AbstractsLanguage, Literature & Linguistics

The Nibelungenlied, or the Great Middle High German Epic, was written in the form we now have it in the first half of the 13th century, and contains over 8,000 lines written in form-line strophes in Hexameter. Its original home was in northern Europe in the land south and west of the North Sea. Its home is rich in myth and legendary look. Whether the myths and legends so nicely woven into this work are all of Germaine origin is of course not definitely known, still history allows us to make that claim. Neither is it known whether it comes to us as the achievements of one mind or of many but, as that may be, suffice it to say that able critics have placed it among the best of its kind in existence, Homer's "Iliad" not excepted. It has been selected as the subject of this paper because of its high rank in Medieval Literature as well as for its dignity of expression and its purity of language.