f 

 DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURE BY THE MINNESINGERS. 45 



Bpirit every where breathing through it. A deep and all-per- 

 vading enjoyment of nature breathes through the manners 

 and social arranjjements of the Germanic races, and through 

 the very spirit of freedom by which they are characterized,* 

 Although moving and often born in courtly circles, the wan- 

 dering Minnesingers never relinquished the habit of commun- 

 ing with nature. It was thus that their productions were 

 often marked by a fresh, idyllic, and even elegiac tone of feel- 

 ing. In order to form a j ust appreciation of the result of such 

 a disposition of mind, I avail myself of the labors of my valued 

 friends Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, who have so profoundly 

 investigated the literature of our German middle ages. "Our 

 national poets during that age," writes the latter of the two 

 brother inquirers, " have never devoted themselves to a de- 

 scription of nature, having no object but that of conveying to 

 the imagination a glowing picture of the scene. A love of 

 nature was assuredly not wanting to the ancient German Min- 

 nesingers, although they have left us no other expression of 

 the feeling than what was evolved in lyric poems from their 

 connection with historical events, or from the sentiments ap- 

 pertaining to the subject of which they treated. If we begin 

 with the oldest and most remarkable monuments of the popu- 

 lar Epos, we shall find that neither the Niebehingen nor Gu- 

 dru7i\ contain any description of natural scenery, even where 

 the occasion seems specially to prompt its introduction. In 

 the otherwise circumstantial description of the hunt, during 

 which Siegfried was murdered, the flowering heath and the 

 cool spring under the linden are only casually touched upon. 

 In Gudrun, which evinces to a certain extent a more delicate 

 finish, the feeling for nature is somewhat more apparent. 

 When the king's daughter and her attendants, reduced to a 

 condition of slavery, are carrying the garments of their cruel 

 masters to the sea-shore, the time is indicated, when the win- 

 ter is just melting away, and the song of rival birds has al- 

 ready begun. Snow and rain are falling, and the hair of the 



* Fried. Schlegel, Ueher nordische Dichtkunst, ia bis Sdmmtliche 

 Werke, bd. x., s. 71 and 90. I may further cite, from the very early 

 times of Charlemagne, the poetic description of the Thiergarlen at Aix, 

 inclosing both woods and meadows, and which occurs in the hfe of the 

 greatemperor, by Angilbertus, abbotof St. Riques. {^ee'PerXz,Monum., 

 vol. i., p. 393-403.) 



t See the comparison of the two epics, the poem of the Niebelungen 

 (describing the vengeance of Chriemhild, the wife of Siegfried), and 

 that of Gudrun, the daughter of King Hetel, iu Gerviims, Geschichte 

 •ie.r Detitschen Litt., bd. i., s. 354-381. 



