like Maurer's is called for, at least in many cases, can no longer be doubted. His method certainly constitutes progress over the conservative Lachmann-bound methods of Carl von Kraus in this respect.

Apart from the obvious consequences of Maurer's ingenious ideas, several results are bound to follow as by-products. The names for the " Tne " seem sillier than ever. The Lachmann system of number- ing, to which we are shackled, is becoming more and more meaningless. Maurer's work will open new vistas for the study of Walther as a clever builder of strophes, a subject to which von Kraus has already contributed a great deal. Finally, future editors of Walther will hardly be able to afford not to follow Maurer in indicating the melodies in modern musical notation.

University of Cincinnati EDWIN H. ZEYDEL

Karl Aschenbrenner and William B. Holther, eds., Reflections on Poetry. Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten's Meditationes philosophicae de nonnullis ad poema pertinentibus (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1954. viii + 90 + 40 pp. $3.50). BAUMGARTEN'S Reflections on Poetry was presented as a doctoral thesis in Halle in 1735, fifteen years before the first edition of his better known Aesthetics appeared. As an inventor of the name, if not the subject, of aesthetics, he has an eminent place in the history of philosophy,

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