The Nibelungenlied in England. William Morris

This contribution deals with William Morris's as yet unpublished translation of part of the Nibelungenlied. After reviewing the Victorian author's education and interests in ancient Germanic literature, especially Nordic literature, I focus on Morris's choice to translate the Middle High German poem. I therefore attempt to reconstruct the cultural context of the time in England around the Nibelungs and the medieval German language, with the interest of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the production of two translations of the Nibelungenlied by Birch (1848) and Lettsom (1850), comparing them with Morris's manuscript, a translation dating from around 1870. Morris's translation is analyzed on the basis of the manuscript, looking at how he worked, translating stanza by stanza and immediately commenting on the lexical choices he made. Morris's translation is then compared with those of Birch and Lettsom, which confirms Morris's search for an archaic Germanic lexicon, thus placing this translation within the ideological choices he was also applying to his translations of Nordic material. Finally, the contribution concludes by emphasizing the importance that the Nibelungenlied had in Morris's literary canon, beyond the fact that he did not complete the translation.