The Beginnings of German Literature: Comparative and Interdisciplinary Approaches to Old High German: 1 (Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture) - Hardcover

Offers rewarding reading for any student of Old High German who already knows something about the subject and who wants more information and a broader background.MEDIEVAL REVIEW

These essays, without exception, contain a wealth of useful information and a rare sense of context that showcase the author's investigative skill and range of knowledge. GERMAN STUDIES REVIEW

Quite an enjoyable book from which students and scholars of Germanic literatures can learn much. JOURNAL OF ENGLISH AND GERMANIC PHILOLOGY

...a strong contibution to the study and understanding of German literature and language.... GERMANIC NOTES AND REVIEWS

A collection of specialized essays that definitely deserve our attention. GERMANISTIK

Edwards's book makes for a fascinating, well-researched, and well-written excursion into the background of some works most familiar to those ... who teach Old High German. It will be of interest for everyone who has anything to do with medieval manuscripts, comparative mythology, and earliest attested Germanic literature. MONATSHEFTE

For the German-speaking peoples under the Carolingians (c. 750-950 AD), the dominant literary tongue was Latin, but during the period between the eighth and tenth centuries the dialects of Old High German in the south and Old Saxon in the north entered the realm of written languages. Cyril Edwards explores a number of instances in his book, beginning with a look at the recording and survival of the earliest continuous German texts, before turning to the specific examples. These are: the Wessobrunn Prayer, the earliest religious poem in German; the Merseburg Charms, pagan survivals in a Christian manuscript, summoning gods familiar from the Old Norse pantheon; the earliest traces of the love lyric; and the Ossian of the period, an ingenious forgery that was a cause célèbre in the nineteenth century, the Old High German Lullaby.