CONRAD OF WURZBURG (d. 1287)

This article appears in Volume V06, Page 968 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: COM-COR

CONRAD OF WURZBURG (d. 1287) , the

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

German poet of the second half of the 13th century. As little is known of his life as that of any other epic poet of the age. By

birth

BIRTH (a word common in various forms to Teutonic languages from the root of the verb " to bear ")

probably a native of Wurzburg, he seems to have spent part of his life in Strassburg and his later years in Basel, where he diedon the 31st of August 1287. Like his *master, Gottfried of Strassburg,

Conrad

did not belong to the

nobility

NOBILITY

, from which most of the poets of the time sprang. His varied and voluminous literary.

work

WORK

is comparatively free from the degeneration which set in so rapidly in Middle High German poetry during the 13th century. His style, although occasionally diffuse, is dignified in tone; his metre is clearly influenced by Gottfried's tendency to relieve the monotony of the epic-metre with ingenious variations, but it is always correct; his narrativesif we except Die halbe Birn; of which the authorship is doubtfulare free from coarseness, to which the popular poets at this time were prone, and, although

mysticism

MYSTICISM (from Or. µuety, to shut the eyes; µuorrts, one initiated into the mysteries)

and

allegory

ALLEGORY (iXXos, other, and ayopeuav, to speak)

bulk largely in his works, they were not allowed, as in so many of his contemporaries, to usurp the place of poetry.

Conrad

has written a number of legends (Alexius, Silvester, Pantaleon) illustrating Christian virtues and dogmas; Der Welt Lolvn, a didactic

allegory

ALLEGORY (iXXos, other, and ayopeuav, to speak)

on the

familiar

FAMILIAR (through the Fr. familier, from Lat. familiaris, of or belonging to the familia, family)

theme of " Fran Welt," the woman beautiful in front, unsightly and loathsome behind. Die goldene Schmiede is a panegyric of the Virgin; the Klage der Kunst, an allegorical defence of poetry. His most ambitious works are two enormously

long

LONG, GEORGE (1800-1879)
LONG, JOHN DAVIS (1838– )

epics, Der trojanische Krieg (of more than 40,000 verses and unfinished at that!) and Partenopier and Meliur, both of which are based on French originals. Conrad's powers are to be seen to best advantage in his shorter verse romances, such as Engelhart and Engeltrut, Kaiser Otto and Das Herzemaere; the last mentioned, the theme of which has been made

familiar

FAMILIAR (through the Fr. familier, from Lat. familiaris, of or belonging to the familia, family)

to modern readers by Uhland in his Kastellan von Coucy, is one of the best poems of its kind in Middle High German literature.
There is no uniform edition of Conrad's works. Der trojanische Krieg was edited by A. von Keller for the

Stuttgart

STUTTGART

Literarische Verein (1858); Partenopier and Meliur, by K. Bartsch (1871);
Die goldene Schmiede and Silvester, by W. Grimm (1840 and 1841); Alexius, by H. F. Massmann (1843) and R. Henczynski (1898); Der Welt Lohn, by F. Roth (1843) ; Engelharl and Engeltrut, by M. Haupt (1844, 2nd ed., 1890); Klage der Kunst, by E. Joseph (1885). The shorter poems, Otto and Herzemaere, will be found most conveniently in Erzahlungen and Schwanke des Mittelalters, edited by H. Lambel (2nd ed., 1883). Modern German translations of Conrad's most popular poems have been published by K. Pannier and H. Kruger in Reclam's Universalbibliothek (1879-1891). On Conrad see F. Pfeiffer in Germania, iii. (1867), and W. Golther in the A.11gemeine deutsche Biographie, vol. 44 (1898), s.v. "Wurzburg, Konrad von."

End of Article: CONRAD OF WURZBURG (d. 1287)

If you wish, you can link directly to this article.

<a href="http://jcsm.org/StudyCenter/Encyclopedia/COM_COR/CONRAD_OF_WURZBURG_d_1287_.html">
CONRAD OF WURZBURG (d. 1287)
</a>

(Previous)
CONRAD IV

(Next)
CONRAD, JOSEPH (1856 )

JCSM was founded in 1997 and exists to help the community and bring people into a life-changing and productive relationship with Jesus Christ. JCSM offers over 200,000 free web pages, including its weekly inspirational emails that were sent continuously for over a decade.

Jesus Christ Saves Ministries
P.O. Box 9297
San Diego, CA 92169
1-888-887-0417 or Email