Das Romantische Mittelalter der Germanistik

In Das romantische Mittelalter der Germanistik, Michael Ott and Helge Perplies make a welcome—and long overdue—contribution not just to Medieval German Studies but also to German Literary Studies (Germanistik) as well as to those areas across our disciplines that must contend with nineteenth-century Romanticism and its afterlives. The authors offer an engagingly written, often self-reflective and humorous overview of Medieval German Studies as a discipline to issue a kind of wake-up call for its future: how does Medieval German Studies in the German university curriculum make itself resilient in the face of potential obsolescence to a contemporary audience that loves the medieval in popular culture but finds Middle High German verb constructions boring or irrelevant? The Middle Ages captivate the popular imagination, say the authors, yet Medieval German Studies seems reluctant to recognize this in academic discourse. They begin by posing the question, tongue not quite entirely in cheek, whether perhaps Romanticism should bear responsibility for this state of affairs (chapter I, “Ist die Romantik daran schuld?”) (Is Romanticism at fault?) at present. Writing in German for their German-speaking academic peers, about a subject that they clearly love, Ott and Perplies tug insistently on the Romantic “fetters” that have prevented Medieval German Studies from developing at pace with the populations it seeks to reach and recruit from.The authors want to start a conversation, so they structure the book as one. Each chapter title poses a question, and the ensuing responses progressively develop the authors’ concept of a post-Romantic German Studies. The dialogic structure augments the clear yet playful style, albeit with serious undertones, inviting readers to engage in the same kind of critical and even self-reflection that the authors see as the future of the discipline. That reflection starts, for Ott and Perplies, with an essay exchange in 2021 about antivaccination skepticism that highlights the Romantic era's lingering influence on both scholarship and society. “Wir werden die Romantik einfach nicht los!” they declare, echoing the sentiment of Valentin Groebner's 2008 book Das Mittelalter hört nicht auf. They then turn their attention in chapter II (“Steckt die Germanistik in der Romantik fest?”) (Is German Literary Studies stuck in the Romantic era?) not just to German Literary Studies (Germanistik), but specifically Medieval German Studies, and the Romantic entanglements in which it seems stuck. Looking critically at the emergence of the discipline in the nineteenth century, concurrent with the modern university, the authors advocate for a—at least in the German-speaking academy—radical reshaping of the discipline that does not dismiss popular interest in or fascination with the Middle Ages. For this reason, they look to recent research in English Medieval Studies (“die englischsprachigen Mediävistiken”), particularly but not exclusively in the U.S., as especially innovative models over the last thirty years for how medievalists can engage with contemporary issues; they see exemplars in the work of Richard Utz (Medievalism: A Manifesto), Carolyn Dinshaw (How Soon is Now?), and Geraldine Heng (The Invention of Race). Whereas German-language scholarship insists on the separation between professionals and amateurs that began in the nineteenth-century academy, for example, research conventions in English have relaxed to allow for use of the personal pronoun “I” (p. 27). Modeling the change they seek, Ott and Perplies introduce themselves to their readers and continue to situate themselves as explicitly in their narrative throughout the book.Inspired by English-language scholarship, Ott and Perplies focus firmly on a reorientation of German Medieval Studies (p. 30): their term “post-Romantic” (“Postromantik”) allows them to cast their glances both backward and forward, to explore the history of the discipline, its present (“Gegenwart”) and its possible futures (“ihre möglichen Zukünfte”). To that end, the authors examine the foundations in chapter III (“Wie geht man richtig mit dem Mittelalter um?”) (How does one deal with the Middle Ages properly?) and the rules of the game, as it were. They address the complex intersections of Romantic poetry (Des Knaben Wunderhorn) and theory (Heine's Romantische Schule) with expressions of German national identity in the wake of the Napoleonic wars (the Grimms, Ludwig Tieck, and others). They toggle then to twentieth-century scholarship that laid bare the nineteenth-century frame for Medieval Studies by examining medieval literature as a cultural product (Bumke) or reception of the medieval through creative responses over time (Müller). A post-Romantic discipline should create spaces for dialogue: with medieval texts, with contemporary interpretations, with other scholars, with one's own self, and with one's own present (p. 72). It would accommodate, practicing what Jonathan Hsy calls co-disciplinarity, what English-language scholarship terms medievalism. For Ott and Perplies, medievalism functions like a metaphorical hotel lobby, an open forum for the exchange of ideas that they miss in German.The next two chapters explore ways to imagine this forum in a world less constrained by German