The Nibelungenlied
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Tanning and foxing
Markings: Previous owner
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
The Nibelungenlied — meaning The Song of the Nibelungs — stands as one of the great towering achievements of medieval German literature, an anonymous epic poem composed around 1200 AD that chronicles the heroic deeds, catastrophic betrayals, and blazing vengeance of a warrior civilization on the cusp of its own destruction. At its heart is the legendary hero Siegfried, a figure of invincible prowess who wins the hand of the Burgundian princess Kriemhild, only for a web of jealousy and treachery — engineered by the formidable queen Brunhild and the scheming courtier Hagen — to bring him to a devastating end. Set across the grand courts of Burgundy and the halls of the Hunnish king Etzel, the poem paints a world of tournaments, dragon's blood, and political intrigue, where honour is paramount and its violation demands a reckoning measured in rivers of blood. Rooted in the same mythological soil as the Norse Völsunga Saga and later immortalised in Richard Wagner's operatic cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen, this anonymous masterwork presents timeless themes of loyalty, fate, and the consuming nature of grief-turned-wrath. The Penguin Classics edition, translated to make the rich, alliterative grandeur of the original Middle High German accessible to a modern audience, remains the definitive entry point for English-language readers. It is a work that does not merely recount a legend — it argues, with every stanza, that the seeds of civilization's ruin are sown within its own greatest virtues. Whether you are drawn by the heroic tradition or by the haunting inevitability of its tragedy, this epic will not release you easily.
Author: Various
Format: Paperback
Genre: Myths & legends
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Tanning and foxing
Markings: Previous owner
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
The Nibelungenlied — meaning The Song of the Nibelungs — stands as one of the great towering achievements of medieval German literature, an anonymous epic poem composed around 1200 AD that chronicles the heroic deeds, catastrophic betrayals, and blazing vengeance of a warrior civilization on the cusp of its own destruction. At its heart is the legendary hero Siegfried, a figure of invincible prowess who wins the hand of the Burgundian princess Kriemhild, only for a web of jealousy and treachery — engineered by the formidable queen Brunhild and the scheming courtier Hagen — to bring him to a devastating end. Set across the grand courts of Burgundy and the halls of the Hunnish king Etzel, the poem paints a world of tournaments, dragon's blood, and political intrigue, where honour is paramount and its violation demands a reckoning measured in rivers of blood. Rooted in the same mythological soil as the Norse Völsunga Saga and later immortalised in Richard Wagner's operatic cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen, this anonymous masterwork presents timeless themes of loyalty, fate, and the consuming nature of grief-turned-wrath. The Penguin Classics edition, translated to make the rich, alliterative grandeur of the original Middle High German accessible to a modern audience, remains the definitive entry point for English-language readers. It is a work that does not merely recount a legend — it argues, with every stanza, that the seeds of civilization's ruin are sown within its own greatest virtues. Whether you are drawn by the heroic tradition or by the haunting inevitability of its tragedy, this epic will not release you easily.