TO HAVE A VOLUME that is concerned primarily with Old High German as the second, rather than the first volume in a literary history of German may at first glance seem surprising. The first volume of this literary history, however, is intended to give an overview of the pre-literary situation and of the movement toward literacy in the context of the Germanic peoples. It also considers Germanic literature on a broader scale, looking at Old English, Old Norse and Gothic, as well as giving a brief sketch of Old High German, a sketch which is developed and given flesh in the present volume. The first volume also contains a detailed discussion of the important early work in Old Low German, the Old Saxon Heliand, which might equally well have been included in this volume. Although this volume contains discussions of the literature of Germany (which includes literature in Latin) during what is known generally as the Old High German period, from the beginnings of writing in German in the eighth century down to the middle of the eleventh, of course some of the chapters look forward to the Middle High German period. Breaks determined by language change do not usually coincide neatly with literary developments.