SOURCE: “The Reception of the Nibelungenlied in Germany from the Klage to the Twentieth Century” in The Nibelungenlied, Twayne Publishers, 1984, pp. 84-101.

[In the following essay, McConnell offers an overview of the Nibelungenlied's influence on German literature.]

If the number of popular and artistic works based on the Nibelungenlied may be considered evidence of the attraction the epic held for subsequent generations of readers and theatergoers, then we may certainly conclude that the poem has proved to be one of the most inspiring “sources” in the history of German literature. I have already considered in the Introduction the extent to which the Nibelungenlied has captured scholarly interest from the time of Obereit and Bodmer to the present. But what of the influence the work exerted in the literary sphere subsequent to its genesis in the form known to us from the turn of the thirteenth century? Actually, it is more appropriate to speak of the influence of the Nibelungen tradition per se, although this is not meant to diminish the significance of the Nibelungenlied for the later creative process. The scores of dramas written during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, for example, are almost entirely based on the epic. However, the popular Lied vom Hürnen Seyfrid (The lay of Seyfrid, the Dragon-Slayer) together with its analogues, the play by Hans Sachs and the folk book, is more indebted to the Nordic sources which relate in extenso of Siegfried's youth. The same is true of Wagner's Ring des Nibelungen, (Ring of the Nibelungen) the mythological elements of which hark back to the Edda and the Völsunga Saga. The Nibelungenlied is part of a remarkably rich tradition which spans centuries in terms of its literary expression.

Within the framework of the present monograph, it is impossible to provide more than a basic overview of the subsequent literary treatment of the Nibelungen tradition and the Nibelungenlied itself. For the most part, I have not considered the nonliterary manifestations of the subject matter (film, postcards, art, etc.). The number of dramas, poems, and novels based on the Nibelungenlied alone is legion, and while I have felt it appropriate to linger for a while in some instances and offer the reader a more intimate glimpse of the intentions of a particular author (thereby exposing my own prejudices), I have made no attempt to treat systematically every literary work which uses the epic as a base. For the reception of the Nibelungenlied in Germany during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, I have to acknowledge a heavy debt to the studies of Holger Schulz,¹ Otfrid Ehrismann,² and Werner Wunderlich,³ works which may accurately be designated as indispensable for anyone who wishes to gain insight into the great proclivity of Nibelungen materials produced over the past two hundred years.

DIU KLAGE

Diu Klage (The lament) is “a brief inferior sequel”⁴ to the Nibelungenlied, an elegiac commentary of 4,360 verses in rhyming couplets, appended to all of the major manuscripts of its great predecessor.⁵ The Klage is, at one and the same time, a commentary on events which transpire in the Nibelungenlied, a defense of Kriemhild as well as a condemnation of Hagen, and a narration of the course of events subsequent to the mass slaughter in the Great Hall of Attila. Above all, it is an elegy addressed to the prominent figures who are no more, as well as to the masses of Burgundians and Huns slain during the fray.

On the question of Siegfried's “guilt,” the anonymous poet is unambiguous in assigning the hero a share of the responsibility for bringing about his death: “unt daz er selbe den tôt / gewan von sîner übermuot” (“Until he himself was killed as a result of his haughtiness,” 38-39). No details of the actual murder are provided, although the blame for the deed is placed on Gunther (103), Hagen (104), and Brünhild (104) respectively. The poet also emphasizes the excessive lamenting of Kriemhild (95-96), but, unlike the author of the Nibelungenlied, who is inclined to consider such a lack of moderation as unnatural and destructive, and who, at least in manuscript B, paints a most uncomplimentary picture of the queen as a she-devil, the Klage poet takes Kriemhild's side and praises her actions. No one, he asserts, should condemn her for wishing to avenge Siegfried's death (139), a less than veiled criticism, perhaps, of those before him who have portrayed Kriemhild from a decidedly negative point of view. His response to such criticism is summed up in verses 154-58:

swer ditze maere merken kan,
der sagt unschuldic gar ir lîp,
wan daz daz vil edel werde wîp
taete nâch ir triuwe
ir râche in grôzer riuwe.

(Whoever can take note of this tale will declare that the queen was guiltless. For the noble lady acted out of loyalty, exacting her revenge in great sorrow.)

It is, in fact, her loyalty which, the poet proclaims, will assure her a place in heaven (571-76). Earlier, however, when considering the loss of forty thousand men prior to the death of Hagen (236-37), the author had explicitly stated that Kriemhild's decision to let matters run their course had emanated “von krankem sinne” (“from a sick mind,” 243), which hardly seems to accord with his later defense of the queen. Moreover, to associate Kriemhild's loyalty and the deeds she has committed as a result of it with her right to a place in Heaven gives us cause to wonder if the poet was aware of the basic tenets of Christianity. He (or she?) was caught between justifying Kriemhild's quest for revenge on the one hand, and the horror perceived at the extent of the catastrophe on the other. Hildebrand's killing of Kriemhild is condemned (732-33). Hildebrand had hewn Kriemhild to pieces because she had cut down a defenseless Hagen. In the Klage, however, Hildebrand soundly condemns the late Hagen for all that has transpired, according him, in fact, the appellation vâlant so poignantly used to depict a demonic Kriemhild in the Nibelungenlied (note Klage, 1250). The Burgundians, as a whole, allowed their übermuot to prevent them from telling Attila about the true state of affairs at a time when the monarch might well have taken measures to circumvent the mass slaughter which later ensued (284-89). Hildebrand also refers to this übermuot in 1277 and sees it as the reason for the fact that the Burgundians have been afflicted by “den gotes slac” (“God's wrath,” 1276).

The Klage utilizes four major geographical locations: Attila's court, Bechelaren, Passau, and Worms. Rüdeger, the “vater aller tugende” (“epitome of virtue,” 2133), is particularly mourned, the poet claiming that “an dem was mit wârheit / verlorn der werlde wünne” (“With him was lost, in truth, the joy of the world,” 1962-63). In Passau, Bishop Pilgrim puts the blame for all that has happened exclusively on Hagen, maintaining that one should rue the day that he was born (3420). In Worms, Rumold refers to “Hagenen übermuot” (4031) as well as to his “grôzen untriuwen” (“great treachery,” 4035). The intention is clear: the poet is attempting to absolve Kriemhild as much as possible of guilt for the catastrophe, and Hagen, a totally dark figure, is to bear the blame, or at least the major part of it. There are frequent references to the wrath of God, and in general we may say that Christian overtones (as confused as they may be) are more conspicuous in the Klage than in the Nibelungenlied.⁶ In an attempt to provide a more optimistic outlook on the future, the poet refers to the impending coronation of young Siegfried, Brünhild's son, in Worms. The land cannot remain without a king, and both Brünhild and the surviving Burgundian nobility find consolation in the forthcoming ceremony.

