GOTTFRIED VON STRASSBURG, one of the chief German poets of the middle ages. The dates of his birth and death are alike unknown, but he was the contemporary of Hartmann von Aue, Wolfram von Eschenbach and Walther von der Vogelweide, and his epic Tristan was written about the year 1210. In all probability he did not belong to the nobility, as he is entitled Meister, never Herr, by his contemporaries; his poem—the only work that can with any certainty be attributed to him—bears witness to a learned education. The story of Tristan had been evolved from its shadowy Celtic origins by the French trouvères of the early 12th century, and had already found its way into Germany before the close of that century, in the crude, unpolished version of Eilhart von Oberge. It was Gottfried, however, who gave it its final form. His version is based not on that of Chrétien de Troyes, but on that of a trouvère Thomas, who seems to have been more popular with contemporaries. A comparison of the German epic with the French original is, however, impossible, as Chrétien’s Tristan is entirely lost, and of Thomas’s only a few fragments have come down to us. The story centres in the fatal voyage which Tristan, a vassal to the court of his uncle King Marke of Kurnewal (Cornwall), makes to Ireland to bring back Isolde as the king’s bride. On the return voyage Tristan and Isolde drink by mistake a love potion, which binds them irrevocably to each other. The epic resolves itself into a series of love intrigues in which the two lovers ingeniously outwit the trusting king. They are ultimately discovered, and Tristan flees to Normandy where he marries another Isolde—“Isolde with the white hands”—without being able to forget the blond Isolde of Ireland. At this point Gottfried’s narrative breaks off and to learn the close of the story we have to turn to two minor poets of the time, Ulrich von Türheim and Heinrich von Freiberg—the latter much the superior—who have supplied the conclusion. After further love adventures Tristan is fatally wounded by a poisoned spear in Normandy; the “blond Isolde,” as the only person who has power to cure him, is summoned from Cornwall. The ship that brings her is to bear a white sail if she is on board, a black one if not. Tristan’s wife, however, deceives him, announcing that the sail is black, and when Isolde arrives, she finds her lover dead. Marke at last learns the truth concerning the love potion, and has the two lovers buried side by side in Kurnewal.
It is difficult to form an estimate of Gottfried’s independence of his French source; but it seems clear that he followed closely the narrative of events he found in Thomas. He has, however, introduced into the story an astounding fineness of psychological motive, which, to judge from a general comparison of the Arthurian epic in both lands, is German rather than French; he has spiritualized and deepened the narrative; he has, above all, depicted with a variety and insight, unusual in medieval literature, the effects of an overpowering passion. Yet, glowing and seductive as Gottfried’s love-scenes are, they are never for a moment disfigured by frivolous hints or innuendo; the tragedy is unrolled with an earnestness that admits of no touch of humour, and also, it may be added, with a freedom from moralizing which was easier to attain in the 13th than in later centuries. The mastery of style is no less conspicuous. Gottfried had learned his best lessons from Hartmann von Aue, but he was a more original and daring artificer of rhymes and rhythms than that master; he delighted in the sheer music of words, and indulged in antitheses and allegorical conceits to an extent that proved fatal to his imitators. As far as beauty of expression is concerned, Gottfried’s Tristan is the masterpiece of the German court epic.
Gottfried’s Tristan has been frequently edited: by H. F. Massman (Leipzig, 1843); by R. Bechstein (2 vols., 3rd ed., Leipzig,1890-1891); by W. Golther (2 vols., Stuttgart, 1889); by K. Marold (1906). Translations into modern German have been made by H. Kurz (Stuttgart, 1844); by K. Simrock (Leipzig, 1855); and, best of all, by W. Hertz (Stuttgart, 1877). There is also an abbreviated English translation by Jessie L. Weston (London, 1899). The continuation of Ulrich von Türheim will be found in Massman’s edition; that by Heinrich von Freiberg has been separately edited by R. Bechstein (Leipzig, 1877). See also R. Heinzel, “Gottfrieds von Strassburg Tristan und seine Quelle” in the Zeit. für deut. Alt. xiv. (1869), pp. 272 ff.; W. Golther, Die Sage von Tristan und Isolde (Munich, 1887); F. Piquet, L’Originalité de Gottfried de Strasbourg dans son poème de Tristan et Isolde (Lille, 1905). K. Immermann (q.v.) has written an epic of Tristan und Isolde (1840), R. Wagner (q.v.) a musical drama (1865). Cp. R. Bechstein, Tristan und Isolde in der deutschen Dichtung der Neuzeit (Leipzig, 1877).
