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Middle Dutch Literature
Middle Dutch literature (1150–1500) is the Dutch literature produced in the Low Countries from the 12th century to the 16th century. It is preceded by only a few fragmentary texts existing in Old Dutch, and it was succeeded by Dutch Renaissance and Golden Age literature. Early stages In the first stages of Dutch literature, poetry was the predominant form of literary expression. In the Low Countries as in the rest of Europe, courtly romance and poetry were popular genres during the Middle Ages. The chivalric epic was a popular genre as well, often featuring King Arthur or Charlemagne (''Karel'') as protagonist (with notable example of '' Karel ende Elegast'', Dutch for "Charlemagne and the elf-spirit/elf-guest"). The first Dutch language writer known by name is the 12th-century County of Loon poet Henric van Veldeke, an early contemporary of Walther von der Vogelweide. Van Veldeke wrote courtly love poetry, a hagiography of Saint Servatius and an epic retelling of the ''Aene ...
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Dutch Literature
Dutch-language literature () comprises all writings of literary merit written through the ages in the Dutch language, a language which currently has around 23 million native speakers. Dutch-language literature is the product of the Netherlands, Belgium, Suriname, the Netherlands Antilles and of formerly Dutch-speaking regions, such as French Flanders, South Africa, and Indonesia. The Dutch East Indies, as Indonesia was called under Dutch colonization, spawned a separate subsection in Dutch-language literature. Conversely, Dutch-language literature sometimes was and is produced by people originally from abroad who came to live in Dutch-speaking regions, such as Anne Frank and Kader Abdolah. In its earliest stages, Dutch-language literature is defined as those pieces of literary merit written in one of the Dutch dialects of the Low Countries. Before the 17th century, there was no unified standard language; the dialects that are considered Dutch evolved from Old Frankish. A separa ...
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Walther Von Der Vogelweide
Walther von der Vogelweide (; ) was a Minnesänger who composed and performed love-songs and political songs ('' Sprüche'') in Middle High German. Walther has been described as the greatest German lyrical poet before Goethe; his hundred or so love-songs are widely regarded as the pinnacle of Minnesang, the medieval German courtly love song tradition, and his innovations breathed new life into this genre. He was also the first political poet to write in German, with a considerable body of encomium, satire, invective, and moralising. Little is known about Walther's life. He was a travelling singer who performed for patrons at various princely courts in the states of the Holy Roman Empire. He is particularly associated with the Babenberg court in Vienna. Later in life he was given a small fief by the future Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II. His work was widely celebrated in his time and in succeeding generations—for the Meistersingers he was a songwriter to emulate—and ...
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Minstrel
A minstrel was an entertainer, initially in medieval Europe. The term originally described any type of entertainer such as a musician, juggler, acrobat, singer or fool; later, from the sixteenth century, it came to mean a specialist entertainer who sang songs and played musical instruments. Description Minstrels performed songs which told stories of distant places or of existing or imaginary historical events. Although minstrels created their own tales, often they would memorize and embellish the works of others. Frequently they were retained by royalty and high society. As the courts became more sophisticated, minstrels were eventually replaced at court by the troubadours, and many became wandering minstrels, performing in the streets; a decline in their popularity began in the late 15th century. Minstrels fed into later traditions of travelling entertainers, which continued to be moderately strong into the early 20th century, and which has some continuity in the form of ...
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Middle Dutch
Middle Dutch is a collective name for a number of closely related West Germanic dialects whose ancestor was Old Dutch. It was spoken and written between 1150 and 1500. Until the advent of Modern Dutch after 1500 or , there was no overarching standard language, but all dialects were mutually intelligible. During that period, a rich Medieval Dutch literature developed, which had not yet existed during Old Dutch. The various literary works of the time are often very readable for speakers of Modern Dutch since Dutch is a rather conservative language. Phonology Differences with Old Dutch Several phonological changes occurred leading up to the Middle Dutch period. * Earlier Old Dutch , , merge into already in Old Dutch. * Voiceless fricatives become voiced syllable-initially: > , > (merging with from Proto-Germanic ), > . (10th or 11th century) * > * > or . The outcome is dialect-specific, with found in more western dialects and further east. This results in later pairs ...
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Saga
Sagas are prose stories and histories, composed in Iceland and to a lesser extent elsewhere in Scandinavia. The most famous saga-genre is the (sagas concerning Icelanders), which feature Viking voyages, migration to Iceland, and feuds between Icelandic families. However, sagas' subject matter is diverse, including legendary saga, pre-Christian Scandinavian legends; Heilagramannasögur, saints and Biskupasögur, bishops both from Scandinavia and elsewhere; konungasögur, Scandinavian kings and Samtíðarsögur, contemporary Icelandic politics; and chivalric romances either translated from Continental European languages or composed locally. Sagas originated in the Middle Ages, but continued to be composed in the ensuing centuries. Whereas the dominant language of history-writing in medieval Europe was Latin language, Latin, sagas were composed in the vernacular: Old Norse and its later descendants, primarily Icelandic language, Icelandic. While sagas are written in prose, they s ...
