Historical documents from 1217 and 1218 identify
the Middle High German poet Heinrich von
Morungen, who was in the service of Margrave Dietrich von Meissen. The famous Manesse manuscript (C; early 14th century) contains a fictional
portrait of Heinrich. He composed fairly traditional courtly love poems, resorting to a wide range
of themes and topoi (commonly used poetic images). Heinrich reflects some influence from Old
French courtly love poetry (TROUVÈRE and TROUBADOR poetry), but his work is firmly anchored in traditional German Minnesang. In his 35 songs he
utilizes nature introductions, verbal exchanges between man and woman, and he often laments
about the pain resulting from unrequited love. In
song no. 32, he compares himself to a child who
looks into a mirror and then destroys the image
when he tries to grab the picture in the mirror,
breaking it in the process, representative of the futile sufferings of a lover. Heinrich tends to intensify
the emotional dimension of his wooing and formulates rather aggressive complaints about his distant lady. In song no. 3, for instance, he announces
that he hopes his son will acquire outstanding
physical beauty and, thus, would produce heavy
love pangs in his cold-hearted lady in retaliation for
the father’s failure. In song no. 5, the poet presents
COURTLY LOVE as a magical force that allows his lady
to come to him through walls, and in song no. 22,
she appears to him in the form of Lady Venus.
Moreover, when his beloved lady talks to him, he
loses all his wits (song no. 26). Heinrich’s general
advice to his male audience is to woo honorable
ladies, as this would implant hohen muot (“high
spirits”; song no. 28, 2, 5) in the male lovers. Many
of his love songs associate the experience of courtly
love with the brilliance of the sun, the moon, the
stars, and jewels. Heinrich demonstrates concrete
influences from classical antiquity, as he utilizes
motifs borrowed from Ovid, the topos of the swan
song, the Narcissus motif, the fable of Procne and
Philomela, and the nymph Echo.
Bibliography
Des Minnesangs Frühling. Edited by Hugo Moser and
Helmut Tervooren. 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.
Albrecht Classen