HARTMANN, MORITZ (1821-1872), German poet and author, was born of Jewish parentage at Duschnik in Bohemia on the 15th of October 1821. Having studied philosophy at Prague and Vienna, he travelled in south Germany, Switzerland and Italy, and became tutor in a family at Vienna. In 1845 he proceeded to Leipzig and there published a volume of patriotic poems, Kelch und Schwert (1845). Fearing in consequence prosecution at the hands of the authorities, he abided events in France and Belgium, and after issuing in Leipzig Neuere Gedichte (1846) returned home, suffered a short term of imprisonment, and in 1848 was elected member for Leitmeritz in the short-lived German parliament at Frankfort-on-Main, in which he sided with the extreme Radical party. He took part with Robert Blum (1807-1848) in the revolution of that year in Vienna, but contrived to escape to London and Paris. In 1849 he published Reimchronik des Pfaffen Mauritius, a satirical political poem in the style of Heine. During the Crimean War (1854-56) Hartmann was correspondent of the Kölnische Zeitung, settled in 1860 in Geneva as a teacher of German literature and history, became in 1865 editor of the Freya in Stuttgart and in 1868 a member of the staff of the Neue Freie Presse in Vienna. He died at Oberdöbling near Vienna on the 13th of May 1872.
Among Hartmann’s numerous works may be especially mentioned Der Krieg um den Wald (1850), a novel, the scene of which is laid in Bohemia; Tagebuch aus Languedoc und Provence (1852); Erzählungen eines Unsteten (1858); and Die letzten Tage eines Königs (1867). His idyll, Adam und Eva (1851), and his collection of poetical tales, Schatten (1851), show that the author possessed but little talent for epic narrative. Hartmann’s poems are often lacking in genuine poetical feeling, but the love of liberty which inspired them, and the fervour, ease and clearness of their style compensated for these shortcomings and gained for him a wide circle of admirers.
His Gesammelte Werke were published in 10 vols, in 1873-1874, and a selection of his Gedichte in the latter year. The first two volumes of a new edition of his works contain a biography of Hartmann by O. Wittner. See also E. Ziel, “Moritz Hartmann” (in Unsere Zeit, 1872); A. Marchand, Les Poètes lyriques de l’Autriche (1892); Brandes, Das junge Deutschland (Charlottenburg, 1899).
HARTMANN VON AUE (c. 1170-c. 1210), one of the chief Middle High German poets. He belonged to the lower nobility of Swabia, where he was born about 1170. After receiving a monastic education, he became retainer (dienstman) of a nobleman whose domain, Aue, has been identified with Obernau on the Neckar. He also took part in the Crusade of 1196-97. The date of his death is as uncertain as that of his birth; he is mentioned by Gottfried von Strassburg (c. 1210) as still alive, and in the Krone of Heinrich von dem Türlin, written about 1220, he is mourned for as dead. Hartmann was the author of four narrative poems which are of importance for the evolution of the Middle High German court epic. The oldest of these, Erec, which may have been written as early as 1191 or 1192, and the latest and ripest, Iwein, belong to the Arthurian cycle and are based on epics by Chrétien de Troyes (q.v.); between them lie the romance, Gregorius, also an adaptation of a French epic, and Der arme Heinrich, one of the most charming specimens of medieval German poetry. The theme of the latter—the cure of the leper, Heinrich, by a young girl who is willing to sacrifice her life for him—Hartmann had evidently found in the annals of the family in whose service he stood. Hartmann’s most conspicuous merit as a poet lies in his style; his language is carefully chosen, his narrative lucid, flowing and characterized by a sense of balance and proportion which is rarely to be found in German medieval poetry. Gregorius, Der arme Heinrich and his lyrics, which are all fervidly religious in tone, imply a tendency towards asceticism, but, on the whole, Hartmann’s striving seems rather to have been to reconcile the extremes of life; to establish a middle way of human conduct between the worldly pursuits of knighthood and the ascetic ideals of medieval religion.
Erec has been edited by M. Haupt (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1871); Gregorius, by H. Paul (2nd ed., Halle, 1900); Der arme Heinrich, by W. Wackernagel and W. Toischer (Basel, 1885) and by H. Paul (2nd ed., Halle, 1893); by J. G. Robertson (London, 1895), with English notes; Iwein, by G. F. Benecke and K. Lachmann (4th ed., Berlin, 1877) and E. Henrici (Halle, 1891-1893). A convenient edition of all Hartmann’s poems by F. Bech, 3 vols. (3rd ed., Leipzig, 1891-1893, vol. 3 in 4th ed., 1902).
The literature on Hartmann is extensive. See especially L. Schmid, Des Minnesingers Hartmann von Aue Stand, Heimat und Geschlecht (Tübingen, 1874); H. Rötteken, Die epische Kunst Heinrichs von Veldeke und Hartmanns von Aue (Halle, 1887); F. Saran, Hartmann von Aue als Lyriker (Halle, 1889); A. E. Schönbach, Über Hartmann von Aue (Graz, 1894); F. Piquet, Étude sur Hartmann d’Aue (Paris, 1898). Translations have been made into modern German of all Hartmann’s poems, while Der arme Heinrich has repeatedly attracted the attention of modern poets, both English (Longfellow, Rossetti) and German (notably, Gerhart Hauptmann). See H. Tardel, Der arme Heinrich in der neueren Dichtung (Berlin, 1905).