As a defense of Kriemhild and a condemnation of Hagen, the Klage leaves us unconvinced. The black and white attitude of the poet in no way accords with the text of the Nibelungenlied or the intention of its author. The author lacked the depth and perspective of his forerunner and clearly had little sympathy with the ambivalent disposition of the latter toward his main characters. The weak attempt to provide some sort of happy ending to the tragedy stands in blatant contrast to the conclusion of the Nibelungenlied. The final section of the Klage (4323-60) adds some (probably unintentional) levity to the predominant atmosphere of despair, as the poet expresses his regret at not being able to inform us of the fate of Attila, whether he was taken up into the air, buried alive, brought to Heaven, whether he climbed out of his skin, scurried away into a hole in the wall, or went to hell and was consumed by the devil.

LATE MEDIEVAL AND EARLY BAROQUE RENDITIONS OF THE YOUNG SIEGFRIED STORY

Working from ten of eleven extant prints of the Lied vom Hürnen Seyfrid (The lay of Seyfrid, the Dragon-Slayer), K. C. King published, in 1958, a critical edition of this early New High German poem, dating from the late fifteenth century.⁷ The work consists of 179 eight-line stanzas with the rhyme scheme A B C B D E F E. The Lied harks back to a source with which the Nibelungenlied poet was probably familiar, but which he did not exploit to full advantage. It is primarily concerned with Seyfrid's (Siegfried's) adventures as a young man, his fight with a dragon, his almost total invulnerability acquired by bathing in the slain dragon's blood, and his love of Kriemhild, daughter of King Gybich. Seyfrid subsequently rescues the princess from the lair of a dragon and undergoes a series of adventures culminating in his slaying of the giant Kuperan with the aid of a dwarf. The poem closes with a reference to the growing jealousy of Hagen and Gyrnot, and the later death of Seyfrid at the hands of Hagen.

Noteworthy in the Lied is the fact that, from the outset, Seyfrid is portrayed as a brash young man who is self-assertive and physically strong, but not given to listening to others:

Der knab was so můtwillig
Darzů starck und auch gross
Das seyn vatter und můter
Der ding gar seer verdross
Er wolt nie keynem menschen
Seyn tag seyn underthon
Im stund seyn syn und můte
Das er nur zůg daruon.

(Stanza 2)

(The boy was strong and tall but also so headstrong that his father and mother became quite concerned about him. He never wanted to be subordinated to anyone, and all he could ever think of was getting away.)

The tendency to assert himself and to ignore the status of others is reflected in stanzas 173 through 176, as Seyfrid arouses animosity in King Gunther and his brothers, leading to his subsequent murder by Hagen in the “Otten waldt” (Odenwald, 177.8).⁸

Das Lied vom Hürnen Seyfrid, which Eugen Mogk, in his inaugural lecture at the University of Leipzig in 1895, had referred to as a “Bänkelsängerlied” (“balladmonger's tune”), can scarcely be compared with the Nibelungenlied in terms of literary merit. Scholars are not at all sure whether the poem is actually a combination of several independent lays, as Wilhelm Grimm suggested,⁹ or the work of one author. Its importance, however, within the literary tradition of the Nibelungen is summed up by King in the excellent introduction to his edition:

However one looks at the poem it is undeniable that it tells us things about Siegfried which the other sources we know do not tell us; and these things are of interest whether they can be traced back to Germanic antiquity or not, for it is just as important for the history of literature to know whether an ancient popular hero remained merely an ancient popular hero or whether he continued to occupy a significant position in the creative literature of later times.¹⁰

Relying to a large degree on Das Lied vom Hürnen Seyfrid as a base, Hans Sachs completed, in 1557, his tragedy in seven acts, Der Hürnen Seufrid (Sewfrid, the Dragon-Slayer), and thus became the first writer to adapt a segment of the Nibelungen tradition for the stage. The Lied serves as a basis for the first five acts of the play, while the preparations for the fight between Sewfrid and Dietrich, as well as the actual combat (acts 6 and 7), appear to be based on a work from the late thirteenth century, Der grosse Rosengarten. It is impossible to ascertain whether Hans Sachs knew the Nibelungenlied, although most scholars are inclined to doubt that this was the case.

As in the Lied, Sewfrid, son of Sigmund, is not given to courtly mores and, from the outset, demonstrates a high degree of haughtiness. He is “gar vnadelicher art” (“certainly not noble in bearing”),¹¹ “frech, verwegen vnd muetwillig” (“haughty, daring, and headstrong”).¹² Acts 3 through 5 deal with the abduction of Crimhilt by the dragon and Sewfrid's adventures in the process of rescuing her. When, in act 5, Sewfrid learns from the dwarf that he will only be granted eight years together with Crimhilt, he accepts it as “God's will” (747; note also 900!). Acts 6 and 7 are of particular interest to us. In the former, Crimhilt is depicted as an ambitious woman, eager to see how Sewfrid would fare in battle against Dietrich, and quite conscious of the universal fame he will attain should he prove triumphant (note 896f.). Significantly, vbermuet (Übermut, “haughtiness,” “arrogance”) is singled out in 870 as a trait from which nothing good can come. In the contest which follows, Dietrich eventually proves to be too formidable for Sewfrid, who flees to Crimhilt and seeks refuge in her lap! This is a very different image of the hero as compared to the way Siegfried was portrayed in earlier sources, as well as in later works. The final act of Sachs's tragedy relates the murder of Sewfrid by Hagen who, in 1068f, gives some idea of the motivation behing the deed: “Nun hat auch ain ent dein hochmuet, / Der vns fort nit mer irren thuet” (“Now your arrogance has come to an end, and will no longer give us cause to worry”; compare strophe 993 in the Nibelungenlied!).¹³

