SOURCE: Resler, Michael. Introduction to Der Stricker: Daniel of the Blossoming Valley (Daniel von dem Blühenden Tal), translated by Michael Resler, pp. xi-lii. New York: Garland Publishing, 1990.

In the following introduction to his translation of der Stricker's Daniel of the Blossoming Valley, Resler encapsulates what is known of the poet's life, explores the literary influences on his Daniel, and surveys the poem's artistic achievement as a work of romance that departs from numerous conventions of Arthurian narrative.

Sometime during the early decades of the thirteenth century—probably between the years 1210 and 1225—a German poet, der Stricker, set about composing an Arthurian romance, Daniel of the Blossoming Valley (Daniel von dem Blühenden Tal). He wrote his story in Middle High German, a language which had already become the vehicle for a great flowering of German chivalric literature during the high Middle Ages.

While falling short of the...