Romantic afterlives. Chapter IV (“Darf man mittelalterliche Erzählungen übersetzen?”) (Are we allowed to translate medieval narratives?) dissects the tradition of scholarly editorial practice with respect to original texts, critically framing the question of how to translate medieval texts—whether to prioritize accuracy or creativity, whether to focus on poetry or prose. Romantic ideals infuse the study of manuscripts, the desire to reconstruct them in search of an original version (an Urtext), and the need to uncover an authorial voice; those ideals drove the linguists who made the translations, compiled the dictionaries, and outlined the grammars, dictating the way medieval literature should be viewed and studied (p. 93). Karl Lachmann may have set editorial standards, for example, though Ott and Perplies suggest that Lachmann's emphasis on philological accuracy and historical fidelity also represents a Romantic ideal that has limited the potential of medieval Literary Studies to engage with readers now. More creative translations, which some of Lachmann ́s peers like von der Hagen attempted, might find more receptive audiences now.Chapter V (“Muss ich Iwein sein wollen?”) (Must I want to be Iwein?) borrows the concept of disidentification from scholar Maria Junglan Min: a way to distance oneself from the texts one studies and avoid overidentification with them. Reading against the grain, a betrayal of the text (“Judas hermeneutics”) allows for a more nuanced interpretation that can incorporate contemporary approaches like feminism, postcolonialism, and queer theory. What if, ask Ott and Perplies, one reads the Latvian Chronicle as a narrative of settler colonialism or considers a potential underlying Crusade allusion in Iwein's battle with Ascalon? A “betrayal” of traditional readings brings new insights. The final chapters then offer suggestions for a post-Romantic discipline. Chapter VI (“Warum brauchen wir mehr unterschiedliche Stimmen?”) (Why do we need more diverse voices?) showcases new and open source publication spaces in Anglophone scholarship (the BABEL working group or the journal postmedieval) along with other communities that can support alternative ways of working (like the group Medievalists of Color). In a German setting, these strategies could create space for hitherto underrepresented students and faculty with diverse backgrounds (in German Migrationshintergrund). Last but not least, the short final chapter VII (“Kommt das in der Klausur an?”) (Will that be on the test?) is a welcome anomaly: a discussion of classroom pedagogy in a German critical text about Medieval Studies. It is, however, an existential necessity; to attract and keep new students, programs must take students seriously with their concerns about climate change, racism, or authoritarianism. Such curricular realignment, for Ott and Perplies, will allow Medieval German Studies to position itself firmly as a “Gegenwartswissenschaft” (a scientific discipline of the present day) (p. 155) focused on a post-Romantic Middle Ages that is resolutely plural and global. In her afterward, Racha Kirakosian also eloquently advocates for a polyphony of voices and interdisciplinary heterogeneity in the future directions for Medieval German Studies. Kirakosian herself, with her current research on the posthuman, embodies the kind of codisciplinary practice that Ott and Perplies seek to promote.In sum, I think that Das romantische Mittelalter der Germanistik is a book I have been waiting for: in German, about German, across its disciplines. Michael Ott and Helge Perplies provide all of us, medievalists or modernists, whether we operate in English- or German-speaking contexts, with an exhortation to reflect and to work differently. They model for us the change that they hope will shake up the academic enterprise: they write as coauthors, they navigate both popular and academic discourse, and they speak personally to their readers. As an English-speaking Germanist and medievalist, I especially applaud the authors for taking the much-needed step of introducing Anglophone scholarship on medievalism to a primarily German audience; they even attempt to render the first lines of Headley's Beowulf in German to illustrate the value of creative translation. I do miss, in this context, mention of innovative outreach activities in Germany (such as MiMaSch or Mittelalter macht Schule at the University of Bamberg) or in Austria (the Styrian Literature Pathways of the Middle Ages at the University of Graz) as well as current English-language research in Medieval German Studies from the U.S., where we have long practiced inter- and codisciplinary approaches. So I hope this book may spark further conversations in the field in Europe and across the Atlantic. The book's impact outweighs its shortcomings, however. It makes a valuable contribution to current and emerging dialogues about Medieval German Studies, Germanistik, and the humanities generally as the authors steer the past and the present of the discipline beyond its stubborn Romantic legacy toward a more dynamic future

German · German Literature · German studies · Medieval studies · Middle Ages · Nazi Germany · Romance · Romanticism · German Literature and Culture Studies · Historical, Literary, and Cultural Studies · Linguistic research and analysis