Anonymous, Kudrun

Marion E. Gibbs

Ed. by Gerhard P. Knapp, University of Utah
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.4: German-language Literature and Culture.
Vol. editors: Gerhard P. Knapp (University of Utah), Jennifer Marston William (Purdue University), Herbert Rowland (Purdue University), Jill E. Twark (East Carolina University)

Dates

First circulation or publication c. 1230 - c. 1240

Places

Germany (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Epic
Romance

Resources

There is only one manuscript of Kudrun, in the collection known as the Ambraser Heldenbuch of the early 16th century, but it is now accepted that this anonymous poem, which raises many problems of provenance and source, was composed between 1230 and 1240, a whole generation after the Nibelungenlied, with which it is frequently compared. The comparison is misleading for, although there is some justification for the belief that the later poem was inspired by the earlier one, they are actually very different. It is also likely that the very difference of Kudrun from its clearly very popular predecessor accounted for the fact that for three centuries it seems to have disappeared, until it was taken up in the …

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1308 words

Citation: Gibbs, Marion E.. "Kudrun". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 13 July 2004 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16327, accessed 19 April 2024.]

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