The Bright Rose: Early German Verse, 800-1250

These translations of some of the earliest known German poetry give us a rich glimpse of a life that, while alien in so many ways, was not so different after all. The Minnesang poets, for example, engage in a highly professional ritual, but compose in cognitive metaphors that still ring true: love is a trap; love is a game; love is war. A beautiful, lyrical journey through the passions and fears of pre-Medieval German life, told by some of its finest poetic voices.
The first part, translated from Old High German, includes the most important poems written anonymously in monastery scriptoria from the ninth to the eleventh centuries, though in many cases an older, Indo-European past is witnessed: the Song of Hildebrand; the Muspilli; the Song of Ludwig; the Wessobrunn Prayer; various spells, blessings and verses. These poems offer an overview of a society in transition from a Germanic worldview to the Christian. The second part, from Middle High German, offers mainly texts from the medieval Minnesang [love song] by minstrels active in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries at German courts.