Dialektdichtung

Dialektdichtung, term applied to dialect works written after the establishment of the modern standard language, especially when the dialect is consciously used, either to maintain a threatened tradition or because of its freshness, vigour, or quaintness. Dialect literature (Viennese and a few other instances excepted) is primarily a feature of the 19th c. and the 20th c. The first outstanding instance is the volume Alemannische Gedichte (1803) by J. P. Hebel. In the middle of the 19th c. K. Groth and F. Reuter wrote most of their works in their native Low German (Plattdeutsch) dialects, those of Holstein and Mecklenburg respectively. More than 500 exponents of High German dialect literature are recorded in works of reference, and a score or so for Low German. For High German, apart from Hebel, the following are among the more notable: L. Anzengruber, H. C. Artmann, I. F. Castelli, W. A. Corrodi, A. Frey, J. K. Grübel, G. Hauptmann, C. Karlweis, F. von Kobell, J. F. Kringsteiner, G. J. Kuhn, K. Malß, J. N. Nestroy, F. Raimund, P. Rosegger, J. V. Sailer, K. Schönherr, J. G. Seidl, F. Stelzhamer, L. Thoma, J. M. Usteri, and J. Weinheber. For Low German, in addition to Groth and Reuter, J. Brinckman, H. Burmester, H. H. Fehrs, R. Kinau, J. Stinde, and F. Stavenhagen deserve mention. Some of these dialect writers use a simplified form of the local language in order to make their works intelligible to a larger public, e.g. L. Anzengruber and G. Hauptmann, whose play Die Weber exists in modified dialect and also as De Waber, in full Silesian. A special form of dialect literature is found in the Viennese Volksstück. See also German Language, History of.