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THE STANDARD DICTIONARY OF FACTS 



GERMAN LITERATURE 



At the beginning of the First Century the Ger- 

 mans had ancient poems relating to their gods | 

 and the forefathers of their race. It is also 

 believed that the stories of "Reynard, the Fox," 

 and "Isengrin, the Wolf," may be traced back 

 to those remote times, brought by the Teutons 

 from Asia. 



When these tribes began to accept Christianity 

 the Church considered the native German tra- 

 ditions as heathenish monstrosities, and tried 

 to suppress them. Charles the Great was the 

 first to check this movement by putting together 

 the beginnings of a German grammar and by 

 issuing orders for the collection and preservation 

 of old German poetry. The only remnants of this 

 poetry left to us are the Anglo-Saxon "Beowulf," 

 with a fragment of the old low German song of 

 "Hildegarde," and the Icelandic "Edda." 



During the reign of Charles the Great and 

 his son, Louis the Pious, learning was zealously 

 cultivated by the monks of Germany, and 



schools were established among them, but the 

 chief subject of their study was scholastic philos- 

 ophy. One of the monks, who died in the year 

 1022, wrote original philosophical books and 

 translated works from Italy. As the clergy 

 became the chief support of the government 

 and connected with the daily life of the people 

 a different class of writings arose. Scenes of 

 actual life were pictured, and the fiction, al- 

 though it came from cells of monks and the 

 cloister school-rooms, was thoroughly realistic. 

 An example is a work known as the first novel 

 of Modern European literature, the " Ruodlieb," 

 written by an unknown monk about the year 

 lO.'iO. Under the form of a story of love and 

 adventure is given a vivid picture of German 

 life of that day. 



There are well-written Latin histories belong- 

 ing to the Eleventh Century, but the best thought 

 of that age was expressed in architecture rather 

 than in writing. 



