The Wino | Der Weinschwelg
Introduction to the Text
This poem is a humorous ode to drinking alcohol which parodies medieval courtly poetry and the values of medieval court society (such as virtue, skill, loyalty and honor) by appropriating them to describe a less-than-respectable activity: drinking to excess. It was composed in the thirteenth century CE and is an example of the wave of satirical literature in German which rose to meet the previous half-century's idealising love songs and stories of romantic heroism. While Middle High German is often still thought of today as the language of the Minnesänger - highly-accomplished singers and composers whose best known subject was romantic love - poems like The Wino show that medieval audiences were not only interested in skilfully-crafted romance but indeed had a taste for biting satire.
Credits
Translation by Kathryn Starkey, Björn K. Buschbeck, Robert Forke, Mae Velloso-Lyons, Mareike E. Reisch, and Kathleen SmithText based on the edition in Based on the edition in Der Stricker. Fünfzehn kleine Verserzählungen mit einem Anhang: Der Weinschwelg. Edited by Hanns Fischer. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1960.Encoded in TEI P5 XML by Jordan Rosen-KaplanSuggested citation: Der Stricker. "The Wino." Trans. Kathryn Starkey, et al. Global Medieval Sourcebook. http://sourcebook.stanford.edu/text/wino. Retrieved on April 20, 2024.