The Wunderschöne Historia von dem gehörnten Siegfried (The marvelous story of Siegfried, the Dragon-Slayer), commonly dated from 1726,¹⁴ the year of the earliest surviving edition, had its origins as a printed folk book almost seventy years earlier, as Harold Jantz has shown in his delightful and informative essay, “The Last Branch of the Nibelungen Tree.”¹⁵ Like its poetic forerunner, the prose Historia relates the story of Siegfried, here the son of King Sieghardus of the Netherlands, a tall, muscular young man, whose urge for independence causes his parents some anxiety. Even though the king's advisers suggest that the prince be allowed to make his way in the world, Siegfried takes his leave unannounced. After a brief encounter with a smith, whom he antagonizes with his arrogance and brute strength, Siegfried slays a dragon in a nearby forest and burns him, using the fat which is produced to toughen (hürnen) his skin. The greater part of the folk book is devoted to the story of Siegfried's rescue of Florigunda, daughter of King Gilbaldus of Worms, from a dragon. As in the Lied and the play, prince and princess wed, but Siegfried incurs the jealousy of his three brothers-in-law because he consistently wins the prizes offered in tournaments. He is eventually killed by one of the trio, Hagenwald, and is avenged by his father, Sieghardus. The folk book closes with an allusion to Löwhardus, Siegfried's son, who, it is said, grew up to be a fine hero.¹⁶

In many respects, the Historia is simply a prose rendition of the late-fifteenth-century Lied. Siegfried is portrayed, however, as a Christian knight; and, as in the Lied, there is no attempt to depict the heroine, Florigunda, as the avenging she-devil, an image which would scarcely have found much sympathetic reception in the early seventeenth century.

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Throughout the remainder of the seventeenth and most of the eighteenth century, the subject matter of the Nibelungen provided no incentive for further literary productions among German authors. With the advent of romanticism and the national fervor which swept through the country at the time of the Napoleonic Wars, enthusiasm for the German past in general and the Middle Ages in particular increased among poets as well as scholars. The effort to free Germany and Europe from Napoleon's armies was complemented by the attempt to use the Nibelungenlied for political purposes. Siegfried, the dragon-slayer, came to be regarded as a national hero, the German Achilles. Ludwig Tieck's ballads, “Siegfrieds Jugend” (Siegfried's Youth) and “Siegfried der Drachentödter” (Siegfried the Dragon-Slayer, 1804), concentrate on the early life of the hero, although the second poem also alludes to his death. Tieck does not ignore Siegfried's übermuot, but in “Siegfried der Drachentödter” that word assumes a more positive quality than is the case in either the Nibelungenlied or the Lied vom Hürnen Seyfrid. Ludwig Uhland composed a poem in rhyming couplets with Siegfried as the central figure, “Siegfrieds Schwert” (Siegfried's sword, 1812), and the prominent translator of the Nibelungenlied, Karl Simrock, produced a ballad entitled “Der Nibelungen-Hort” (The treasure of the Nibelungs, 1827). The popularity of lyric and epic renditions of the Nibelungen theme was extraordinary throughout the nineteenth century,¹⁷ but it was in drama where, more than anywhere else, the extent to which the material had captured the imagination of contemporary authors was demonstrated.

In particular, one witnesses a veritable proliferation of Nibelungenlied dramas which reflect, in chronological sequence, the spirit of the Wars of Liberation against Napoleon, the national movements of the mid-nineteenth century (especially the Revolution of 1848), and the nationalistic tendencies prevalent at the time of the founding of the Second Reich by Bismarck (1871). In his dissertation, Der Nibelungenstoff auf dem deutschen Theater (The Nibelungen theme on the German stage),¹⁸ Holger Schulz lists no fewer than fourteen dramas which were produced between 1810 and 1861, including works by such noted authors as Ludwig Uhland, Geibel, Ibsen, and Hebbel.¹⁹ Hebbel's trilogy (Der gehörnte Siegfried (Siegfried, the Dragon-Slayer), Siegfrieds Tod (Siegfried's death), Kriemhilds Rache (Kriemhild's Revenge), which I shall examine more closely, enjoyed considerable popularity on the German stage in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but failed to exercise much influence on subsequent dramas. It was probably not fully understood, despite the number of successful productions it enjoyed.²⁰ Between 1866 and 1951, Schulz lists a further twenty Nibelungenlied dramas, many of which, however, he designates as amateurish (“dilettantische Stücke”).²¹ Apart from dramas concerned with the theme of the Nibelungenlied in general, Schulz also cites a number of works dealing with individual figures (Rüdeger, Attila, Kudrun, Dietrich), as well as a few “Merovingian dramas,” which accord with the efforts to link Merovingian history to the events depicted in the epic.

Although there was no lack of Nibelungen dramas throughout the nineteenth century, few managed to gain any lasting recognition. Gottfried Weber states: “Regardless of the reason, none of them ever attained the poetic stature of the medieval work.”²² Many were not received well on the stage, and, of the dozens which appeared in print, only Hebbel's Nibelungen is still read with any frequency today (the readers being primarily Germanists and their students). In his poem, “Sigurd unter den Gänsen” (Sigurd among the geese, 1839), Friedrich Rückert poked fun at the dilettantism inherent in many of the plays which used the Nibelungenlied as a source, falling over it “wie jugendliche Leser / oder wie ein Heer von Recensenten” (“like youthful readers or an army of critics”).²³ In Heine's “Deutschland,” Germany was compared to the brash, temperamental Siegfried whom we find in the Lied vom Hürnen Seyfrid. Felix Dahn's “Der Bundestag” (The federal parliament) utilized the treasure of the Nibelungs as a symbol of unity. In his “Deutsche Lieder” (German songs) Dahn compared the envisioned destruction of Germany at the hands of a Russian, French, and Italian coalition to the heroic demise of the Nibelungs in Attila's Great Hall.

