section_path: Literature
section_name: Literature
paragraph_text: Literature
  
  The German language is used in German literature and can be traced back to the Middle Ages, with the most notable authors of the period being Walther von der Vogelweide and Wolfram von Eschenbach.The Nibelungenlied, whose author remains unknown, is also an important work of the epoch. The fairy tales collected and published by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in the 19th century became famous throughout the world.
  
  Reformer and theologian Martin Luther, who translated the Bible into High German (a regional group or German varieties at southern and therefore higher regions), is widely credited for attibuted to the basis for the modern Standard German language. Among the best-known poets and authors in German are Lessing, Goethe, Schiller, Kleist, Hoffmann, Brecht, Heine and Kafka. Fourteen German-speaking people have won the Nobel Prize in literature: Theodor Mommsen, Rudolf Christoph Eucken, Paul von Heyse, Gerhart Hauptmann, Carl Spitteler, Thomas Mann, Nelly Sachs, Hermann Hesse, Heinrich Böll, Elias Canetti, Günter Grass, Elfriede Jelinek, Herta Müller and Peter Handke, making it the second most awarded linguistic region (together with French) after English.