Late Old High German Prose

Summary

THE LITERATURE of the late Old High German period is characterized by the fractured nature of the tradition. Between Otfrid von Weissenburg (ca. 800–ca. 867) and Notker of St. Gallen (ca. 950–1022), who dominates the end of the OHG period, and who was probably the most prolific author of period as a whole, there is almost a century to which no substantial text of certain date can be assigned. Moreover, after Notker's death, there is a similar forty-year lacuna in the evidence for German-language production before Williram of Ebersberg (ca. 1015– 1085) and his paraphrase of the biblical Song of Songs (ca. 1060), the Physiologus (ca. 1070), the Ezzolied (ca. 1065), the Annolied (ca. 1085) and the eschatological prose piece Himmel und Hölle (Heaven and Hell, ca. 1070–80). Indeed, it is only from the twelfth century on that literature in German begins to flourish in what Horst Dieter Schlosser calls the Early Middle High German Renaissance. Of course, much may have been lost, but, in view of the fact that Latin manuscripts survive from the same period, admittedly fewer than one might expect in comparison with earlier centuries, it is unlikely that the absence of German writing can be attributed solely to the ravages of time.