Frauenlob's Song of Songs: A Medieval German Poet And His Masterpiece [Paperback]

Barbara Newman (Author), Karl Stackmann (Author), Barbara (DRT) Thornton (Author), Benjamin (DRT) Bagby (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 30, 2007

'Frauenlob' was the stage name of Heinrich von Meissen (c. 1260-1318), a medieval German poet-minstrel. A famous and controversial figure in his day, Frauenlob (meaning "praise of ladies") exercised a strong influence on German literature into the eighteenth century. This book introduces the poet to English-speaking readers with a fresh poetic translation of his masterpiece, the Marienleich--a virtuosic poem of over 500 lines in praise of the Virgin Mary.

Barbara Newman, known for her pathbreaking translation of Hildegard of Bingen's Symphonia, brilliantly captures the fervent eroticism of Frauenlob's language. More than the mother of Jesus, the Lady of Frauenlob's text is a celestial goddess, the eternal partner of the Trinity. Like Christ himself she is explicitly said to have two natures, human and divine. Frauenlob lets the Lady speak for herself in an unusual first-person text of self-revelation, crafted from the Song of Songs, the Biblical wisdom books, the Apocalypse, and a wide array of secular materials ranging from courtly romance to Aristotelian philosophy.

Included with the book is a CD recording of the Marienleich by the noted ensemble Sequentia, directed by Benjamin Bagby and the late Barbara Thornton. The surviving music is the composer's own, reconstructed from fragmentary manuscript sources. Accompanying Newman's translation is a facing-page edition of the German text, detailed commentary, and a critical study presenting the most thorough discussion to date of Frauenlob's oeuvre, social context, philosophical ideas, sources, language, music, and influence.

Rescuing a long forgotten medieval masterpiece, Frauenlob's Song of Songs will fascinate students and scholars of the Middle Ages as well as scholars, performers, and connoisseurs of early music.

Editorial Reviews

Review

The need for a readable Frauenlob translation has existed for a long time. Now, consistent with her reputation as one of the preeminent scholars in the field of medieval studies, Barbara Newman has produced that translation, capturing the vibrant spirit of the Marienleich in clear, lively English. --Anne Winston-Allen, Southern Illinois University

Fraunloeb's Song of Songs is a gorgeous publication, clearly and forcefully written, stunningly laid out and carefully edited. . . . It comes with all the scholarly trappings, but also with a CD of a beautiful, hour-long recording of Heinrich's composition, essential to appreciating this song. --Bettina Bildhauer, Times Literary Supplement, August 14, 2007

This is a book intended for all those mature enough in their appreciation of beauty to stomach the strong wine of two of the Virgin Mary's most sophisticated devotees. Heinrich von Meißen's Marienleich offers the reader a scintillating yet mysterious vision of Mary as the goddess of the heavenly Jerusalem; Newman's translucent commentary on, introduction to and translation of the poem unlocks its mysteries as only a consummate lover of theology, history and poetry can. The combination is a treat to be savored, rolled over on the tongue until its complexity gives forth its astonishing sweetness. --Rachel Fulton, author of From Judgment to Passion: Devotion to Christ and the Virgin Mary, 800-1200

About the Author

Barbara Newman is Professor of English, Religion, and Classics at Northwestern University. She is the author, most recently, of God and the Goddesses: Vision, Poetry, and Belief in the Middle Ages (2002). She also published a critical edition and translation of Hildegard of Bingen's Symphonia (1988; rev. ed. 1998).

Product Details

• Paperback: 241 pages
• Publisher: Pennsylvania State Univ Pr (January 30, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0271029250
• ISBN-13: 978-0271029252
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 8.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,320,817 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars exciting and erudite translation, gorgeous CD, brilliant commentary, May 12, 2009

By 

Steve Rozenski (Cambridge, MA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Frauenlob's Song of Songs: A Medieval German Poet And His Masterpiece (Paperback)

Barbara Newman has given us a rich treasure of a book: the Middle High German text and her verse translation of this mysterious, beautiful poem take up only the first forty-one pages. The remaining 200 are, in effect, a thoroughly-researched and illuminating monograph offering both a detailed contextualization and a fine-tuned close-reading of Frauenlob's magnum opus, the Marienleich (Lay of Our Lady) or Canticum Canticorum (Song of Songs). In addition, a CD is attached to the back cover, offering the reader a chance to hear a performance of the Lay by the eminent early-music ensemble Sequentia. This tremendous volume has much to offer a rich variety of readers and listeners, and to my mind undoubtedly deserves a correspondingly wide audience.

The poem itself is an astonishingly intricate account of a celestial woman, first introduced in the third-person (in the first third of the poem) and later speaking directly to us in the first-person. Although the poem is often called the Marienleich, Newman stresses that this is description of the celestial woman is too narrow by far: "although she is the earthly mother of Christ, she is also the eternal partner of the Trinity and the life-giving principle of Nature" (xi). The facing-page translation is a bravura accomplishment, demonstrating a keen appreciation of the original and a poetic voice that allows Frauenlob's brilliance and audacity to be appreciated by a contemporary Anglophone readership (she wisely counsels those "who desire a keener sense of Frauenlob's metrical virtuosity, his exotic coinages, his wild chiming music, and his fervent baroque piety" [xvii] to learn Middle High German or, failing that, read the poetry of nineteenth-century Jesuit Gerard Manley Hopkins).

Frauenlob's ecstatic, gloriously hyperbolic praise of the "sublime Feminine" finds a warm reception in Newman's text. In dealing with the misogynistic tradition and the consequent lack of women among Frauenlob's patrons and poet-peers, she is generous enough to state simply "this is not Frauenlob's fault; he did not create the culture in which he sang" (62). This strikes me as a refreshingly direct way to dismiss those who would judge the past by contemporary standards, only to find the past inevitably wanting. Newman is also entirely frank about the tremendous amount of sexual and erotic imaginative energy generated by the reception of the Song of Songs (here applied to Mary's conception of Christ -- the Celestial Lady boldly declares "I slept with three" in elucidating the Trinitarian nature of the event) an approach that moves beyond the stale century-old Freudian schema of sublimation without gingerly ignoring the central role that allegories of intercourse played in shaping many aspects of devotional discourse.

This accomplished, learned volume also aims to serve as something of an ambassador: Newman seems -- like me -- to be baffled, even somewhat frustrated, by the relative lack of Anglophone interest in medieval German texts. For a host of reasons, German texts have received far less attention in British and American medieval studies than their French or Italian counterparts. With this book, she makes an impassioned case for the inclusion of Frauenlob's masterpiece in a broader European canon of medieval poetry, Marian devotion, and mysticism. Newman's exuberance and enthusiasm, both in writing and teaching, have inspired many; I earnestly hope this volume will inspire still more.