Talk:Germanic Heroic Age

Norse history and culture Mid‑importance

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I think we have two meanings here,

the period of the events reflected in heroic poetry, vs.
the period of the actual composition of heroic poetry.

The former would be the 4th to 6th centuries, the latter the 8th to 11th (Iceland: 13th) centuries or so. The latter would be Ker's usage. Usage depends on context, when discussing the history of literature, it makes sense to distinguish the "heroic age" of epic poetry (say, before 1100) from the "age of chivalry" of Romance (after 1100). --dab (𒁳) 13:36, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Updating

This page needs some serious updating. For one thing, it's absurd to claim that Christianization led to the end of heroic poetry when literally all surviving heroic poetry postdates Christianization, including the "pagan" stuff in the Edda. This is similar to the old nonsense you can still read in Werner Hoffmann about whether 13th-century German poems are "grundheidnisch" (heathen in their core) or not, in which he tries to discount all the Christian allusions as later accretions.

Is anyone actively watching this page and interested in helping to update? Some useful information is already found in the "Development of an oral tradition" section of Legends about Theoderic the Great.--Ermenrich (talk) 17:53, 19 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Ermenrich: Yes, it is in an abominable state. It could serve as a useful hub article giving an index of materials deriving from this age divided perhaps by region (OHG, Anglo-Saxon, Norse, with relevant Latin adaptations mentioned per region such as Waltharius and Gesta Danorum), with some background on the discussion concerning the degree to which they represent uninterrupted oral tradition (and the origin of that tradition) as opposed to "book-learned" interference from the Greco-Latin tradition. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 16:59, 22 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Merge to Germanic heroic legend?

This article is in terrible shape and is not necessarily an independent subject from Germanic heroic legend. Would it be worth while merging it to there?--Ermenrich (talk) 17:41, 5 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]