The Nibelungenlied, translated as The Song of the Nibelungs, is an epic poem in Middle High German. The story tells of dragon-slayer Siegfried at the court of the Burgundians, how he was murdered, and of his wife Kriemhild's revenge.
The Nibelungenlied is based on pre-Christian Germanic heroic motifs (the "Nibelungensaga"), which include oral traditions and reports based on historic events and individuals of the 5th and 6th centuries. Old Norse parallels of the legend survive in the Völsunga saga, the Prose Edda, the Poetic Edda, the Legend of Norna-Gest, and the Þiðrekssaga.
Authorship
Prevailing scholarly theories strongly suggest that the written Nibelungenlied is the work of an anonymous poet from the area of the Danube between Passau and Vienna, dating from about 1180 to 1210, possibly at the court of Wolfger von Erla, the bishop of Passau (in office 1191–1204). Most scholars consider it likely that the author was a man of literary and ecclesiastical education at the bishop's court, and that the poem's recipients were the clerics and noblemen at the same court.
The "Nibelung's lament" (Diu Klage), a sort of appendix to the poem proper, mentions a "Meister Konrad" who was charged by a bishop "Pilgrim" of Passau with the copying of the text. This is taken as a reference to Saint Pilgrim, bishop of Passau from 971–991.
The search for the author of the Nibelungenlied in German studies has a long and intense history. Among the names suggested were Konrad von Fußesbrunnen, Bligger von Steinach and Walther von der Vogelweide. None of these hypotheses has wide acceptance, and mainstream scholarship today accepts that the author's name cannot be established.
One of the key concepts
The one supreme measure of the excellence of an individual's character which distinguishes warriors above all is their loyalty to their lords, to their society, to God, and to their own ideals. The term used to express all these attributes is triuwe ("loyalty, faithfulness, love"), arguably the most important concept in medieval German literature of the classical period. The use of triuwe in the Nibelungenlied remains on a more mundane level, the term itself and all that it implies has long been recognized as the basic structural component of the Nibelungen narrative. It is, without doubt, the most important concept in the work. If the noun triuwe embodies the ethical foundation of the characters, its adjectival form getriuwe ("loyal") provides the defining attribute of a relationship or character. It is the most enduring and noble trait that one can have. It is the essential quality of character that nourishes all other virtues, such as stead fastness, honor, good breeding, and noble attitude, without which they would wither. In short triuwe/getriuwe informs and defines every human association in the Nibelungenlied, whether within the feudal social structure or the structure of personal relationships.
Within feudal society, triuwe is the cement that holds the feudal bond together, the tenor of which is marked by the conceptual pair, vel auxilium vel consilium(“both aid and advice"). It is the vassal's responsibility to offer his lord protective aid and advice whenever the latter requires the one or the other. The lord, for his part is expected to treat his vassal justly, to reward him for his services, and to protect him. If both parties perform their duties correctly, they are praised as being getriuwe. Both aspects of the feudal tie are frequently observed in the Nibelungenlied.
You may notice that the Nibelungenlied are similar with The Saga of the Volsungs. Both works tell the story of a hero murdered through treachery and his beloved’s revenge on the murderers, but there are significant differences between them. Das Nibelungenlied retells the Sigurd/Gudrun story from the Volsungs’ saga with some updates and changes. Some of these are relatively minor: Gudrun is called Kriemhild, Sigurd is called Siegfried, Brynhild is called Brunhild. Some are significant: Siegfried gets his treasure from two feuding brothers whom he kills to end their feud (a quite successful manner of ending such disputes) and has killed a dragon whose blood he has bathed in to make himself invulnerable
The Song of the Nibelungs seems less powerful – and slightly sillier – than The Saga of the Volsungs. The major reason for this is the imposition of the elements of chivalry and courtly love onto what is essentially a heroic narrative. As a result, there are far too many scenes of knights weeping and wailing over the deaths of comrades, too many scenes of preparations of costly outfits for journeys here and there, too many scenes where one character after another makes speech after speech saying the same bloody thing over and over.
The author clearly also, somewhat jarringly, sees Gunther, Hagen, and the Burgundians as sort of tragic heroes (I suppose being vain, envious, covetous, duplicitous murderers is a flaw of epic if not tragic proportions). In making the ultimate destruction of those Burgundians at the hands of a revenge crazed woman the focus of the second half of the poem, the poet – consciously or not – elevates guys to hero status who have, in the climax of poem’s first half, literally stabbed a hero in the back.
One possible explanation for this can be traced to how courtly romance viewed women.
Sources:
https://newsoutherngentleman.wordpress.com/2015/01/22/volsungs-and-nibelungs-and-huns-oh-my/
http://www.thefullwiki.org/
Francis G. Gentry Key Concepts in the Nibelungenlied
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