Swiss Literature

As there is no dominant national language, the four main languages of French, Italian, German and Romansch form the four branches which make up a literature of Switzerland. The original Swiss Confederation, from its foundation in 1291 up to 1798, gained only a few French-speaking districts in what is now the Canton of Fribourg, and so the German language dominated. During that period the Swiss vernacular literature was in German, although in the 18th century, French became fashionable in Bern and elsewhere. At that time, Geneva and Lausanne were not yet Swiss: Geneva was an ally and Vaud a subject land. The French branch does not really begin to qualify as Swiss writing until after 1815, when the French-speaking regions gained full status as Swiss cantons. The Italian and Romansch-Ladin branches are less prominent.

Like the earlier charters of liberties, the original League of 1291 was drawn up in Latin. Later alliances among the cantons, as well as documents concerning the whole Confederation—the Parsons Ordinance of 1370, the Sempach Ordinance of 1393, the Compact of Stans (1481) and all the Recesses of the Diets—were compiled in German. Political documents are not necessarily literature, but these pre-Reformation alliances rested on popular consent, and were expressed in vernacular German rather than in clerkly Latin.

Swiss-German literature

Emergence of vernacular literature

First in order of date are the Minnesingers, the number of whom in the districts that ultimately formed part of the medieval Swiss Confederation are said to have exceeded thirty. Zürich then (as now) was the chief literary centre of the Confederation. The two Manesses (father and son) collected many of their songs in a manuscript that has happily come down to us and is preserved in Paris. The most prominent was Master John Hadlaub, who flourished in the second half of the 13th and the first quarter of the 14th centuries. Next we have a long series of war songs, celebrating the victories of the Swiss. One of the earliest and most famous of these was composed by Hans Halbsuter of Lucerne to commemorate the battle of Sempach (1386), not far from his native town. There are other similar songs for the victory of Näfels (1388) and those of the battle of Grandson and battle of Morat (both 1476) in the Burgundian War. In the 14th century the Dominican friar Ulrich Boner of Bern versified many old fables.

More important are the historical chronicles. In the 14th century we have Christian Kuchlmaster's continuation of the annals of the famous monastery of St Gall, in the early 15th century the rhymed chronicle of the war between the Appenzellers and the abbot of St Gall, and rather later in the same century the chronicles of Conrad Justinger of Bern and Hans Fründ (died 1469) of Lucerne, besides the fantastical chronicle of Strattligen and a scarcely less fanciful poem on the supposed Scandinavian descent of the men of Schwyz and of Ober Hasle, both by Elogius Kiburger (died 1506) of Berne.

In the 15th century, too, we have the ''White Book of Sarnen'' and the first William Tell song, which gave rise to the well-known legend, as well as the rather later play named the ''Urnerspiel'' dealing with the same subject. The Burgundian War witnessed a great outburst of historical ardour in the shape of chronicles written by Diebold Schilling (died 1486) of Bern, by Melchior Russ (died 1499), Diebold Schilling the Younger (d. between 1516 and 1523) and Petermann Etterlin (died 1509), all three of Lucerne as well as by Gerold Edlibach (died 1530) of Zürich, and by Johnanes Lenz (died 1541) of Brugg. In the vernacular, too, are the earliest descriptions of the Confederation, those by Albert von Bonstetten of Einsiedeln (1479) and by Conrad Turst of Zürich (1496), to whom also we owe the first map of the country (1495–1497).

The Swiss humanists wrote in Latin, as did also the Swiss Reformers, at any rate for the most part, though the Zürich Bible of 1531 is an exception. Nicholas Manuel (1484–1530), a many-sided Bernese, composed satirical poems in German against the pope, while Valerius Anshelm (died 1540), also of Bern, wrote one of the best Swiss chronicles. Aegidius Tschudi of Glarus, despite great literary activity, published but a single German work in his lifetime, the ''Uralt warhafflig Alpisch Rhaetia sam pt dem Tract der anderen Alpgebirgen'' (1538) besides his map of Switzerland (same date). Sebastian Munster, who was a Swiss by adoption, published (1544) his ''Cosmographia'' in German, the work being translated into Latin in 1550. But the many-sided Conrad Gesner, a born Swiss, wrote all his works in Latin, German translations appearing only at a later date.

The first important original product in German was the remarkable and elaborate history and description of Switzerland, issued in 1548 at Zürich by Johannes Stumpf of that town. But Josias Simler, who was in a way his continuator, wrote all his works, theological and geographical, in Latin. Matthew Merian engraved many plates, which were issued in a series of volumes (1642–1688) under the general title of ''Topographia'', the earliest volume describing Switzerland, while all had a text in German by an Austrian, Martin Zeiller. Very characteristic of the age are the autobiography of the Valais scholar Thomas Platter (1499–1582) and the diary of his still more distinguished son Felix (1536–1614), both written in German, though not published till long after.

Gradually Swiss historical writers gave up the use of Latin for their native tongue, so Michael Stettler (1580–1642) of Bern, Franz Haffner (1609–1671) of Soleure, and quite a number of Grisons authors (though the earliest in date, Ulrich Campell of Süs