Let us return for a while to Friedrich Hebbel's Die Nibelungen: Ein deutsches Trauerspiel in drei Abteilungen / (The Nibelungs: A German tragedy in three parts), for of all the plays produced during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries on this theme, it is the one that deserves more than fleeting mention. Hebbel's diary entry of 18 February 1857 alludes to a visit the dramatist paid to the home of Amalia Schoppen in Hamburg, at which time he became acquainted with the Nibelungenlied and was particularly impressed by the figures. In Vienna, Hebbel attended a performance of Ernst Raupach's Der Nibelungenhort (The treasure of the Nibelungs, published 1834) and, in a letter to Charlotte Rousseau, he expressed his delight with Christine Enghaus (whom he later married) in the role of Chriemhild. Hebbel's drama was conceived over a period of five years, from 1855 to 1860, during which time he familiarized himself with the renditions of previous authors. He was aware of the difficulties inherent in such a project, the most prominent being the transposing of epic figures onto the stage,²⁴ but he believed that the Nibelungenlied poet had been a “dramatist from his head to his toes.”²⁵

The Nibelungen consists of three parts: Der gehörnte Siegfried: Vorspiel in einem Akt, Siegfrieds Tod, and Kriemhilds Rache. Under the influence of Friedrich Theodor Vischer, Hebbel attempted to produce a drama in conformity with the latter's call for a logical justification of every action undertaken by psychologically unified characters. Members of human society (in contrast to those figures whose origins lay in the supernatural sphere) were to be depicted as acting from a position of complete independence and would bear full responsibility for their actions.²⁶ In Der gehörnte Siegfried, Hebbel retains much of the arrogance we associate with Siegfried upon his arrival in Worms: “Ich grüss dich, König Gunther von Burgund!— / Du staunst, dass du den Siegfried bei dir siehst? / Er kommt, mit dir zu kämpfen um dein Reich!” (“I greet you, King Gunther of Burgundy. You are amazed to see Siegfried here before you? I have come to fight you for your empire.”)²⁷ We are also made aware of Gunther's overstimation of his talents. Upon hearing of the danger for Brünhild's suitors and the fate of those who have hitherto attempted to woo her, the king exclaims that this can only prove that she is intended for him. As in the Nibelungenlied, a deal is fashioned whereby Siegfried agrees to procure Brünhild (who, he maintains, has not touched his heart) for Gunther if he can wed Kriemhild in return. Siegfried has thus been clearly identified with a world set far apart from that of the court at Worms. The ominous predictions regarding the outcome of the wooing mission are delivered by Volker: “Nein, König, bleib daheim / Es endet schlecht” (“No, my king, remain at home. This will turn out badly”).²⁸ Volker recognizes the deeper significance in what is proposed, and maintains that “falsche Künste” (“magic”) are not appropriate to the Burgundians.

In Siegfrieds Tod, Hebbel places Brünhild squarely into the foreground and, in a scene reminiscent of the arrival of the Burgundians in Iceland in the Nibelungenlied, allows her to address Siegfried first in the assumption that it is he who has come to woo her. He devotes no time to the actual ordeals in which Gunther-Siegfried must prove victorious in order to obtain Brünhild, but quickly moves the scene from Isenland and Brünhild's castle to Worms and Gunther's palace. It is Hagen who makes the initial suggestion that Siegfried “tame” Brünhild in bed, claiming that the honor of the king is at stake. In contrast to the situation in the Nibelungenlied, Siegfried is less than willing to comply with the request. His eventual acquiescence, coupled with his indiscretion in taking Brünhild's girdle, leads to the subsequent confrontation between Brünhild, conscious of her status as queen of the Burgundians, and Kriemhild, to whom Siegfried is “the strongest man in the world.” When Hagen states that Siegfried must die, his motives go beyond those of his counterpart in the Nibelungenlied. It is not just a question of jealousy and dislike or, for that matter, fear of the hero. Siegfried is not simply the “Schwätzer” (“prattler”). Hagen recognizes that there is more than hate perceived by Brünhild toward Siegfried. They are of the same world, inescapably drawn to one another by their very nature; theirs is a magical bond that can only be dissolved by death:

                                        “Ein Zauber ists,
Durch den sich ihr Geschlecht erhalten will,
Und der die letzte Riesin ohne Lust
Wie ohne Wahl zum letzten Riesen treibt.”

(act 4, scene 9)

(“It is magic, by means of which their race attempts to survive, and which draws the last giantess—neither by choice, nor by desire—to the last giant.”)

Kriemhild is modeled closely on her counterpart in the Nibelungenlied, and, in Kriemhilds Rache, Hebbel also allows her to degenerate into a dark figure who would “cut down a hundred brothers” (act 4, scene 4) in order to get Hagen's head. As in the medieval forerunner, the Burgundian kings are in no way inclined to give in to Kriemhild's offer that they may leave Attila's court unharmed after turning over Hagen. Lifted from the Nibelungenlied as well are Rüdeger's plight (act 5, scene 11) and the final confrontation between Hagen and Kriemhild, including a contemporary version of the original appellative hurled at Kriemhild by Hagen, “Unhold” (“devil,” act 5, scene 14). Similarly, Hagen dies by Kriemhild's hand, and the queen is struck down by Hildebrand, who refers to her as a devil. In contrast to the Nibelungenlied, however, Hebbel's drama concludes with Attila's abdication and Dietrich's acceptance of his crown “in the name of the one who died on the cross” (act 5, scene 14).

What had Hebbel intended with the Nibelungen? In a short essay entitled “An den geneigten Leser” (To the sympathetic reader), he expressed his desire to adapt “the dramatic treasure of the Nibelungenlied”²⁹ for the stage. The actions of the characters were to be their own, that is, independent of the influence of superhuman beings. While Hebbel urged his readers to seek nothing more than the “Nibelungen Not” behind this tragedy, he clearly offered a three-phrase development from the mythical, through the heathen, to the Christian era. In marked contrast to the Nibelungenlied, where no future is envisioned, Hebbel's Nibelungen, while not conveying in the final words of Dietrich (who represents the antithesis of the demonic Hagen) the idea of a “crawling to the cross,”³⁰ offers an affirmation of a new life, a new beginning, and thus endows the work with a very different spirit when compared with that of its medieval forerunner.

