"tougen minne" in the genesis?

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"Tougen Minne" in the Genesis? Author(s): Kenneth J. Northcott Source: Modern Language Notes, Vol. 74, No. 2 (Feb., 1959), pp. 151-153 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3040365 . Accessed: 28/06/2014 17:18 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . The Johns Hopkins University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Modern Language Notes. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 92.63.104.30 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 17:18:57 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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"Tougen Minne" in the Genesis?Author(s): Kenneth J. NorthcottSource: Modern Language Notes, Vol. 74, No. 2 (Feb., 1959), pp. 151-153Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3040365 .

Accessed: 28/06/2014 17:18

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

The Johns Hopkins University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access toModern Language Notes.

http://www.jstor.org

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"Tougen Minne" in the Genesis? tougen minne diu ist guot si kan geben h6hen mutot

These two lines of an anonymous Minnesang strophe (C. von Kraus, Des Minnesangs Friihling, 30. Aufl., 1950, p. 1) contain two formulas ,vhich have long been regarded as central to the whole picture of the conventions surrounding courtly love as we know i-t from Middle High German literature in the Minnesang corpus: tougen minne and hoher muot. The aim of the courtly poet is to attain to a state of ho'her muot and our poet's precept, a generally accepted one, is that one way, at least, to do this is through tougen minne. It is with the idea of secrecy as revealed in the Genesis some hundred years before the first Minnesang strophes 1 that I wish to deal in this short note. The theme occurs in a highly significant passage which treats the story of the relationship of Joseph and Potiphar's wife and which reads as follows:-

Do iz Ioseph also wole ane ute und ime an nihte missegie, do begunde er siner urowen lichen. si wolte in besuichen, si begunde getougen an in werf en dei ougen. si tMt wider in dei gebAre dei ime waren unmare. si begund in spenen und unrehtes wenen. wenen daz netohte, ub si uore gote mahte. Do si iz langere nemahte uerhelen, do begunde si zUi ime spilen.'

The corresponding passage in the Vulgate reads:-Post multas itaque dies injecit domina sua oculos suos in loseph . . . where no mention is made of secrecy in Potiphar's wife's approach to Joseph.

Certainly the idea of secrecy in love and love-making is not un- familiar nor unexpected in the contemporary Latin verse: for example, in the Cambridge Songs the lover speaks of seeking out secret places

1 V. Dollmayr: Die altdeutsche Genesis nach der Wiener Handschrift (ed. Dollmayr), Altdeutsche Textbibliothek 31, Halle (Saale), 1932; Introduction p. viii: "Das in Hss. des 12. Jahrhunderts iiberlieferte Gedicht stammt wahr- scheinlich aus der zweiten Hilfte des 11. Jahrhunderts."

9Op. cit. 11, 3747-3760.

VOL. LXXIV, February 1959 151

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in the wood 3 and an analysis of the vocabulary of the Carmnin Burana, admittedly poems of later and wider provenance shows a great wealth of words like secreta, arcana etc. all of which refer to love or the venue of love-making. But Middle Latin love-lyric springs from, at least, a partly different source from the vernacular. There is, however, one more word in the passage which strikes a familiar chord for the student of the Middle Latin lyric, the word spilen. The term ludere is constantly recurring in the Carmina Burana and other Middle Latin love lyrics as a synonyin for amarej4 thiough uisually with a strong physical connotation and referring to the act of love or the preliminaries to it. The translation of spilen in the present text is not so straightforward as there is a lack of parallel contexts in the works of this period: it probably means " to make up to him," and represents some definite physical advance made by the woman.

The semantic problems posed by the passage are made even more complex by the relation of the term minnen to the whole process' for, after Potiphar's wife has failed to seduce Joseph, the poet goes on:-

Also er ire intran2 unt ir lie das lachen unde si wart innen daz er si newolte minnen (11. 3801-3804)

where minnen can only have the meaning of " to make physical love to,"' a meaning which the poet has already used when describing the relationship of Jacob and Leah (11. 2597-2601)

Iacob und Lia heten ire minne die naht lange mit chonelicher wunne

where the meaning is quite unequivocal. Thus we find in this poem a group of expressions which are later

to become the permanent stock-in-trade of the Middle High German lyric poet or which already form part of the tradition of the Vaganten- poesie, used in close juxtaposition, but with a set of meanings which are clearly different from those which they develop within the

'The Cambridge Songs, ed. Karl Breul (England: Cambridge, 1915), No. 33: ego fui in silva et dilexei loca secreta.

'Cf. Carminta Burana, ed. A. Hilka and 0. Schumann (Heidelberg, 1941), I, 2: 142, 2, 1 Stant prata plena floribus, in quibus nos ludamus! 152, 3, 2 Phebus Daphnem sequitur, Europa tauro luditur., etc. etc.

152 Modern Language Notes

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Minnesang context, at least after the establishment of Provencal influence upon it.

It is also significant that Ehrismann has observed that the character of Joseph in the Genesis is definitely that of a nobleman: " In Joseph aber hat der deutsche Dichter auJ3erdem einen besonderen Typus seiner Zeit dargestellt, naimlich den iEdelmann." 5

Much has been written of the popular traditions which form a basis to the Minnesang, and though it is arguable that the rhyme getougen/ ougen is as obvious as herz/schmerz the whole passage is an adumbra- tion of the poet's source and must therefore be regarded as of signifi- cance for the literary historian. No attempt is being made to reach any conclusion on the tougen minne topos in the Minnesang, but the use of these numerous components of the field of meaning of " love " in Middle High German in a poem of the late eleventh century is, to say the least, of great interest, if not highly revealing for the pre-history of the Minnesang.

University of Sheffield KENNETH J. NORTHCOTT

Submerged Heroism Elisabeth Langgasser's Story: Untergetaucht

Of the eighteen short stories and sketches contained in the collection Der Torso, the most subtle and artistic by far is Untergetaucht. It is remarkable both for its content and form; in a moment of enthusiasm one is tempted to say that it represents as distinguished an achieve- ment as the literature of the genre can show. W1ithin the compass of four and a half pages we get an epitome of existence in the Third Reich, reflected through the most vital problem which faced the private citizen: his attitude to the " enemies of the realm." Equally remarkable is the way the story is told; its technique is a piece of virtuositv among a collection of notably virtuoso tales.

Elisabeth Langgasser herself has said that the stories in Der Torso reveal "aspects of man, whose ruined and soulless image is placed under the judgment of God." The formula fits our story only partially.

5G. Ehrismann: Die Geschichte der deutschen Literatur bis zurm Ausgang des Mittelalters (im Handbuch des deutschen Unterrichts) (Munich, 1922), II (i), 86.

VOL. LXXIV, Febrsary 1959 153

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