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Germanic Mythology
Germanic mythology consists of the body of myths native to the Germanic peoples, including Norse mythology, Anglo-Saxon paganism#Mythology, Anglo-Saxon mythology, and Continental Germanic mythology. It was a key element of Germanic paganism. Origins As the Germanic languages developed from Proto-Indo-European language, Germanic mythology is ultimately a development of Proto-Indo-European mythology. Archaeological remains, such as petroglyphs in Scandinavia, suggest continuity in Germanic mythology since at least the Nordic Bronze Age. Sources The earliest written sources on Germanic mythology include literature by Ancient Rome, Roman writers. This includes ''Commentaries on the Gallic War'' by Julius Caesar, ''Geographica'' by Strabo, and ''Germania (book), Germania'' by Tacitus. Later Latin-language sources on Germanic mythology include ''Getica'' by Jordanes, ''History of the Lombards'' by Paul the Deacon, ''Ecclesiastical History of the English People'' by Bede, ''Vita Ansga ...
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Dutch Folklore
Folklore of the Low Countries, often just referred to as Dutch folklore, includes the Epic poetry, epics, legends, fairy tales and oral traditions of the people of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Traditionally this folklore is written or spoken in Dutch language, Dutch or in one of the regional languages of these countries. Folk traditions The folklore of the Low Countries encompasses the folk traditions of the Benelux countries: the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. This includes the folklore of Flanders, the Dutch-speaking northern part of Belgium, Frisia, Luxembourg and Wallonia. Fairy tales Many folk tales are derived from pre-Christian Gaulish and Germanic culture; as such, many are similar to French and German versions. In 1891, schoolteacher Jules Lemoine and folklorist Auguste Gittée published ''Folk Tales from the Walloon Country''. They focused on strictly transcribing and translating tales from original Walloon manuscripts, mostly from Hainaut Province, ...
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Folk Song
Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted orally, music with unknown composers, music that is played on traditional instruments, music about cultural or national identity, music that changes between generations (folk process), music associated with a people's folklore, or music performed by Convention (norm), custom over a long period of time. It has been contrasted with popular music, commercial and art music, classical styles. The term originated in the 19th century, but folk music extends beyond that. Starting in the mid-20th century, a new form of popular folk music evolved from traditional folk music. This process and period is called the (second) folk revival and reached a zenith ...
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Everyman (15th-century Play)
''The of Everyman'' (''The Summoning of Everyman''), usually referred to simply as ''Everyman'', is a late 15th-century morality play by an anonymous English author, printed circa 1530. It is possibly a translation of the Dutch play ''Elckerlijc'' (Everyman). Like John Bunyan's 1678 Christian novel ''The Pilgrim's Progress'', ''Everyman'' uses allegorical characters to examine the question of Salvation (Christianity), Christian salvation and explain that Man must have a relationship with God to attain it. To develop that relationship, his strength, wisdom, senses, beauty and discretion is not helpful. The relationship with God is strengthened through his adherence to rules established by the Church – the partaking of the Eucharist, confession, penance, and participation in last rites, thus redeeming him and preparing him for eternal salvation. Summary The play is the allegorical accounting of the life of Everyman, who represents all mankind. In the course of the action, Eve ...
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Elckerlijc
''Elckerlijc'' (also known as ''Elckerlyc'') is a morality play from the Low Countries which was written in Dutch somewhere around the year 1470. It was first printed in 1495. The play was extremely successful and may have been the original source for the English play ''Everyman'', as well as many other translations for other countries. The authorship of ''Elckerlijc'' is attributed to Peter van Diest, a medieval writer from the Low Countries. The play won the first prize in a theater contest in Brabant; it is uncertain whether it won at the Antwerp Landjuweel in 1496. As a morality play, it stresses the didactic message. It uses allegory of the hero as an "everyman" (a typical human person) and is written in moderately elevated Rederijker style. Dutch and English historians argued for decades over whether the English play ''Everyman'' was based on ''Elckerlijc'' (or vice versa). The most convincing evidence that ''Elckerlijc'' was the original was provided by the Englis ...
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French Language
French ( or ) is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European family. Like all other Romance languages, it descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. French evolved from Northern Old Gallo-Romance, a descendant of the Latin spoken in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues d'oïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, which French (Francien language, Francien) largely supplanted. It was also substratum (linguistics), influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul and by the Germanic languages, Germanic Frankish language of the post-Roman Franks, Frankish invaders. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 16th century onward, it was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, and Asia, and numerous French-based creole languages, most notably Haitian Creole, were established. A French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Fra ...
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Limburgish
Limburgish ( or ; ; also Limburgian, Limburgic or Limburgan) refers to a group of South Low Franconian Variety (linguistics), varieties spoken in Belgium and the Netherlands, characterized by their distance to, and limited participation in the formation of, Standard Dutch. In the Limburg (Netherlands), Dutch province of Limburg, all dialects, despite their differences, have been given collectively a regional language status, including those comprising "Limburgish" as used in this article. Limburgish shares many vocabulary and grammatical characteristics with both German language, German and Dutch language, Dutch. A characteristic feature of many dialects of Limburgish is the occurrence of a Lexical rule, lexical Pitch accent (intonation), pitch accent (Franconian tone accent), which is shared with the adjacent Central Franconian dialects of German. Etymology The name ''Limburgish'' (and variants of it) derives only indirectly from the now Belgian town of Limbourg (''L ...
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