DER VON KÜRENBERG

(late 12th century)

Der von Kürenberg was one of the earliest German COURTLY LOVE poets. His songs were copied in the famous early 14th-centuryManessische Liederhandschrift(Manesse song manuscript), also known asGrosse Heidelberger Liederhandschrift(ms. C), one of the most important collections of the earliest Middle High German courtly love songs (Minnelieder). These songs, composed between 1170 and 1200, today are collectively calledDes Minnesangs Frühling(Spring of courtly love songs).

Der von Kürenberg originated in lower Austria. His songs, composed between 1150 and 1175, have the same poetic structure as the one utilized by theNIBELUNGENLIEDpoet (ca.1200), that is, three- or four-beat half-lines, two of which regularly make up a rhyming couplet. In contrast to most courtly poets, Kürenberg’s poems are clearly divided into separate stanzas, 15 in total. In some of these a female voice speaks (Frauenstrophen), and in others we hear a man speak (Männerstrophen), and sometimes the stanza consists of a dialogue between man and woman (Wechsel). Kürenberg discusses the fundamental problems of courtly love, such as the physical distance between the lovers, misunderstandings, loneliness and longing, and domestication through love. The latter aspect is most beautifully expressed through the image of a preying falcon whom the lady has raised for more a year, but who then flies away into distant lands (6). In the following stanza (7) the poetic voice says that she or he saw a falcon flying high, with bands of silk attached to his foot, which could represent either the soft but firm bonds between two lovers, or the loss of the beloved. In one stanza the male voice expresses his anger because his lady has ordered him to leave her country (10), and in another stanza he admits that he stood next to her bed one night but did not dare to wake her up (3), to which she responds that there was no reason for his hesitation. As in most other courtly love songs, Kürenberg formulates that love and sorrow are intimately entwined.

■ Moser, Hugo and Helmut Tervooren, ed.Des Minnesangs Frühling. 38th ed. Stuttgart, Germany: Hirzel, 1988.

■ Sayce, Olive.The Medieval German Lyric 1150–1300.The Development of Its Themes and Forms in Their European Context. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982.

■ Willson, H. B. “Wooing in Some Poems of Der von Kürenberg,”Journal of English and Germanic Philology83, no.4 (1984): 469–481.