The Song of the Nibelungs

UnknownProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.5
Word count
640K words
Chapters
64

Tags

Foreign Literature Folk Literature Military StrategyLegendary LivesRevengePalace IntrigueTragic FateJianghu FeudHeroismPatriotismMedieval EpicGermanic Myth

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Das Nibelungenlied by UnknownAuthor: Unknown,Language: German, Class: PT: Language and Literatures: Germanic, Scandinavian, and Icelandic literatures, Release Date: Feb 5, 2005

Editor's review

Das Nibelungenlied is a Middle High German heroic epic by an unknown author, with the surviving text taking shape around the early thirteenth century. It tells of the fates of figures from the Burgundian court and the Nibelung legend, unfolding around honor, loyalty, marriage, revenge, and destruction, with the plot advancing layer by layer and the conflicts escalating without pause, generating intense dramatic tension. Unlike many ancient epics, its language is relatively direct and its characters' motives complex, allowing readers to see the tension between heroic ideals and court politics. This Project Gutenberg edition is the German original, a public-domain electronic text suitable as an introduction to the Germanic heroic epic tradition, medieval narrative literature, and the history of German literature. Reading it requires some command of German, especially given the lexical and syntactic differences inherited from Middle High German; those seeking only a plot summary may first turn to a modern German translation or a related guide, then return to the original to experience the narrative rhythm and the power of the characters' dialogue.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Read a reliable plot summary or introduction first, then move on to the original.
  2. Proceed chapter by chapter, briefly reviewing character relationships and shifts in conflict after each chapter.
  3. Mark unfamiliar words as you go rather than looking up every one, so as to keep the narrative flowing.
  4. Read alongside a modern German translation to help with the syntactic differences of the Middle High German text.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64

FAQ

Does this edition include modern German annotations? According to the available information, this is a Project Gutenberg public-domain electronic text in German, with no indication that it includes modern annotations or a scholarly introduction. For detailed notes and textual information, it is advisable to use a scholarly edition with an introduction or a modern German translation alongside it.
Why is the author listed as Unknown? The author of the Nibelungenlied left no definite name in history; the surviving text is the product of a long oral tradition and later written compilation. The author field is marked Unknown in the source, reflecting this reality rather than missing information in the edition.
Can I read it without a background in medieval literature? You can try, but it is advisable first to grasp the general story framework and the main character relationships. The epic's narrative mode, courtly etiquette, and conception of honor differ considerably from contemporary fiction; reading a concise introduction beforehand can significantly lower the barrier to entry and make it easier to follow the escalation of conflict when you turn to the original.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Unknown Author

"Unknown" is not the real name of a particular author but a general label used in book cataloging and publishing for works whose authorship is unidentified or anonymous. Public information is limited, and neither nationality nor dates of birth and death can be verified. The collection contains 118 titles issued under this name, spanning a wide range of subjects: Icelandic sagas such as The Story of Burnt Njal and The Saga of Grettir the Strong, the Middle High German epic Das Nibelungenlied, the Old English religious verse manuscript Codex Junius 11, the Italian Renaissance comedy Gl'ingannati, widely circulated tales such as The Only True Mother Goose Melodies and Aladdin and the Magic Lamp, and a treatise on conjuring, Hocus Pocus Junior. These are mostly editions or translations of folklore, epics, and early drama, forming a cross-linguistic, cross-period compilation that offers readers various facets of the European narrative tradition.