One late-medieval poet deliberately played on the motif of children in order to reflect upon his own frustration with his (involuntarily) withdrawn life in the Tyrolese Alps. Oswald von Wolkenstein (1376/77-1445) is famous today for his fascinating poetic experiments with poetic autobiography, with apodemic topoi (images of travel throughout the world), highly graphic images of erotic encounters with a country girl—perhaps his own future wife—and innovative literary images of political, economic, military, and religious issues.89 In contrast to most other contemporary poets Oswald openly and unhesitatingly reflects upon his own life, feelings, attitudes, and ideas. In his song "Durch Barbarei, Arabia"
(Kl 44) Oswald contrasts his past glorious experiences as an international traveler and diplomat with his present personal experiences and realizes to his deep frustration that the grand old days have passed and that he is stuck in his alpine world without many chances of returning to the glamorous stage of international politics. In face of the agricultural world, and frustrated with his boring family situation, he begins to beat up his children: "vor angst slach ich mein kinder"
(50).90 But whenever he dares to spank his children, their mother comes rushing out of the house and attacks him him in turn, reprimanding or even hitting him to protect the children from his violent outburst. As the poet states, rather facetiously and with tongue-in-cheek: "ab irem zoren mir da graust" (Kl 44, 48; I got really scared of her fury).91 As scholars have recognized many times, most allusions in Oswald's work to the real world have to be read metaphorically or symbolically, which suggests that also this reference to his own children does not
8 9 Anton Schwöb, Oswald von Wolkenstein, 3rd ed. Schriftenreihe des Südtiroler Kulturinstitutes, 4 (1977; Bozen: Athesia, 1982); Dirkjoschko, Oswald von Wolkenstein: Eine Monographie zu Person, Werk und Forschungsgeschichte. Göppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik, 396 (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1985);
for an English introduction, see Albrecht Classen, "Oswald von Wolkenstein. (1376/77 - 1445),"
Literary Encyclopedia (internet; 2004); this new reference work is available online only :
http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5559 (last accessed on March 14,2005).
90 Die Lieder Oswalds von Wolkenstein. Unter Mitwirkung von Walter Weiß und Notburga Wolf, herausgegeben von Karl Kurt Klein. Musikanhang von Walter Salmen. 3., neubearbeitete und erweiterte Auflage von Hans Moser, Norbert Richard Wolrf und Notburga Wolf. Altdeutsche Textbibliothek, 55 (1962; Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1987), cited as Kl 44 (Kl Standing for the editor, Klein).
9 1 Alan Robertschaw, Oswald von Wolkenstein: The Myth and the Man. Göppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik, 178 (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1977), 107-08. The problem with his reading is that he tries to excuse Oswald for his tendency toward domestic violence and child abuse, just as Oswald scholarship had done in the first half of the twentieth century, not perceiving the stylization of the effort to spank his children for obviously literary purposes.
necessarily carry autobiographical meaning.92 Oswald does not provide any reasons why he intended to beat his children, instead he only emphasizes his deep sense of disappointment with his life and his effort to find a substitution for his failures outside of the family. Violence, in other words, here does not signal to us that the poet truly subscribes to the concept of random and unexplainable violence within the family, although that is what actually happens. However, the father figure does not even have a chance to abuse his children, since the children's mother immediately comes to their rescue. The context clearly indicates that Oswald has no particular concern with the children, nor does he truly find his life on the South Tyrolean castle particularly interesting. Consequently, the spanking of the children proves to be not a message about parents who need to exert their physical authority with violent measures. On the contrary, Oswald plays with a well-known motif and casts himself as the abusive father. The fact by itself that such a literary role existed, and also that the father has to deal with the aggressive mother who quickly takes her children's side and threatens to beat her husband in turn indicates a much more complex relationship between parents and children.
In fact, as the poetic context indicates, Oswald cared neither about his peasant neighbors nor about his own children—all of them, however, threaten to restrict his artistic, individual activities, his political freedom, and his public performance.
