The earlier poems were printed in long lines with a caesura, shown as a gap, at mid-line. For this e-text, long lines have been broken into two, with the second half indented. Line numbering is explained at the end of the text.
A few typographical errors were corrected. They are listed at the end of the text. Numbers printed as superscripts are shown here in braces: “Vol. 12{ 2}”. Except for footnotes and their tags, all square brackets [ ] are in the original.]
by CALVIN THOMAS, LL. D. Late Professor in Columbia University
D. C. Heath & Co., Publishers Boston New York Chicago
Copyright, 1906 and 1909, By D. C. Heath & Co 419
This book is designed to accompany an introductory study of the history of German literature. It is assumed that the history itself will be learned, so far as necessary, either from lectures or from some other book devoted to the subject. As the selections were made, for the most part, while I was writing my own short history of German literature for the series published under the general editorship of Mr. Edmund Gosse and known as “Literatures of the World,” it was natural that the Anthology should take on, to some extent, the character of a companion book to the History. At the same time I did not desire that either book should necessarily involve the use of the other. Hence the absence of cross references; and hence also, in the Anthology, the brief introductory notes, giving important dates and summary characterizations. These are meant to enable the student to read the selections intelligently without constant recourse to some other book.
In preparing Part First, I have had in mind the student who has learned to read the language of Goethe and Schiller with some facility, and would like to know something of the earlier periods, but has not studied, and may not care to study, Old and Middle German. On this account the selections are given in modern German translations. The original texts are omitted because space was very precious, and because the book was intended as an aid to literary rather than linguistic study. In making the selections, my first principle was to give a good deal of the best rather than a little of everything. I wished to make friends for medieval German poetry, and it seemed to me that this could best be done by showing it in its strength and its beauty. So I have ignored much that might have had a historical or linguistic interest for the scholar, and have steadily applied the criterion of literary worth.