John Meier (folklorist)

John Meier ( born June 14, 1864 in Vahr; † May 3, 1953 in Freiburg im Breisgau ) was a German medievalist germanistischer and folklorist. He founded both the Swiss and the German folk song archive.

Career

Meier studied at the universities of Freiburg and Tübingen, German, Romance, English, history and anthropology. In 1888 he received his doctorate in Freiburg with a thesis studies on the poet and the language of, Jolanda '; 1891 and his habilitation at the University of Halle with the work studies on language and literary history of the Rhineland in the Middle Ages. In the following years he worked intensively with folksong research and postulated his theory of cultural decline. In 1899 he became Professor of German Philology at the University of Basel and tried now on a systematic collection of folk songs. Between 1905 and 1912 he was chairman of the Swiss Society of Ethnology. In 1906 he founded the Swiss folk song archive. From 1911 he headed the Association of German Associations of Ethnology. In 1912 he became professor of ethnology in Freiburg. In 1914, he founded the German folk song archive. In 1935 he published a critically annotated collection of German folk songs: the edition German folk songs with their melodies. In addition, he founded the magazine ' Yearbook for Folk Song Research ', now under the title "Song and Popular Culture / Song and Popular Culture ". With regard to the question of whether he sympathized 1933-1945 with the Nazi ideology, there is no absolute certainty. The fact is that he advocated scientific standards in folklore. On the 5th German Volkskundetag 1938 he appealed in this and in terms of international understanding to the delegates. In his role as Chairman of Association, he saw himself - especially in light of threats by the Office Rosenberg - forced to cooperate with the Ahnenerbe SS. In 1948, he said goodbye to the role of the association manager. The state of Baden -Württemberg he transferred the auspices of the German folk song archive.

Prizes and awards

Works

• The German soldier's song in the field. Strasbourg 1916 ( Trübner's Library Vol 4)
• Folk song studies. Strasbourg 1917 ( Trübner's Library Vol 8)
• German soldiers language. Karlsruhe 1917
• Goethe, Freiherr vom Stein and the German folklore. Past, present and future. 1926
• Ballads, Volume 1-2, Reclam, Stuttgart 1935-1936 ( German literature ... in Development Series). Reprint University Press, Darmstadt 1964 ( anthology of folk ballads texts with short comments )
• German Folk Song Archive and individual publishers [ Volumes 1-4 under the direction of John Meier ]: German folk songs with their melodies. Ballads [ DVldr; critical edition of the entire repertoire of German folk ballad ], Volume 1 ff, ff Berlin 1935 - Otto Holzapfel include: German folk songs with their melodies. Ballads, Volume 10, Peter Lang, Bern 1996 ( with folk ballads Index, Catalog of all German-speaking folk ballad types, Volume 10 concludes with the folk ballad number 168 of a total of around 300 folk ballad types, ., This edition has been discontinued )

John Meier's characteristic of the folk song and folk ballad 1935

The two-volume Anthology ballads, part 1 and 2, edited by John Meier in the series, The German folk song ' as volumes 1 and 2 and in the Germanic total row, German literature ... in developmental series ' in Stuttgart, Reclam, 1935-1936 (Reprinted in Darmstadt in the Scientific Book Company, 1964) is a brief overview of the planned major Edition, German folk songs with their melodies appear ballads of the first half of 1935, the band also. The ' Introduction ' page 7 to page 34 reads even today (despite sometimes time-dependent choice of words ) very 'modern' and balanced. The songs are not " created in the people," but folk song is, without regard to origin, that which "has become volkläufig [ volksläufig, that remained popular over a longer period ] ." While there is a Creator of the text [ and the melody, the conditions are excluded here; for the large edition own comments are from 1935 also to the tunes worked out ], but here it to "collective song and community ownership ." Folk song is an " instant form " (p. 7). The following is an outline of the history of the folk song of the hero songs and early historical songs, from early Latin sources and the " Wineliet " at the time of Charlemagne until the first evidence of a popular ballad, of which one with some certainty only with the Kölbigk Dance in 11th century can speak, which is in Low German " a German ballad" (p.12 f.) Other sources are there from the 12th to the 14th century in richer abundance, among others, the song of Kriemhild's Revenge at Saxo, on the day song, with the younger Hildebrandslied and then the early folk ballads, such as the of the, wife of White castle '. For this and later periods is important the minstrel; Meier drawing attention to the negative position of Hans Naumann towards the game man whose role Meier, however, " energetic " (p.19) stresses. It also exists in the song in the second half of the 14th to the 16th century, a " bourgeois " (p. 21 ). Important products are the folk ballad "Farmer in the wood ", "Poor Judas", parallel documents in Witten hamlet ( Heinrich Wittenwiler ) " ring " ( p.22 f ), the early Bänkelsang and the newspaper song - the latter spread by the new medium of "flying sheets " ( pamphlets ) in the 16th and 17th century play a significant role (p. 25).

The style form of the folk song based on the fact that " the songs also in fact be partly improvised ( Oral Tradition ) and not carried forward already in solid form " like (p. 27). The " oral " style of the folk song has been adopted by the minstrel poetry; in minstrelsy was partially improvised. This is a " characteristic of the folk song " and art- moderate poems, which pass into the vernacular that they are " impregnated with these forms of oral style ". " They are a sign of Volkläufigkeit of the songs. " (P. 27 f.) "," The formulaic Solidified " and " Hiking verses "(p. 28); In this document, features of repetition and recovery, " fixed verses that occur in similar situations in the same way " find (compare Epic formula p. 28) same decorative epithets " (brown maid, etc., loyal, snow white, etc. ), as well as the " improvisation facilitating " rhyme bonds, assonance, the same construction of lines of verse, paired rhymes, fusion of song parts from different songs and so on (p. 29). There is attention to formulas with which the singer turns to the audience with questions, there are rhetorical questions in the text ( What the ...? ) And volkläufigen circulation shortcuts are created (Graf and nun, wife of White Castle, Count of Rome). Sometimes the tragic in a sentimental conclusion is changed, inserted is the community center instead of the castle, texts on rural conditions, umgesungen '. The tradition of folk ballads conditionally, the forms and contents are changed, materials are selected, but also changed. "So is the former individual shape to form a community " (p. 33). "With each repeated singing the song is re- created as it again from the singer. The reproduction here is approaching the production up to full coverage "(p. 33 f.)