Die Merseburger Zaubersprüche

by Wolfgang Beck

English description: The study represents the first extensive monograph on these significant Old High German texts. The controversial linguistic material is examined etymologically while questions concerning the context, the historical transmission, linguistic and religious historical problems as well as functional aspects of these texts are treated in a broad cultural-historical approach. German description: Diese Arbeit ist die erste ausfuhrliche Monographie zu diesen bedeutenden Texten. Das umstrittene Wortmaterial wird etymologisch untersucht, in einem umfassenden kulturhistorischen Zugriff werden Fragen nach dem Kontext, der Uberlieferungsgeschichte, den sprach- und religionsgeschichtlichen Problemen sowie funktionalen Aspekten beantwortet.

500 pages, Hardcover

First published November 23, 2011

Reviews

[Manybooks · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was actually at first going to alter my recorded reading dates with regard Die Merseburger Zaubersprüche, with regard to Wolfgang Beck's 500 page professorial dissertation on the two magic incantations, one of the earliest pieces of recorded in writing German literature (from the early Middle Ages, from the 9th century A.D., but clearly based on a much earlier time and also not on Christian but specifically on pagan Germanic religion), and indeed, mostly because I was (and still in fact somewhat am) feeling both rather guilty and massively academically embarrassed at how very long it has taken me to peruse Beck's monograph, and yes, that even reading Die Merseburger Zaubersprüche very slowly (and with multiple and often months long breaks) has generally been pretty well a thankless task of perusing without really all that much academic understanding and absolutely NO reading pleasure and joy whatsoever.

But after recently having encountered a number of less academically dense (and because of this also considerably more interesting and engaging) articles and shorter books on the two magic spells, on the Merseburger Zaubersprüche), I have categorically decided to both leave my reading dates as they are and to equally also totally and absolutely stand by them, showing that it has indeed taken me from the middle of October 2017 until the end of June 2020 to finish with Die Merseburger Zaubersprüche, a reading time spent by necessity only sporadically at best and also with very much academic frustration, and annoyingly realising that while Wolfgang Beck's presented text might well contain elements and flashes of intellectual brilliance and of amazing both linguistic and literary knowledge, all of this is packaged into so much jargon, academic snobbery and intellectual denseness that one, that a reader must indeed (and in my humble opinion) require an advanced post graduate university level knowledge of especially historic Indo-European linguistics to even remotely understand Beck's analysis and interpretations of the two magic incantations.

Furthermore, because Wolfgang Beck penning 500 pages about two very short little pieces of early Mediaeval German literature is (from where I am standing) also kind of both ridiculous and a major scenario of academic overkill, I would never even consider recommending Die Merseburger Zaubersprüche unless a potential reader is not only and in particular interested in the two literary spells but is also both totally fluent in academic, university level German and does not mind and can handle Wolfgang Beck's linguistic jargon heavy writing style and his tendency to in my opinion also sometimes grandstand with his font of knowledge (because really, Die Merseburger Zaubersprüche would be so much more interesting and so much more accessible if the text were penned in a less convoluted and difficult manner, and sadly, reading Die Merseburger Zaubersprüche I also tend to quite understand when some if not even many people look askance as us academics and wonder if we are even interested in sharing our knowledge with anyone but the "initiated" and the supposedly intellectually worthy).