Hartmann von Aue, Der arme Heinrich [Poor Henry]

William McDonald (University of Virginia)
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Der arme Heinrich

(

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 Heinrich

possesses 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 Heinrich

by Gerhart Hauptmann (1902). In the English-speaking world, two nineteenth-century adaptations deserve mention: the poem

The Golden Legend

by 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 19 March 2024.]

13999 Der arme Heinrich 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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