Editing German literature (section)

==Middle Ages==
Medieval German literature refers to [[literature]] written in Germany, stretching from the [[Carolingian dynasty]]; various dates have been given for the end of the German literary Middle Ages, the [[Protestant Reformation|Reformation]] (1517) being the last possible cut-off point.

===Old High German===
{{main|Old High German literature}}
The Old High German period is reckoned to run until about the mid-11th century, though the boundary to Early Middle High German (second half of the 11th century) is not clear-cut.

The most famous work in OHG is the ''[[Hildebrandslied]]'', a short piece of Germanic alliterative heroic verse which besides the ''[[Muspilli]]'' is the sole survivor of what must have been a vast oral tradition. Another important work, in the northern dialect of Old Saxon, is a life of Christ in the style of a heroic epic known as the ''[[Heliand]]''.

===Middle High German===
{{main|Middle High German literature}}
[[Image:Codex Manesse Walther von der Vogelweide.jpg|thumb|left|Portrait of [[Walther von der Vogelweide]] from the [[Codex Manesse]] (Folio 124r)]]
[[Middle High German]] proper runs from the beginning of the 12th century, and in the second half of the 12th century, there was a sudden intensification of activity, leading to a 60-year "golden age" of medieval German literature referred to as the ''mittelhochdeutsche Blütezeit'' (1170–1230). This was the period of the blossoming of MHG lyric poetry, particularly ''[[Minnesang]]'' (the German variety of the originally French tradition of [[courtly love]]). One of the most important of these poets was [[Walther von der Vogelweide]]. The same sixty years saw the composition of the most important courtly romances. These are written in rhyming couplets, and again draw on French models such as [[Chrétien de Troyes]], many of them relating [[Arthurian]] material, for example, ''[[Parzival]]'' by [[Wolfram von Eschenbach]]. The third literary movement of these years was a new revamping of the heroic tradition, in which the ancient Germanic oral tradition can still be discerned, but tamed and Christianized and adapted for the court. These high medieval [[heroic epic]]s are written in rhymed strophes, not the alliterative verse of Germanic prehistory (for example, the ''[[Nibelungenlied]]'').

The Middle High German period is conventionally taken to end in 1350, while the [[Early New High German]] is taken to begin with the [[German Renaissance]], after the invention of movable type in the mid-15th century. Therefore, the literature of the late 14th and the early 15th century falls, as it were, in the cracks between Middle and New High German, and can be classified as either. Works of this transitional period include ''[[The Ring (poem)|The Ring]]'' (c. 1410), the poems of [[Oswald von Wolkenstein]] and [[Johannes von Tepl]], the German versions of ''[[Pontus and Sidonia]]'', and arguably the works of [[Hans Folz]] and [[Sebastian Brant]] (''[[Ship of Fools (satire)|Ship of Fools]]'', 1494), among others. The ''Volksbuch'' ([[chapbook]]) tradition which would flourish in the 16th century also finds its origin in the second half of the 15th century.