Zwischen Praxis und Interiorität
Abstract
While singing as composition as well as performance has been well-studied for secular love songs, religious song forms have received less attention. The paper offers an analysis of such form from a south-west German manuscript, the so-called Pfullinger Liedersammlung [ʻPfullingen Songbookʼ] and demonstrates that verbs of singing in this collection have a two-fold signification: they refer to the act of singing sometimes accompanied by dancing, but also encourage readers or listeners to join in such songs of praise. While the Pfullingen manuscript lacks musical notation, many of the songs it transmits are contrafacta which presuppose knowledge of the secular melodies to which the songs offer new texts. They therefore point to a culture in which singing is an integral part of devotion. Unlike secular songs, however, in which sound is an aesthetic phenomenon, these songs relate the effect of sound and its sweetness to theological knowledge about the nature of God and the Trinity, thus offering a medium for transposing learned knowledge into experience. In drawing on mystical theology, the songs therefore mediate aesthetic experience which is both artificial and real (Hasebrink 2011), articulate reservations about sensuality, and as a result advocate silence as the best path towards the Divine. Nevertheless, the surviving transmission, points to a continued practice of singing, and as the essay demonstrates, its significance is articulated in the oeuvre of Heinrich Seuse. He highlights that theologically motivated reservations about the sensuous nature of song are counterbalanced by the recognition that song and human singing can play an important role in developing practices of interiorising which are central for religious communities in the German Southwest.
Abstract
While singing as composition as well as performance has been well-studied for secular love songs, religious song forms have received less attention. The paper offers an analysis of such form from a south-west German manuscript, the so-called Pfullinger Liedersammlung [ʻPfullingen Songbookʼ] and demonstrates that verbs of singing in this collection have a two-fold signification: they refer to the act of singing sometimes accompanied by dancing, but also encourage readers or listeners to join in such songs of praise. While the Pfullingen manuscript lacks musical notation, many of the songs it transmits are contrafacta which presuppose knowledge of the secular melodies to which the songs offer new texts. They therefore point to a culture in which singing is an integral part of devotion. Unlike secular songs, however, in which sound is an aesthetic phenomenon, these songs relate the effect of sound and its sweetness to theological knowledge about the nature of God and the Trinity, thus offering a medium for transposing learned knowledge into experience. In drawing on mystical theology, the songs therefore mediate aesthetic experience which is both artificial and real (Hasebrink 2011), articulate reservations about sensuality, and as a result advocate silence as the best path towards the Divine. Nevertheless, the surviving transmission, points to a continued practice of singing, and as the essay demonstrates, its significance is articulated in the oeuvre of Heinrich Seuse. He highlights that theologically motivated reservations about the sensuous nature of song are counterbalanced by the recognition that song and human singing can play an important role in developing practices of interiorising which are central for religious communities in the German Southwest.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Vorwort V
- List of Contents VII
- Der ästhetische Wortschatz mittelalterlicher Texte IX
- Die Geburt der Ästhetik aus dem Fleisch 1
- Chromatische Fantasien und himmlische Harmonien 29
- Zur Semantik von singen unde sagen im mittelhochdeutschen Sangspruch 65
- Zwischen Praxis und Interiorität 115
- Kontexte und Konkretisationen zu einer Poetik des essemple im Prolog der Vie de sainte Osith 135
- Aspiratio 167
- Swer ouch diu wort niht eben wiget, / Der machet lustic buoch unlustic 199
- Frame-theoretische Modellierung von transkulturellen Begriffen am Beispiel von ‚Sprachpurismus‘ 237
- Komplexe Ästhetik 259
- Überlegungen zur Annotation und Repräsentation von Metaphern in religiösen Texten 291
- sine wnden sulen in uns leuen 303
- (Wie) Erfasst man historische Metaphern mit digitalen Methoden? 323
- Der ästhetische Sprachgebrauch in Epik, Lyrik und Fachliteratur 343
- Bedeutung ist mehr als nur ein Wort 365
- Abbildungsnachweise 387
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Vorwort V
- List of Contents VII
- Der ästhetische Wortschatz mittelalterlicher Texte IX
- Die Geburt der Ästhetik aus dem Fleisch 1
- Chromatische Fantasien und himmlische Harmonien 29
- Zur Semantik von singen unde sagen im mittelhochdeutschen Sangspruch 65
- Zwischen Praxis und Interiorität 115
- Kontexte und Konkretisationen zu einer Poetik des essemple im Prolog der Vie de sainte Osith 135
- Aspiratio 167
- Swer ouch diu wort niht eben wiget, / Der machet lustic buoch unlustic 199
- Frame-theoretische Modellierung von transkulturellen Begriffen am Beispiel von ‚Sprachpurismus‘ 237
- Komplexe Ästhetik 259
- Überlegungen zur Annotation und Repräsentation von Metaphern in religiösen Texten 291
- sine wnden sulen in uns leuen 303
- (Wie) Erfasst man historische Metaphern mit digitalen Methoden? 323
- Der ästhetische Sprachgebrauch in Epik, Lyrik und Fachliteratur 343
- Bedeutung ist mehr als nur ein Wort 365
- Abbildungsnachweise 387
