“ The mastery of style is no less conspicuous. Gottfried had learned his best lessons from Hartmann von Aue, but he was a more original and daring artificer of rhymes and rhythms than that master; he delighted in the sheer music of words, and indulged in antitheses and allegorical conceits to an extent that proved fatal to his imitators. As far as beauty of expression is concerned, Gottfried's Tristan is the masterpiece of the German court epic. ”

“ In all probability he did not belong to the nobility, as he is entitled Meister, never Herr, by his contemporaries; his poem—the only work that can with any certainty be attributed to him bears witness to a learned education. ”