The wind whipped snow up the slope as a man walked aimlessly. His coat, soaked and heavy, brushed against the icy rock with every step he took up the mountain. The silence was broken only by the crunching of ice beneath his boots, and the fog enveloped him with a density that seemed to absorb everything. When the mountain closed its way, the the walker continued to move forwardas if the outside world had ceased to exist. This ascension erased him from time and made him, without knowing it, the seed of a legend.
The name of this traveler belonged to a 13th century German poet who lived between the trenches and the roads, and whose history was almost completely erased. The figure of Tannhäusercollected centuries later by The green compassunited reality and myth in a story about guilt and desire. Its concrete existence is elusive, but its echo has been maintained thanks to a literary tradition which transformed it into a symbol of penitence and spiritual search.
Tannhäuser’s memory was suspended between rare data and later accounts
Sources place Tannhäuser at the court of Vienna around 1245, under the protection of Duke Frederick II of Austria. There he composed verses which exalted the aspirations of the sovereign, who desired the throne. The fall of the duke during the Battle of Leitha in 1246 cut short the stability of the poet, who lost his protector and became a write about lack of customers and personal ruin. From then on, his life becomes a succession of displacements and laments about precariousness.
Concerning its origin, the most accepted theories connect it to a family of imperial ministers called Tanhusendocumented on the border between Middle Franconia and Upper Palatinate. A tower in Thannhausen, today part of Freystadt, was reported as a possible residence. Some researchers, such as Johannes Siebertsupport this hypothesis and exclude a birth into the Ostalbkreis nobility. The lack of testing and almost anonymous character of the troubadour They kept the discussion open about his true identity.
The myth was born from his own compositions. The poems collected in Codex Manessepreserved since the 14th century, include courtly praises, amorous satires and moralistic pieces. Among them stand out the Fürstenlobdedicated to Duke Frederick, and to Kreuzlieda reflection on the crusade that some have interpreted as a personal confession. The call Bussliedor Song of Penance, was the germ of the legendary transformation of the author into a character in search of redemption after a life of pleasure.
Richard Wagner’s opera established the most widespread version of the character
In the middle of the 15th century, popular stories transformed the troubadour into a knight who, after having lived a year in Venus Mountaintried to obtain papal pardon, without success. When the Pontiff’s staff turned green three days later, those sent in search of it could not find it: the the poet had returned to the mountain never to leave it again.
Over time, the story was adapted into ballads and plays until reaching its final version in opera. Tannhäuser and the war war auf Wartburgpremiered by Richard Wagner in 1845. In this piece, the composer fused the struggle between the earthly and the divine in a musical drama that placed the ancient troubadour at the center of European culture.
In his poetic work, Tannhäuser showed a voice unusual for his time. His love songs often parodied the codes of courtly love, while his reflective poems mixed irony and morality. Of the 16 pieces preserved in the Codex Manessesome celebrate dance and others express the solitude of an artist without support. His style and treatment of repentance anticipated the mythical figure who would elevate him from the status of a wandering troubadour to the protagonist of a story that has managed to reach the present day.
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