Hartmann von Aue is perhaps the greatest poet of the twelfth century writing in Middle High German; famous for his 'crystalline language' and his vivid descriptions, he exerted a major influence on German literature after him. We know very little about his life. He was born somewhere around 1170 and died somewhere between 1210 and 1220; he seems to have participated in the German Crusade (1197). He was a ministerialis (dienstmann), so he was legally something like a serf but socially a knight and a member of the lower nobility. Beyond that, we only know his authorship: two major Arthurian romances (Erec and Iwein, adaptations of the work of Chretien de Troyes), two non-Arthurian knightly romances (Gregorius and Poor Heinrich), a poetic dialogue (The Lament), and a number of other lyrics.
The next fortnightly book is Arthurian Romances, Tales, and Lyric Poetry: The Complete Works of Hartmann von Aue, translated by Frank Tobin, Kim Vivian, and Richard H. Lawson.
