Lutwin's Eva und Adam : a study and edition of the poem from Codex vindobonensis 2980

Abstract

Preface: Exactly a hundred years after the publication of Lutwin's Eva und Adam for the first time, this study hopes to revive interest in a work which can be regarded as part of an important European literary tradition: the translation into the vernacular of the Latin apocryphal account of the postlapsarian lives of Adam and Eve. In view of this a translation into English of the Middle High German text has been included, in order to assist in the comparison of the various versions of the legends in the vernacular. In recent years translations have been made of Old Irish and Old French versions but not of any of the Middle High German versions. Of these Lutwin's poem is the most extensive and arguably the most interesting. A late copy of the work is all that has come down to us, but the mid-fifteenth century Codex Vindob.2980 contains twenty-nine illustrations which occupy a virtually unique place within Adam and Eve iconography and need no justification for their inclusion in this study.