A Handbook of German Literature

teratures of Europe. A brief enumeration of the subjects will lead most easily to the consideration of the poets. 1. The British or Arthurian Legend ; heroes, King Arthur and his knights. 2. The Spanish Legend of the Quest of the Holy Grail. 3. The Classical Legends of the Trojan War, and the deeds of Alexander the Great. 4. French legendary treatment of the history of Charlemagne. Unlike the poets of the Volksepos, nameless and hidden from posterity, the poets of the Hofisches Epos are known to us by name as well as by their works. The most important are the four following: Heinrich von Veldeke, a native of Mastricht, who may have been at Court when, in 1184, the Kaiser Friedrich Barbarossa knighted his two eldest sons, and celebrated the event by the most magnificent festivities. The patronage of poets and poetry was now general among the nobles, and in many of the courts of German princes. Hermann,Landgrave of Thuringia especially, a little later, made himself famous in this respect. Veldeke enjoyed his full share of fame. The work which first made him celebrated among his contemporaries was / his translation of the " .jjjneid," in which he drew not from Virgil himself, but from a French translator, Benoit de Saint-More, in whose " Roman d'Enas" the spirit of antiquity had been replaced by the romance of the Middle Ages. Hartmann von Aue, a Suabian who took part in the Crusades of 1189 and 1197. In addition to his lyrical " Biichlein,...