argument being that the system of modern pronunciation is based
on the spelling, not on the sounds produced in speaking. The
latter, he holds, is only responsible for the pronunciation of -chs- as
-ks- in wachsen, Ochse, &c., or for that of sp- and st- in spielen, stehen,
&c. Other scholars, again, such as K. Luick and O. Brenner, warn
against any such attempts to create a living language on an artificial
basis;[1]
the Bühnendeutsch or “stage-German” they regard as
little more than an abstract ideal. Thus the decision must be left
to time.
Authorities.—General Literature: J. Grimm, Geschichte der deutschen Sprache (Leipzig, 1848; 4th ed., 1880); W. Scherer, Zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache (Berlin, 1868; 2nd ed., 1878); E. Förstemann, Geschichte des deutschen Sprachstammes (Nordhausen, 1874–1875); O. Behaghel, Die deutsche Sprache (Leipzig, 1886; 2nd ed., 1902); the same, “Geschichte der deutschen Sprache,” in Paul’s Grundriss der germanischen Philologie (2nd ed.), i. pp. 650 ff.; O. Weise, Unsere deutsche Sprache, ihr Werden und ihr Wesen (Leipzig, 1898); K. von Raumer, Geschichte der germanischen Philologie (Munich, 1870); J. Grimm, Deutsche Grammatik (4 vols., vols. i.-iii. in new edition, 1870–1890); Dieter, Laut- und Formenlehre der altgermanischen Dialekte (2 vols., Leipzig, 1898–1900); F. Kauffmann, Deutsche Grammatik (2nd ed., 1895); W. Wilmanns, Deutsche Grammatik, so far, vols. i., ii. and iii., 1 (Strassburg, 1893–1906, vol. i., 2nd ed., 1897); O. Brenner, Grundzüge der geschichtlichen Grammatik der deutschen Sprache (Munich, 1896); H. Lichtenberger, Histoire de la langue allemande (Paris, 1895).
Old and Middle High German Period: W. Braune, Althochdeutsche Grammatik (2nd ed., Halle, 1891); the same, Abriss der althochdeutschen Grammatik (3rd ed., 1900); F. Holthausen, Altsächsisches Elementarbuch (Heidelberg, 1899); W. Schlüter, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altsächsichen Sprache, i. (Göttingen, 1892); O. Schade, Altdeutsches Wörterbuch (2nd ed., Halle, 1872–1882); G. E. Graff, Althochdeutscher Sprachschatz (6 vols., Berlin, 1834–1842) (Index by Massmann, 1846); E. Steinmeyer and E. Sievers, Althochdeutsche Glossen (4 vols., Berlin, 1879–1898); J. A. Schmeller, Glossarium Saxonicum (Munich, 1840); K. Weinhold, Mittelhochdeutsche Grammatik (3rd ed., Paderborn, 1892); H. Paul, Mittelhochdeutsche Grammatik (5th ed., Halle, 1900); V. Michels, Mittelhochdeutsches Elementarbuch (Heidelberg, 1900); O. Brenner, Mittelhochdeutsche Grammatik (3rd ed., Munich, 1894); K. Zwierzina, “Mittelhochdeutsche Studien,” in Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum, vols. xliv. and xlv.; A. Lübben, Mittelniederdeutsche Grammatik (Leipzig, 1882); W. Müller and F. Zarncke, Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch (4 vols., Leipzig, 1854–1866); M. Lexer, Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch (3 vols., 1872–1878); the same, Mittelhochdeutsches Taschenwörterbuch (8th ed., 1906); K. Schiller and A. Lübben, Mittelniederdeutsches Wörterbuch (6 vols., Bremen, 1875–1881); A. Lübben, Mittelniederdeutsches Handwörterbuch (Norden, 1888); F. Seiler, Die Entwickelung der deutsch. Kultur im Spiegel des deutschen Lehnworts (Halle, i., 1895, 2nd ed., 1905, ii., 1900).