The patriotic fervor engendered by the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 led to a glorification of conflict and lent emphasis to the concepts of unity, strength, and loyalty. Emanuel Geibel's poem, “An Deutschland. Januar 1871” (To Germany, January, 1871) contained a reference to the “marrow of the Nibelungs,” and Julius Rodenberg's “Die Heimkehr” (The homecoming, 1872), a tribute to Wilhelm I, referred to the Kaiser as the “Sieg-Fried” of the German people. All of Germany became a “Nibelungenland” (Adolf Bartels, 1896) in the last years of the nineteenth century, and the Germans themselves were depicted as the “Nibelungenstamm,” “the Nibelungen clan.” Bismarck, the “Iron Chancellor” and engineer of German unity in the last half of the nineteenth century, was also compared to Siegfried in Felix Dahn's poems “Jung-Bismarck” (Young Bismarck) and “Bei Bismarcks Tod” (On Bismarck's death). This symbolism became even more pronounced in Hermann Hoffmeister's “Der eiserne Siegfried” (Iron Siegfried), where Bismarck was compared to the hero of Xanten, and Fafnir, the slain dragon, to the threatening “Sozialdemokratismus” which was becoming more and more noticeable throughout the land.

The Nibelungen theme inspired not only literary productions in the nineteenth century. Vischer, whose influence on Hebbel has been noted above, was the first to attempt the production of an opera based on the subject (“Vorschlag zu einer Oper” [Suggestion for an opera, 1844]), and he was followed by Louise Otto (Die Nibelungen als Oper, [The Nibelungen as opera, 1845]), the Dane Nils Wilhelm Gade (Siegfried und Brynhilde, 1847, a fragment), and Heinrich Dorn (Die Nibelungen, 1854). In 1874, Richard Wagner completed his tetralogy, Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelungen), consisting of the Vorabend, Das Rheingold (Prelude, Rhine Gold, 1854), and the three music dramas, Die Walküre (The Valkyries, 1856), Siegfried (1871), and Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods, 1874). The first complete performance of the Ring was given in August 1876 in Bayreuth. In a letter to Franz Müller in Weimar, dated 9 January 1855, Wagner referred to the sources he had consulted, ranging from Lachmann's Nibelungen Noth und Klage, through the Edda, Völsunga Saga, Wilkina- and Niflunga Saga, to secondary literature such as F. Joseph Mone's Untersuchungen zur deutschen Heldensage (Studies on German heroic poetry), which he considered to be very important. Wagner was not concerned about remaining “true” to the sources; he used them freely, deriving most of his material from the Edda and the Völsunga Saga. His chief interest lay in the mythical aspects of the material, and he did not bother with the destruction of the Burgundians. The Rheingold, in fact, is devoid of purely human characters. Brünhild is a central figure while Gutrune (Kriemhild) is reduced to fulfilling a necessary dramatic function. The Ring also betrays the influence of classical tragedy and myth, and the tetralogy may be described as a veritable potpourri of Germanic motifs, Christianity, Greek myth, and humanism.

Wagner also emphasizes the animosity perceived by Hagen toward Siegfried and Brünhild. He is jealous of the former and also despises him. Hagen deliberates; Siegfried acts. Hagen is conscious of the significance of events transpiring around him; Siegfried, although free, remains naive, oblivious to the ultimate meaning of his actions. Unlike Siegfried, who openly admits that he often forgets the ring of the Nibelungs and the treasure, Hagen's aim in life is directed toward procuring the former.

Vischer maintained that, owing to the stature and archaism of its figures, a dramatization of the Nibelungen theme was impossible. Wagner contradicted Vischer in a most impressive manner, although in his own time, it was by no means certain that his tetralogy would enjoy the critical acclaim it does today. Writing of the first English performance of the Ring in the Era of 13 May 1882, the music critic concluded: “That the Nibelungen Ring, in spite of its occasional power and beauty, can ever be popular, is more than we expect and certainly more than we hope for.”³¹

THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

There is no radical break with tradition in Nibelungenlied reception during the early twentieth century. According to Werner Wunderlich,³² three basic “types of reception” can be discerned: (1) Siegfried is portrayed as the young, carefree hero, whose foremost attributes are courage and loyalty; (2) the work and its figures are regarded from a mythical perspective, with Siegfried depicted as a symbol of “light” in contrast to his antagonists, who represent the “dark” side of existence; (3) the work is cited as an attempt to convey the image of “higher man,” with both Siegfried and Brünhild regarded as exemplary. Intrinsic to this third type was the existential necessity of the hero's demise. In 1909, Paul Ernst, whom Ernst Alker has described as the “most important representative of neo-classicism,”³³ produced his demonic drama, Brunhild (followed, in 1918, by Chriemhild), in which he attempted through the use of expressionistic devices to move away from a Hebbel-like “Psychologisierung” (“psychologizing”) of the characters and present the myth of the “higher man” and the ultimate tragedy of an existence which attained perfection only through its own demise. Ernst's drama had yet another function to fulfill, however, as the author himself indicated in his “Nachwort zu Chriemhild”: “If something of the pride of the German has been expressed in my work, pride which he may now be accorded at the time of his great humiliation, then I shall be happy, for I will thus have fulfilled my obligation as a poet.”³⁴ Siegfried and Brünhild are portrayed as “outsiders,” as beings set apart from the rest of society, “higher entities,” whose very nature cannot help but bring them into conflict with the world about them. Although they ideally should serve as models for “lower men,” such as Gunther and Kriemhild, the manner in which they are abused by the latter leads to their tragic demise.³⁵ The question of guilt is not pertinent in Ernst's dramas. Fate is decisive, and it lies in the nature of the hero to behave as a demigod, trapped by his insistence on coming to terms with the world of “lower men,” with release possible only in death. When Ernst's Hagen, whom the author viewed as a “figure of depth, strength, greatness, and tragedy,”³⁶ decides that Siegfried must die, he acts from higher necessity, knowing full well that Gunther and Khriemhild are the “cancer” in society.³⁷

World War I produced a further utilization of the Nibelungenlied in the service of the country, an identification of main characters in the medieval epic with specific German traits or institutions. Siegfried was viewed as a symbol of military strength and was compared to both Germany and the German army. At the beginning of the war this was also true for Hagen, although he later became associated with the “stab-in-the-back” theory advanced by many in the postwar period.³⁸ Wilhelm Scherer (“Nibelungentreue: Kriegsgesänge” [Nibelung loyalty: war songs, 1916]) conjured up the image of a reincarnated Siegfried representing strength and loyalty, and Werner Jansen dedicated his novel Das Buch Treue: Nibelungenroman (The book of loyalty: A Nibelung novel, 1921) to the German war dead, the memory of whose heroism and loyalty had given him the courage to bring his work to its conclusion. When the war was lost and the Weimar Republic founded, conservative opponents of the regime turned to the Nibelungenlied as a model in their call for Germany's renewal, for, if models were indeed to be found, one need look no further than to the “national epic.” Friedrich Vogt, in a reference to “Nibelungentreue” (“Nibelung loyalty”), compared the endurance demonstrated by the Burgundians in the burning palace of Attila to Germany's will to resist the enemy coalitions of World War I (Französischer und deutscher Nationalgeist im Rolandslied und im Nibelungenlied [French and German national spirit in the lay of Roland and the Nibelungenlied, 1922]).

