Ebook: Heinrich Steinhöwel’s Esopus and the corpus of Aesopica in sixteenth-century Germany [thesis]

The German fable in the sixteenth century represents a fusion of basically two traditions: the Latin fable, derived primarily from Phaedrus and Avianus and known throughout the Middle Ages, and the Greek Prose tradition, which had been virtually unknown during the Middle Ages. The history of the fable in sixteenth-century Germany is veiy much the history of the marriage of these two traditions.

The Greek fable came to Germany first in the form of two Italian translations from the Greek: Valla and Rinuccio. Rinuccio's one hundred fables first appear in German in Steinhöwel's Esopus (1476/1477). Steinhöwel selected seventeen of the fables in Rinuccio's collection and edited them, providing translations into German. No other version of Rinuccio's fables appeared in Latin until the publication of Waldis' Esopus in 1548; although a very few of Valla's fables did find their way into German through Brant's redaction of Steinhöwel's Esopus and the translation of this volume into German in 1535.

Steinhöwel's Esopus had a strong influence upon fable writers of the early sixteenth century. Martin Luther and Hans Sachs were very strongly influenced by the Esopus, and Steinhöwel's influence upon other fable collections, though indirect in most cases, can not be discounted.

Steinhöwel's Esopus contains nearly half of the total number of fable motifs that appeared in Germany during the sixteenth century. This study is primarily concerned with defining the fables found in Steinhöwel's Esopus in terms of the total corpus of Aesopica found in Germany in the sixteenth century.

All known Aesopic fables are listed in a Compendium of Aesopica according to the numbers assigned to them in Ben Edwin Perry's Aesopica, and all known fables in German are analysed in an attempt to define the corpus known to Germany during this period. All fables are marked if known earlier than the sixteenth century, and the most likely source of the fable, if known, is given. The Greek fables are listed by translation and collection, and are marked according to their first known appearance in Germany.