Modern High German Period: E. Wülcker, “Die Entstehung der kursächsischen Kanzleisprache” (in the Zeitschrift des Vereins für kursächsische Geschichte, ix. p. 349); the same, “Luthers Stellung zur kursächsischen Kanzleisprache” (in Germania, xxviii. pp. 191 ff.); P. Pietsch, Martin Luther und die hochdeutsche Schriftsprache (Breslau, 1883); K. Burdach, Die Einigung der neuhochdeutschen Schriftsprache, (1883); E. Opitz, Die Sprache Luthers (Halle, 1869); J. Luther, Die Sprache Luthers in der Septemberbibel (Halle, 1887); F. Kluge, Von Luther bis Lessing (Strassburg, 1888) (cf. E. Schröder’s review in the Göttinger gelehrte Anzeiger, 1888, 249); H. Rückert, Geschichte der neuhochdeutschen Schriftsprache bis zur Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts (1875): J. Kehrein, Grammatik der deutschen Sprache des 15. bis 17. Jahrhunderts (Leipzig, 2nd ed., 1863); K. von Bahder, Grundlagen des neuhochdeutschen Lautsystems (Strassburg, 1890); R. Meyer, Einführung in das ältere Neuhochdeutsche (Leipzig, 1894); W. Scheel, Beiträge zur Geschichte der neuhochdeutschen Gemeinsprache in Köln (Marburg, 1892); R. Brandstetter, Die Rezeption der neuhochdeutschen Schriftsprache in Stadt und Landschaft Luzern (1892); K. Burdach, “Zur Geschichte der neuhochdeutschen Schriftsprache” (Forschungen zur deutschen Philologie, 1894); the same, “Die Sprache des jungen Goethe” (Verhandlungen der Dessauer Philologenversammlung, 1884, p. 164 ff.); F. Kasch, Die Sprache des jungen Schiller (Dissertation, 1900); F. Kluge, “Über die Entstehung unserer Schriftsprache” (Beihefte zur Zeitschrift des allgemeinen Sprachvereins, Heft 6, 1894); A. Waag, Bedeutungsentwickelung unseres Wortschatzes (Lahr, 1901).
Mention must also be made of the work of the German commission of the Royal Prussian Academy, which in 1904 drew up plans for making an inventory of all German literary MSS. dating from before the year 1600 and for the publication of Middle High German and early Modern High German texts. This undertaking, which has made considerable progress, provides rich material for the study of the somewhat neglected period between the 14th and 16th centuries; at the same time it provides a basis on which a monumental history of Modern High German may be built up, as well as for a Thesaurus linguae germanicae. (R. Pr.)
GERMAN LITERATURE. Compared with other literatures, that of the German-speaking peoples presents a strangely broken and interrupted course; it falls into more or less isolated groups, separated from each other by periods which in intellectual darkness and ineptitude are virtually without a parallel in other European lands. The explanation of this irregularity of development is to be sought less in the chequered political history of the German people—although this was often reason enough—than in the strongly marked, one might almost say, provocative character of the national mind as expressed in literature. The Germans were not able, like their partially latinized English cousins—or even their Scandinavian neighbours—to adapt themselves to the various waves of literary influence which emanated from Italy and France and spread with irresistible power over all Europe; their literary history has been rather a struggle for independent expression, a constant warring against outside forces, even when the latter—like the influence of English literature in the 18th century and of Scandinavian at the close of the 19th—were hailed as friendly and not hostile. It is a peculiarity of German literature that in those ages when, owing to its own poverty and impotence, it was reduced to borrowing its ideas and its poetic forms from other lands, it sank to the most servile imitation; while the first sign of returning health has invariably been the repudiation of foreign influence and the assertion of the right of genius to untrammelled expression. Thus Germany’s periods of literary efflorescence rarely coincide with those of other nations, and great European movements, like the Renaissance, passed over her without producing a single great poet.
This chequered course, however, renders the grouping of German literature and the task of the historian the easier. The first and simplest classification is that afforded by the various stages of linguistic development. In accordance with the three divisions in the history of the High German language, there is an Old High German, a Middle High German and a New High German or Modern High German literary epoch. It is obvious, however, that the last of these divisions covers too enormous a period of literary history to be regarded as analogous to the first two. The present survey is consequently divided into six main sections:
I. The Old High German Period, including the literature of the Old Saxon dialect, from the earliest times to the middle of the 11th century.
II. The Middle High German Period, from the middle of the 11th to the middle of the 14th century.
III. The Transition Period, from the middle of the 14th century to the Reformation in the 16th century.
IV. The Period of Renaissance and Pseudo-classicism, from the end of the 16th century to the middle of the 18th.
V. The Classical Period of Modern German literature, from the middle of the 18th century to Goethe’s death in 1832.
VI. The Period from Goethe’s death to the present day.
I. The Old High German Period (c. 750–1050)
Of all the Germanic races, the tribes with which we have more particularly to deal here were the latest to attain intellectual maturity. The Goths had, centuries earlier, under their famous bishop Ulfilas or Wulfila, possessed the Bible in their vernacular, the northern races could point to their Edda, the Germanic tribes in England to a rich and virile Old English poetry, before a written German literature of any consequence existed at all. At the same time, these continental tribes, in the epoch that lay between the Migrations of the 5th century and the age of Charles the Great, were not without poetic literature of a kind, but it was not committed to writing, or, at least, no record of such a poetry has come down to us. Its existence is vouched for by indirect historical evidence, and by the fact that the sagas, out of which the German national epic was welded at a later date, originated in the great upheaval of the 5th century. When the vernacular literature began to emerge from an unwritten state in the 8th century, it proved to be merely a weak reflection of the ecclesiastical writings of the monasteries; and this, with
- ↑ Cf. K. Luick, Deutsche Lautlehre mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Sprechweise Wiens und der österreichischen Alpenländer (1904); O. Brenner, “Zur Aussprache des Hochdeutschen,” l.c., pp. 218-228.