The Nibelungen theme found warm reception in National Socialist Germany between 1933 and 1945. Wunderlich contrasts the different perspectives from which the material was viewed. During the Weimar Republic, the themes and motifs of the Nibelungenlied had been employed by authors of antirepublican persuasion to express optimism for Germany's future, but poets and dramatists sympathetic to the Third Reich spoke in terms of the present. Siegfried was seen by some as the prototype of Nordic man, as the embodiment of the Nordic spirit. His fate was compared with that of the Germanic race. In “Das Lied von Siegfried” (The lay of Siegfried, 1934), Hans Henning von Grote portrayed Siegfried, the dragon-slayer, as the destroyer of dark forces, the personification of loyalty and the ever-recurring hero in times of peril. The identification of Siegfried with Arminius was revitalized by Bodo Ernst in his Siegfried-Armin: Der Mythos vom deutschen Menschen (Siegfried-Arminius: The myth of the German, 1935) and Paul Albrecht in Arminius-Sigurfrid: Ein Roman des deutschen Volkes (Arminius-Siegfried: A novel of the German people, 1935). Ernst Huttig's Siegfried: Festliches Spiel in drei dramatischen Szenen und zwei Bühnenbildern (Siegfried: A festive play in three dramatic scenes and two stage scenes, 1934) depicts the hero as a selfless warrior in the service of others, comparable to Germany and the role of its soldiers in foreign service throughout the world in previous centuries. Similar thoughts were echoed by Karl Busch in Das Nibelungenlied in deutscher Geschichte und Kunst (The Nibelungenlied in German history and art, 1934). Josef Weinheber's poem “Siegfried-Hagen” (1936) compares the perilous situation of the “blond-haired hero,” murdered among his “friends,” with that of the Reich, which the poet considers in danger of collapsing as a result of inner strife and lack of harmony. But Hagen, too, could be portrayed as the “personification of the Nordic type,”³⁹ as in Wulf Bley's play Die Gibichunge (The Gibechs, 1934), in which the hero of Troneck maintains that it was his destiny to kill Siegfried.⁴⁰ Throughout this period in Germany, the Nibelungenlied was regarded as a work which reflected “the historical mission of the German people and the natural and necessary battle for existence of the individual as well as the race, or the people.⁴¹ The Nibelungs were considered the epitome of courage, prowess in battle, and, above all, loyalty, both to the people and its leader. With the outbreak of World War II, the bellicose tendencies of individuals and peoples in the Nibelungenlied, the spirit of the warrior, became prime models for a new generation of soldiers.⁴² As the military victories of the years 1939 to 1942 gave way to the defeats of 1943 to 1945, the emphasis was placed more on the fatalistic acceptance of catastrophe, of defiance in the face of death and total destruction. To die was not important; to die with honor in a heroic struggle, as the Nibelungs had done, was paramount. War was considered the test of heroic man, that which ultimately gave meaning to one's existence, a theme which was prominent in Hans Baumann's Rüdiger von Bechelaren: Das Passauer Nibelungenspiel (Rüdeger of Bechelaren: Passau's Nibelung play, 1939).

The postwar period evinced two major phases in the reception of the Nibelungenlied in Germany.⁴³ On the one hand, there was a concerted effort to move away from the trends of earlier periods, while, on the other, some of the old concepts and interpretations continued to be propagated. In 1944, the production of the first part of Max Mell's drama, Der Nibelunge Not (The tragedy of the Nibelungs), took place in Vienna. The second part, Kriemhilds Rache, was performed six years later. Mell attempted to move away from titanic concepts and, while accentuating Christian ethnics in his work, depicted the Nibelungs as human beings. In two tragedies, Siegfried and Grimhild (1948), Wilhelm Hildebrand Schäfer depicted the world as a stage on which Siegfried, the visionary, a superior man, is destroyed by the narrow-mindedness of society and its pragmatic outlook. Reinhold Schneider's play, Tarnkappe (The magic cloak, 1951), is rooted in the Christian-humanistic tradition and portrays the constant struggle faced by the individual to realize a Christian existence in this life.

In the 1950s, the theme of the Nibelungen fell prey to Trivialliteratur and pornography. In the comic series, Sigurd, Siegfried appears as a German Tarzan or Superman, and the figure was sexually exploited in the 1969 film Siegfried und das sagenhafte Liebesleben der Nibelungen (Siegfried and the fabulous love life of the Nibelungs). (Compare, however, the skill with which the subject had been treated in the 1920s in the expressionistic films of Fritz Lang.) Crude sexual symbolism also characterized the 1961 novel by Martin Beheim-Schwarzbach, Der Stern von Burgund: Roman der Nibelungen (The star of Burgundy: A novel of the Nibelungs). What has appeared over the past twenty-five years in the Federal Republic of Germany utilizing the Nibelungen theme has been almost exclusively satirical in nature.⁴⁴ Robert Neumann's Sperrfeuer um Deutschland (Germany under Siege, 1950) and Das Buch Treue: Ein Domelanen-Roman (The book of loyalty: A novel of the Domelans, 1962) parodied both the concept of Nibelungentreue as well as the works of prior generations of authors who had adapted the theme. Joachim Fernau's Disteln für Hagen: Bestandsaufnahme der deutschen Seele (third edition, 1966) is a satirical retelling of the Nibelungenlied with the ambitious goal of determining the essence of the German mind. Axel Plogsted's play, Die Nibelungen (1975), and Beda Odemann's Alles bebt vor Onkel Hagen: Ein Verhohnepiepel der deutschen “Heldensage” (Everyone's frightened of Uncle Hagen: A satire on German heroic poetry) demonstrate that few contemporary authors who deal with the Nibelungen topic are as concerned with the aesthetics of their “literary” products as they are with parodying the concepts (particularly loyalty and heroism) which are of major significance in the medieval work. In this respect, they have become rather predictable, and, unfortunately, often tedious. In contrast, Franz Fühmann (German Democratic Republic) has regarded the Nibelungenlied as a “novel about feudal society and its power structures,”⁴⁵ and has attempted in his poem “Der Nibelunge Not” (1956) to explain recent German history and provide a vision for the future. The optimistic tenor of the concluding strophes of Fühmann's poem stands in marked contrast to the apocalyptic conclusion of the medieval epic.

