Singing Community in Martin Luther's Kirchenlieder
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21322216 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Evan Strouss (Department of Comparative Literature University of California Berkeley California USA, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 98 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 54-70 |
| Publication date | 2025-02-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The German Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0016-8831 • E-ISSN: 1756-1183 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/gequ.12499 |
| OpenAlex | W4407383832 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 8 |
In this essay, I claim that Martin Luther's Kirchenlieder can be read as Volkslieder , a reading which allows us to account for their function of consolidating identity through communal singing. Luther's songs, I argue, are activated in their being voiced —voice, here, understood in a non‐metaphorical mode, as the material utterance of a singing community. These texts have often been understood as efficient vehicles of doctrine, but their role in calling a Volk into being remains underexamined. I begin by outlining Luther's theory of music and the voice's important role therein before closely reading key hymns in order to attend to their communal function. The Volk they implicate is, in Luther's time, not yet embroiled in nationalist ideology. It can, I argue, nevertheless be productively examined on the horizon of later nationalist identity, which I demonstrate in dialogue with early twentieth‐century critics who take up these songs
Art · Economics · Management · Singing · Sociology · Historical Influence and Diplomacy · History · Medieval European History and Architecture · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |