Abstract

In spite of their apparent simplicity, some poems of the early Minnesang have always generated editorial and scholarly controversy. The interpretive difficulties of some passages are occasionally compounded by allusions which may demand specialized knowledge not immediately obvious to the modern reader. This is particularly true for scientific or technical materials, as the history of scholarship on Kürenberg's “Falcon Song” amply demonstrates. Another instance seems to be an “astronomical” poem by the same author which begins with a striking reference to a “dark star”