J. J. Bodmer's contribution to the knowledge and appreciation of Middle High German literature

Abstract

J.J.Bodmers approach to Middle High German literature was inevitably conditioned by the nature of the knowledge and appreciation of it shown by his predecessors. This is therefore discussed briefly in the introduction. A description of Bodmer's own early work follows, in which the influence of his personal character and surroundings, and of his development of new conceptions of the nature of poetry and societies and the relationship between them is analysed. Emphasis is laid here on Bodmer's acceptance of the idea of the intrinsic merit of primitive societies, and also of a more strictly historical view of social and literary development. The essay of 1743, in which Boomer expressed the revolutionary opinion that Middle High German poetry has much in common with that of Homeric Greece, marks the culmination of his early work. A survey of Bodmer's subsequent enquiries for Middle High German manuscripts illustrates the enduring quality of his enthusiasm for the subject, for the search for material went on throughout his life, even as his unpublished papers show, when he was no longer immediately interested in the literary genres concerned, and when his editions of texts and articles on the subject had apparently failed to arouse any general interest. A general discussion of the relationship of Bodmer's Middle High German studies to his own literary work and to that of his contemporaries forms a necessary part of the survey of his discoveries. This matter is pursued further in a final analysis of Bodmer's approach to the material made available by his researches Here it is sought to discover how far his knowledge and appreciation of Middle High German literature was determined by the ideas of his own time and how far, within that framework, he was able to produce reliable information about the period and about individual works.