Mediaeval Poetry of Germany.

Assistant Professor Sheldon delivered the second lecture in the course by German instructors in Sever 11, yesterday afternoon on the Mediaeval Poetry of Germany. He said that he proposed to give a general idea of German poetry from the classic period to the middle ages. The language of the middle high German, he said, has undergone a considerable change owing to the period of sterility previous to the close of the high German period. The literature of the mediaeval period is almost wholly in vers. Its subjects, which are of a national, popular and lyric character, originated in songs celebrating the deeds of heroes and come almost directly from the French. Among these subjects are "King Arthur's Round table," the "Holy Grail," and "Virgil's Aeneid."

The popular literature or popular epics, as they are sometimes called, go back to the songs of the people. In fact these are their history. The "Nibelungen Leid" and "Gotterdammerung," the principal poems are based on popular songs. The "Nibelungen" contains thirty-eight adventures corresponding to cantos, arranged in 2000 stanzes or verses. Each verse is divided into two parts, the second part being one accent longer than the first.

The scene of the "Gotterdammerung" is laid on the coast of the North sea. This consists of thirty-two adventures of 1700 verses. It differs from the "Nibelungen" in the metre of the last verse in that each stanzas is increased by a single accent. The great peculiarity of the poem, however, is that it extends over three generations.

The court epics are of a different nature, being similar to the short English verse of seven or eight feet. Of this class the principal writers are Hartmann, Gottfried von Strasbourg and Wolfram Eschenbach. Hartmann, the author of "Erick," a poem of several thousand lines, was a writer of great poetic genius, as was Got fried, who, although unable to read or write, has left a poem of 1900 lines. But after the death of these three men there was a great decline in literature.

The principal writer of lyric verse was Walther von der Vogelweide who lived a long and wandering life. His themes were principally on nature, politics and religion in all of which he did not hesitate to express his opinion. The versification of this verse is determined by accentmerely since the stanzas differ with different writers.

Mr. Sheldon closed his lecture with selectlons from the several poems he had described.