page_title: Middle High German literature
section_title: Lyric Poetry
hierarchical_section_title: Middle High German literature / Genres / Lyric Poetry
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Codex Manesse, UB Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 848, fol. 124r, Herr Walther von der Vogelweide Italiano: Walther von der Vogelweide nell'iconografia per lui tradizionale: assiso su uno scoglio, in posa da poeta meditabondo e malinconico (vedi: Andrea Palermo, Walther von der Vogelweide, in Enciclopedia Federiciana, vol. 2, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani). Immagine proveniente dal Codice Manesse (circa 1305-1315)
context_page_description: Middle High German literature refers to literature written in German between the middle of the 11th century and the middle of the 14th. In the second half of the 12th century, there was a sudden intensification of activity, leading to a 60-year "golden age" of medieval German literature referred to as the mittelhochdeutsche Blütezeit. This was the period of the blossoming of MHG lyric poetry, particularly Minnesang. The same sixty years saw the composition of the most important courtly romances. These are written in rhyming couplets, and again draw on French models such as Chrétien de Troyes, many of them relating Arthurian material. The third literary movement of these years was a new revamping of the heroic tradition, in which the ancient Germanic oral tradition can still be discerned, but tamed and Christianized and adapted for the court. These high medieval heroic epics are written in rhymed strophes, not the alliterative verse of Germanic prehistory.
context_section_description: The most impressive example of Early Middle High German lyric poetry is the Annolied or Song of Anno. Towards the beginning of the twelfth century A.D., the poetess Ava became the first woman to write poetry in German.
  During the Middle High German period, Minnesänge, songs about courtly love, were very popular. The most notable of all the Minnesänger was Walther von der Vogelweide, whose most famous Minnesang is the poem "Unter der Linden", but there were also many others. Some of the melodies for these Minnesänge have survived to the present day, but most have been lost. The only one of Walther's songs for which the melody has survived is the Palästinalied, which is not a Minnesang. Other notable works of Middle High German lyric poetry include the incomplete Christherre-Chronik, a thirteenth-century world chronicle from Thüringen, the lyric poem Der Busant, and the works of Heinrich Frauenlob. Parodies of courtly poetry also exist, among them Der Weinschwelg.
caption: Portrait of Walther von der Vogelweide, the most celebrated of all medieval German lyric poets, from the Codex Manesse
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