Frauenlob's "Marienleich": A Goddess-Hymn from Medieval Germany
FAIN: FA-50152-04
Barbara Newman
Northwestern University (Evanston, IL 60208-0001)
My project is a poetic translation, with introduction and commentary, of the Marienleich by the German poet-composer Frauenlob, also known as Heinrich von Meissen (d. 1318). It is to be published, by prior agreement, with a musical recording of the hour-long piece by the ensemble Sequentia. The Marienleich, regarded as the masterpiece of this late minnesinger, is a formally and philosophically daring poem composed in twenty strophic pairs, employing a complex musical/poetic form modeled on the Latin sequence. It celebrates the Virgin Mary in boldly erotic and esoteric fashion: she is not only the mother of God, the bride of the Song of Songs, and the Woman clothed with the sun, but also a cosmic creator-goddess who subsumes features of the goddess Natura celebrated by twelfth-century Latin poets. Since Frauenlob is virtually unknown in the English-speaking world, I mean to introduce him into the current medieval canon by producing an accessibly priced paperback suitable for classroom use.
Media Coverage
13 book reviews and 4 blog postings (Media Coverage)
Author(s): various
Publication: Times Literary Supplement, Spiritus, Speculum, Zeitschrift fur deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur, etc.
Date: 12/21/2011