GÖTTINGEN, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Hanover, pleasantly situated at the west foot of the Hainberg (1200 ft.), in the broad and fertile valley of the Leine, 67 m. S. from Hanover, on the railway to Cassel. Pop. (1875) 17,057, (1905) 34,030. It is traversed by the Leine canal, which separates the Altstadt from the Neustadt and from Masch, and is surrounded by ramparts, which are planted with lime-trees and form an agreeable promenade. The streets in the older part of the town are for the most part crooked and narrow, but the newer portions are spaciously and regularly built. Apart from the Protestant churches of St John, with twin towers, and of St James, with a high tower (290 ft.), the medieval town hall, built in the 14th century and restored in 1880, and the numerous university buildings, Göttingen possesses few structures of any public importance. There are several thriving industries, including, besides the various branches of the publishing trade, the manufacture of cloth and woollens and of mathematical and other scientific instruments.
The university, the famous Georgia Augusta, founded by George II. in 1734 and opened in 1737, rapidly attained a leading position, and in 1823 its students numbered 1547. Political disturbances, in which both professors and students were implicated, lowered the attendance to 860 in 1834. The expulsion in 1837 of the famous seven professors—Die Göttinger Sieben—viz. the Germanist, Wilhelm Eduard Albrecht (1800-1876); the historian, Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann (1785-1860); the orientalist, Georg Heinrich August Ewald (1803-1875); the historian, Georg Gottfried Gervinus (1805-1875); the physicist, Wilhelm Eduard Weber (1804-1891); and the philologists, the brothers Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm (1785-1863), and Wilhelm Karl Grimm (1786-1859),—for protesting against the revocation by King Ernest Augustus of Hanover of the liberal constitution of 1833, further reduced the prosperity of the university. The events of 1848, on the other hand, told somewhat in its favour; and, since the annexation of Hanover in 1866, it has been carefully fostered by the Prussian government. In 1903 its teaching staff numbered 121 and its students 1529. The main university building lies on the Wilhelmsplatz, and, adjoining, is the famous library of 500,000 vols, and 5300 MSS., the richest collection of modern literature in Germany. There is a good chemical laboratory as well as adequate zoological, ethnographical and mineralogical collections, the most remarkable being Blumenbach’s famous collection of skulls in the anatomical institute. There are also a celebrated observatory, long under the direction of Wilhelm Klinkerfues (1827-1884), a botanical garden, an agricultural institute and various hospitals, all connected with the university. Of the scientific societies the most noted is the Royal Society of Sciences (Königliche Sozietät der Wissenschaften) founded by Albrecht von Haller, which is divided into three classes, the physical, the mathematical and the historical-philological. It numbers about 80 members and publishes the well-known Göttingische gelehrte Anzeigen. There are monuments in the town to the mathematicians K. F. Gauss and W. E. Weber, and also to the poet G. A. Bürger.
The earliest mention of a village of Goding or Gutingi occurs in documents of about 950 A.D. The place received municipal rights from the German king Otto IV. about 1210, and from 1286 to 1463 it was the seat of the princely house of Brunswick-Göttingen. During the 14th century it held a high place among the towns of the Hanseatic League. In 1531 it joined the Reformation movement, and in the following century it suffered considerably in the Thirty Years’ War, being taken by Tilly in 1626, after a siege of 25 days, and recaptured by the Saxons in 1632. After a century of decay, it was anew brought into importance by the establishment of its university; and a marked increase in its industrial and commercial prosperity has again taken place in recent years. Towards the end of the 18th century Göttingen was the centre of a society of young poets of the Sturm und Drang period of German literature, known as the Göttingen Dichterbund or Hainbund (see [Germany]: Literature).
See Freusdorff, Göttingen in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart (Göttingen, 1887); the Urkundenbuch der Stadt Göttingen, edited by G. Schmidt, A. Hasselblatt and G. Kästner; Unger, Göttingen und die Georgia Augusta (1861); and Göttinger Professoren (Gotha, 1872); and O. Mejer, Kulturgeschichtliche Bilder aus Göttingen (1889).