Heinrich von Morungen

(ca. 1180–ca. 1220)

   Historical documents from 1217 and 1218 identify the Middle High German poet Heinrich von Morungen, who was in the service of Margrave Dietrich von Meissen. The famous Manesse manuscript (C; early 14th century) contains a fictional portrait of Heinrich. He composed fairly traditional courtly love poems, resorting to a wide range of themes and topoi (commonly used poetic images). Heinrich reflects some influence from Old French courtly love poetry (TROUVÈRE and TROUBADOR poetry), but his work is firmly anchored in traditional German Minnesang. In his 35 songs he utilizes nature introductions, verbal exchanges between man and woman, and he often laments about the pain resulting from unrequited love. In song no. 32, he compares himself to a child who looks into a mirror and then destroys the image when he tries to grab the picture in the mirror, breaking it in the process, representative of the futile sufferings of a lover.Heinrich tends to intensify the emotional dimension of his wooing and formulates rather aggressive complaints about his distant lady. In song no. 3, for instance, he announces that he hopes his son will acquire outstanding physical beauty and, thus, would produce heavy love pangs in his cold-hearted lady in retaliation for the father’s failure. In song no. 5, the poet presents COURTLY LOVE as a magical force that allows his lady to come to him through walls, and in song no. 22, she appears to him in the form of Lady Venus. Moreover, when his beloved lady talks to him, he loses all his wits (song no. 26). Heinrich’s general advice to his male audience is to woo honorable ladies, as this would implant hohen muot (“high spirits”; song no. 28, 2, 5) in the male lovers.Many of his love songs associate the experience of courtly love with the brilliance of the sun, the moon, the stars, and jewels. Heinrich demonstrates concrete influences from classical antiquity, as he utilizes motifs borrowed from Ovid, the topos of the swan song, the Narcissus motif, the fable of Procne and Philomela, and the nymph Echo.

   Bibliography

   ■ Des Minnesangs Frühling. Edited by Hugo Moser and Helmut Tervooren. 38th ed. Stuttgart, Germany: Hirzel, 1988.

   ■ Sayce, Olive. The Medieval German Lyric 1150–1300. The Development of Its Themes and Forms in Their European Context. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982.

   Albrecht Classen