We shall close this chapter with an allusion to the popular interest demonstrated over the past few years in determining the historical and geographical background of the epic. Helmut Berndt's Das 40. Abenteuer: Auf den Spuren der Nibelungen (The Fortieth Adventure: Tracking the Nibelungs, 1964, with numerous subsequent editions) still adhered to the “traditional” route of the Burgundians from Worms on the Rhine through Bavaria and Austria to Hungary. In the summer of 1981, two new works appeared disputing the hitherto prevailing view that the Burgundians had actually journeyed to Hungary, or that the Nibelung treasure was sunk in the Rhine near Worms. The titles of both books in themselves betray the “new” direction of historically oriented lay studies: Heinz Ritter Schaumburg, Die Nibelungen zogen nordwärts (The Nibelungs went north), and Walter Böckmann, Der Nibelungen Tod in Soest (The demise of the Nibelungs in Soest). Well might we query with Werner Wunderlich: “The beginnings of a new myth?”⁴⁶

Notes

1. Holger Schulz, Der Nibelungenstoff auf dem deutschen Theater (Cologne: F. Hansen, 1972).

2. Otfrid Ehrismann, Das Nibelungenlied in Deutschland: Studien zur Rezeption des Nibelungenlieds von der Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts bis zum Ersten Weltkrieg, Münchner Universitäts-Schriften, Philosophische Fakultät, vol. 14 (Munich, 1975).

3. Werner Wunderlich, ed., Der Schatz des Drachentödters: Materialien zur Wirkungsgeschichte des Nibelungenliedes, Literaturwissenschaft, Gesellschaftswissenschaft, no. 30 (Stuttgart, 1977).

4. Henry and Mary Garland, The Oxford Companion to German Literature (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), p. 635, s. v. Nibelungenlied.

5. Diu Klage: Mit den Lesarten sämtlicher Handschriften, ed. Karl Bartsch (1875; reprint ed., Darmstadt, 1964). Quotations in my text are based on this edition.

6. Despite his words in praise of Kriemhild's triuwe, it is difficult to imagine how the Klage poet could possibly have felt a reconciliation possible between the queen's obsession with revenge and her absolutism on the one hand, and Christian principles on the other.

7. K. C. King, ed., Das Lied vom Hürnen Seyfrid, with introduction and notes (Manchester: University of Manchester Press, 1958). Quotations in my text are based on this edition.

8. It should be noted that while in the Lied Seyfrid dies in a forest, this is not the case in the Nibelungenlied. The murder takes place by a stream in a grove on the periphery of the forest. Common to both works is Siegfried's tendency to be overbearing, a source of sorge, and hence leit, to those around him.

9. Wilhelm Grimm, Die deutsche Heldensage, 4th ed. (1889; reprint ed., Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1957), p. 284.

10. King, ed., Das Lied vom Hürnen Seyfrid, p. 40.

11. Hans Sachs, Der Hürnen Seufrid: Tragoedie in sieben Acten, ed. Edmund Goetze, 2d ed., Neudrucke deutscher Literaturwerke, Neue Folge, vol. 19 (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1967), act 1, verse 56.

12. Ibid., act 1, verse 58.

13. An excellent review of the reception of Der Hürnen Seyfrid (as well as heroic themes in general) in sixteenth-century Nuremberg is provided by Helmut Weinacht, “Das Motiv vom Hürnen Seyfrid im Nürnberg des 16. Jahrhunderts: Zum Problem der bürgerlichen Rezeption heldenepischer Stoffe,” in Hans Sachs und Nürnberg: Bedingungen und Probleme reichsstädtischer Literatur: Hans Sachs zum 400. Todestag am 19. Januar 1976, ed. Horst Brunner, Gerhard Hirschmann, and Fritz Schnelbögl, Nürnberger Forschungen, vol. 19 (Nuremberg: Selbstverein des Verlags für Geschichte, 1976), pp. 137-81.

14. See, for example, Henry and Mary Garland, The Oxford Companion to German Literature, p. 412, s.v. Hürnen Seyfrid, Der. Weinacht, however, acknowledges the fact that 1726 is simply the date of the latest extant edition, and refers to the article by Jantz noted below in n. 15.

15. Harold Jantz, “The Last Branch of the Nibelungen Tree,” MLN 80 (1965):433-40.

16. Scholars had long assumed that this was probably an allusion to a fictitious tale, but the work did, in fact, exist, and a copy of it may be found in the Harold Jantz Collection at Duke University.

17. See the selection provided by Werner Wunderlich in Der Schatz des Drachentödters, p. 21.

18. See above, n. 1. This is the best survey in print of dramatizations of the Nibelungenlied on the German stage during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

19. Werner Wunderlich lists a total of thirty-three dramatic productions between 1821 and 1918. It is worth noting that the first attempt since Hans Sachs to dramatize the Nibelungen theme, the trilogy, Der Held des Nordens (The hero of the north), by Friedrich Baron de la Motte Fouqué (dedicated to J. G. Fichte), is based on the Eddic lays and the first two parts of the Völsunga Saga, as well as the Ragnar Saga.

20. For a discussion of thirty-four performances of Hebbel's Nibelungen (or individual parts of the trilogy) between 31 January 1861, when it premiered at the Grossherzogliches Hoftheater in Weimar, and 21 May 1925, see Walther Landgrebe, Hebbels Dichtungen auf der Bühne, Forschungen zur Literatur-, Theater- und Zeitungswissenschaft, vol. 1 (Oldenburg: Schulz, 1927).

21. Schulz, Der Nibelungenstoff auf dem deutschen Theater, p. 95.

22. Weber, Nibelungenlied, p. 88.

23. Friedrich Rückert, “Sigurd unter den Gänsen,” in Friedrich Rükkerts gesammelte Poetische Werke, vol. 7 (Frankfurt am Main: Sauerländer, 1868), p. 57.

