A critical study of the translations of Gottfried's Tristan by Hermann Kurz, Karl Simrock and Wilhelm Hertz

Abstract

There have been many surveys of the general reception of the Tristan story in the nineteenth century and the countless versions which it inspired including Richard Wagner's music-drama. The present study examines the nineteenth-century literal translations which made the Middle High German form of the story available again. Gottfried von Strassburg's text underwent a stylistic transformation during each transition into modern German. Modern and medieval modes of poetic expression were different enough to force the translators to take up a definite attitude to the problem; compromise was difficult. The early translators, Hermann Kurz and Karl Simrock, were faithful to the letter of the original, but perhaps too much spellbound by its external form to convey to the modern reader its essential grace. In the later versions, a second one by Hermann Kurz and one by Wilhelm Hertz, both the original diction and the original structure were altered to meet modern aesthetic requirements. In all cases the narrative survived, but not the tone of Gottfried's composition. A detailed examination of the language of each version shows the elements which brought about the change in tone. A study of the features rejected and the features retained reveals which qualities of the original were valued by the modern translators. As indicators of the modern opinion of Tristan and as the means by which Gottfried von Strassburg reached the public of the mid-nineteenth century, the versions form an important part of the history of the Tristan story in modern times. The versions examined include the unpublished, fragmentary second attempt by Hermann Kurz, from manuscripts in the Reutlingen Heimatmuseum.