Discover the richness of later medieval German literature through these 20 tales, now translated into English. Ranging from comic stories to courtly narratives, they offer a vivid glimpse into the kinds of tales that entertained audiences in the Middle Ages.
Excerpt:
The aim of this anthology is to give the non-specialist or general reader a taste of this range of shorter narrative literature in the German tradition, including but by no means restricted to fabliaux-like tales. It should be noted that for all their differences almost all the twenty texts featured here share certain fundamentals, not least their verse-couplet form (which is lost in translation). As far as literary structure is concerned, each narrative is typically followed by an epilogue in which the author-narrator signs off, addressing recipients one last time; the tendency to begin with some sort of introduction, preface or prologue is slightly less pronounced.
Who is this book for?
Each of these 20 tales is fairly short, ranging from less than a page to about seven. Divided into four categories—religious, comic, moral, and courtly—along with two unusual animal tales, they showcase a wide range of literary genres. They come from a collection of 174 German tales from the 13th and 14th centuries, which were edited by the Deutsche Versnovellistik project.
This collection would make a useful text for students of medieval literature. Fans of fabliaux and medieval humour will also find plenty to enjoy, as many of these stories fall into that tradition.
“I enjoyed reading the short tales, both in terms of their broad range of themes and for their readability in English. The commentary and annotations for each tale are also helpful to the general audience, and I found them carefully chosen and succinctly stated. I would have preferred to have these placed at the end of each tale and not in a separate commentary section at the end of the book, but this may have been a decision made by the publisher and not Coxon himself. This anthology gives general readers, students, and academics access to a literary corpus that thus far was limited to those with knowledge of Middle High or modern German by offering a representative sample of short narratives to a much wider audience.” ~ review by Evelyn Meyer in Speculum
Medieval German Tales: An Anthology
By Sebastian Coxon
Schwabe Verlag
ISBN: 978-3-7574-0112-2
Discover the richness of later medieval German literature through these 20 tales, now translated into English. Ranging from comic stories to courtly narratives, they offer a vivid glimpse into the kinds of tales that entertained audiences in the Middle Ages.
Excerpt:
The aim of this anthology is to give the non-specialist or general reader a taste of this range of shorter narrative literature in the German tradition, including but by no means restricted to fabliaux-like tales. It should be noted that for all their differences almost all the twenty texts featured here share certain fundamentals, not least their verse-couplet form (which is lost in translation). As far as literary structure is concerned, each narrative is typically followed by an epilogue in which the author-narrator signs off, addressing recipients one last time; the tendency to begin with some sort of introduction, preface or prologue is slightly less pronounced.
Who is this book for?
Each of these 20 tales is fairly short, ranging from less than a page to about seven. Divided into four categories—religious, comic, moral, and courtly—along with two unusual animal tales, they showcase a wide range of literary genres. They come from a collection of 174 German tales from the 13th and 14th centuries, which were edited by the Deutsche Versnovellistik project.
This collection would make a useful text for students of medieval literature. Fans of fabliaux and medieval humour will also find plenty to enjoy, as many of these stories fall into that tradition.
“I enjoyed reading the short tales, both in terms of their broad range of themes and for their readability in English. The commentary and annotations for each tale are also helpful to the general audience, and I found them carefully chosen and succinctly stated. I would have preferred to have these placed at the end of each tale and not in a separate commentary section at the end of the book, but this may have been a decision made by the publisher and not Coxon himself. This anthology gives general readers, students, and academics access to a literary corpus that thus far was limited to those with knowledge of Middle High or modern German by offering a representative sample of short narratives to a much wider audience.” ~ review by Evelyn Meyer in Speculum
The Translator
Sebastian Coxon is Professor of Medieval German Literature at University College London, where he researches humour in the Middle Ages. We previously review his book Facetiae, Jokes and Funny Stories from the Sixteenth Century.
You can learn more about this book from the publisher’s website. You can read the introduction to this book here.
You can buy this book on Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk
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