The poet refers to his own children and their spanking as punishment only as a diversion to his own political and cultural failures, and then allows his own wife to speak up, chastising him for his rude behavior: "si spricht: 'swie hastu nu erzaust / die kind zu ainem zelten" (Kl 44,26-27; she said: 'how could you beat up the children like a pancake." Most indicative prove to be the subsequent lines: "ab irem zoren mir da graust, / doch mangeln ich sein selten" (Kl. 44, 28-29; I got really scared of her fury, but I have to go through this experience it quite often), insofar as the poet pretends truly not to care about his children and only includes the reference to his own violent treatment of his children as a comic interlude to emphasize his personal frustration and sense of forlornness.
Insofar as Oswald refers to the spanking of his own children as a condemnable past time, and immediately adds the comic admission of how much he is afraid of his wife's counter-measure, we can conclude that this song does not intend to glorify child abuse, nor does it discuss the gender relationships or family affairs.
Nevertheless, insofar as Oswald plays with this motif of physical abuse, he indicates that spanking children does not find common approval and is vehe-mently opposed by his wife who immediately protects her children against their
9 2 This was convincingly demonstrated once again by Sieglinde Hartmann, "Oswald von Wolkenstein et la Mediterranee: Espace de vie, espace de poesie," Jahrbuch der Oswald von Wolkenstein Gesellschaft, 8 (1994/1995): 289-320.
father. Moreover, Oswald reveals that his real issues are not the children, or his wife, but his own personal frustration in the rural world of South Tyrol where the noise of the animals (K1 44, 32) and the loud rushing of the creek (34) drive him crazy (see also his song K130); the children only serve a poetic function basically always related with the poet himself and his self-presentation.93
Nevertheless, insofar as he incorporates his children and his own harsh behavior toward them in his autobiographical poem, Oswald indicates, at least e negative,
that physical abuse of children is condemnable and would not even be approved by himself; otherwise he would not have included the appearance of his wife as their defender.94 Oswald as a poetic performer deliberately plays with the projection of himself as an abuser of his own child, and thereby he unintentionally sheds light on the considerable degree to which adults of his time could harbor love for their children and would have disapproved of his violent treatment of his own children only out personal frustration resulting from his political failures:
"Mein landesfürst, der ist mir gram / von böser leutte neide" (Kl. 44, 73-74; My Lord is angry with me, misled by evil people's envy of me). This peculiar example indicates, once again, how difficult it is to detect concrete examples of how medieval writers regarded children.
Fortunately, here and elsewhere we observe the same phenomenon which allows us to reach new ground in the exploration of the emotional history of the Middle Ages. Whenever poets address childhood, they do not treat children as mere objects but rather describe them, in a surprisingly modern terms, as lovable creatures, at least when the literary framework allows the protagonist or narrator to inject more intimate observations. Of course, children, just as much as most other figures that emerge in medieval literature, carry a symbolic and allegorical meaning,95 and this both in the "Strawberry Song" by the Wilde Alexander and in
93 Elisabeth Lienert, "Bilder von Kindheit bei Oswald von Wolkenstein," Jahrbuch der Oswald von Wolkenstein Gesellschaft 9 (1996/1997): 111-20.
9 4 Johannes Grabmayer, Europa im späten Mittelalter, 119-21.
Lienert, "Bilder," 120, would be correct in her conclusion: "Selbstzweck ist Kindheitsschilderung in deutschen literarischen Texten des Mittelalters und der Frühen Neuzeit also nie;
Kindheitsdarstellung ist vielmehr entschieden funktional" (children are never portrayed in medieval and early-modern German literary texts just for their own sake: children's portraits are, on the contrary, definitely functional). Nevertheless, from the perspective of mental history, we still can detect specific information about medieval attitudes regarding children even in allegorical texts, such as in Der Wilde Alexander's so-called "Strawberry Song," "Hie vor do wir kinder wären" (V), where human history in its religious-ethical dimensions is cast in the images of childhood which is a sudden transformation into puberty and early adulthood after one of the children has been bitten by a snake. Quoted from: Deutsche Literdichter des 13. Jahrhunderts, ed. Carl von Kraus. Vol.
I: Text. 2nd ed., rev, by Gisela Kornrumpf (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1978), 12—13. In order to convey a religious teaching, the Wilde Alexander draws from the concept of childhood and unmistakably
Oswald von Wolkenstein's nostalgic song Kl. 44 "Durch Barbarei, Arabia."
Nevertheless, the fact of their appearance all by itself, and the observation that these children are portrayed as children, confirm that childhood was an considered an important stage in human development and hence appreciated in its own terms.