24. In this regard, note the letter written to Hebbel by Georg Gottfried Gervinus in which the latter stated: “I have always considered it something of an impossibility to bring the figures of the old epics onto the stage” (Friedrich Hebbel, Sämtliche Werke, ed. Richard Maria Weber, vol. 7, Briefe, appendix [Berlin: B. Behr, 1901-7], p. 410).

25. Friedrich Hebbel, “An den geneigten Leser,” posthumously published foreword to the Nibelungen, in Hebbels Werke, ed. Theodor Poppe (Berlin: Bong & Co., 1923), 5:12. A fine introduction to Hebbel's Nibelungen is offered by Sten G. Flygt, Friedrich Hebbel, Twayne's World Authors Series, no. 56 (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1968), pp. 132-41. Note also Wilhelm Emrich, Hebbels Nibelungen: Götzen und Götter der Moderne, Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Jahrgang 1973-74, no. 6 (Mainz: Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, 1974).

26. See Schulz, Der Nibelungenstoff auf dem deutschen Theater, p. 84.

27. Friedrich Hebbel, Die Nibelungen, in Hebbels Werke in zwei Bänden, ed. Walther Vontin, vol. 2, Dramen und Prosa (Hamburg: Hoffmann and Campe Verlag, n.d.), pp. 14-15 (Vorspiel, scene 2).

28. Ibid., p. 28 (Vorspiel, scene 4). Quotes in text are based on the Vontin edition.

29. Ibid., p. 203.

30. See Jost Hermand, “Hebbels ‘Nibelungen’—Ein deutsches Trauerspiel,” in Hebbel in neuer Sicht, ed. Helmut Kreuzer, 2d ed., Sprache und Literatur, vol. 9 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1969), p. 330. See, however, Sten G. Flygt, Friedrich Hebbel, p. 134: “The inexorable duty to exact vengence is, of course, the feature of heathendom which brings about its collapse. The chaplain, Rüdeger, and Dietrich von Bern represent the new form of the Idea, Christianity, with its ethical norms of self-control, humility, and readiness to forgive.”

31. Quoted by Raymond Mander and Joe Mitchenson, The Wagner Companion (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1977), p. 159.

32. Wunderlich, Der Schatz des Drachentödters, p. 51.

33. Ernst Alker, Die deutsche Literatur im 19. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart: A. Kröner, 1961), p. 734.

34. Paul Ernst, “Nachwort zu Chriemhild,” in Gesammelte Dramen, vol. 2, pt. 1 (Munich: Georg Müller, 1922), p. 325. It is worth noting that Ernst considered Hagen to be the “personification of the idea of the German people” (p. 324).

35. See Karl Hunger, “Paul Ernsts ‘Brunhild’ and ‘Chriemhild,’” Zeitschrift für deutsche Bildung 2 (1941):33.

36. Paul Ernst, “Die Nibelungen: Stoff, Epos und Drama,” in Weg zur Form, 3d ed. (Munich: G. Müller, 1928), p. 171.

37. Note Ernst, Brunhild: Trauerspiel in drei Aufzügen, in Gesammelte Dramen, vol. 2, pt. 1 (Munich: Georg Müller, 1922), act 1 (p. 203):

    “Ihr zwei seid das Geschwür in unserm Leib,

    Und Selbstvernichtungswut ist euer Leben. …

    Wär' ich dein Mann nicht: dich wollt' ich ermorden,

    Chriemhild und dich. Dann wäre alles gut.”

    (“You two are the cancer in our body and you are possessed by a death-wish. If I were not your vassal, I would kill both you and Kriemhild. Then everything would be fine.”)

38. See, for example, Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, 72d ed. (Munich: Franz Eher, 1933), p. 707: “the struggling Siegfried fell victim to the stab in the back.”

39. Werner Wunderlich, Der Schatz des Drachentödters, p. 86.

40. This attempt to acknowledge positive attributes in Hagen sometimes led to contradictions among authors of the period as to how, precisely, the figure ought to be interpreted. Wilhelm Helmich, for example, referred to the manner in which children loved the “fairy-tale hero” Siegfried, and hated his antagonist, Hagen (“Deutsch,” in Ernst Dobbers and Kurt Higelke, eds., Rassenpolitische Unterrichtspraxis: Der Rassengedanke in der Unterrichtsgestaltung der Volksschulfächer [Leipzig: Julius Klinkhardt, 1939], p. 34). Note, on the other hand, the positive portrayal of Hagen at the conclusion of Friedrich Schreyvogel's novel, Die Nibelungen (1940).

41. Wunderlich, Der Schatz des Drachentödters, p. 90.

42. The last division formed in the Waffen-SS (Combat SS) in March and April 1945, consisting in large part of recruits from the SS-Junkerschule (SS Officer Training School) at Bad Tölz, was the 38th SS-Panzer Grenadier Division, designated “Nibelungen.” The heavily fortified defense network built along the French-German border between 1933 and 1938 was known as both the Westwall and the Siegfriedlinie.

43. Note Wunderlich, Der Schatz des Drachentödters, p. 97.

44. However, a considerable number of translations of the Nibelungenlied into New High German have appeared from the late fifties through to the seventies, including those of Helmut de Boor (1959), Felix Genzmer (1961), Horst Wolfram Geissler (1966), Helmut Brackert (1970), and Ulrich Pretzel (1973).

45. “Neu erzählen—neu gewinnen,” Arbeitsgespräch mit Franz Fühmann, in Neue deutsche Literatur 18, no. 2 (1970):68.

46. Werner Wunderlich, Der Schatz des Drachentödters, p. 118. Schaumburg's earlier remarks on the subject should be noted: “Etzels Ende,” Der Spiegel 29, no. 40 (1975):222-25. The suggestion that Soest may have actually been the “location” of the Nibelungs' demise is not new. See ten Doornkaat Koolmann, Soest, die Stätte des Nibelungenunterganges? (Soest: Rocholsche Buchdruckerei W. Jahn, 1935).

Abbreviations

ANF	Arkiv för nordisk filologi
CG	Colloquia Germanica
DU	Der Deutschunterricht
DVjs	Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte
GRM	Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift
MLN	Modern Language Notes
MLR	Modern Language Review
PBB	Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur (Halle and Tübingen)
WW	Wirkendes Wort
ZfdA	Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum
ZfdPh	Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie
ZfvLg	Zeitschrift für vergleichende Literaturgeschichte