(
Poor Henry) is a vernacular tale of some 1,520 rhymed couplets by Hartmann von Aue, a German knight and author of Middle High German narrative poems (
Erec,
Iwein,
Gregorius), as well as lyric poetry. The apex of the Attic style in German medieval verse,
Der arme Heinrichpossesses a purity and simplicity of expression that set the standard for Hartmann’s courtly contemporaries and successors. Adaptations of the story appeared as late as the twentieth century in Germany, in the play
Der arme Heinrichby Gerhart Hauptmann (1902). In the English-speaking world, two nineteenth-century adaptations deserve mention: the poem
The Golden Legendby Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1851), and the cantata of the same name by Arthur Sullivan (1886) of Gilbert and Sullivan.
The date of
2231 words
Citation: McDonald, William . "Der arme Heinrich". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 31 July 2013 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=13999, accessed 23 November 2024.]
