In the late Middle Ages, aristocratic and urban circles competed against each other for esteem, legitimacy, authority, and fame. Family chronicles gained significant importance in that process, but ...we can also identify a definite discourse on dynastic interests in historiographical terms in contemporary literature. This study illuminates in three cases how individual authors conceived of the notion of dynasty and traced the rise and/or fall of their protagonists. Even in the case of an utter demise, the topic itself, the emergence and development of a dynasty, appealed to the wider readership, as reflected in some of the major late medieval German prose narratives and novels. The concept of a mythical origin of the family was particularly attractive, but also the miraculous rise from a low social status to the rank of a king, unheard of in reality, of course.
Historians have studied the medieval city from many different perspectives already, and even literary historians have endeavoured to identify the evidence in fictional texts pertaining to urban ...spaces and figures. In many cases, however, the cities as they emerge before our eyes are rather imaginary or dream-like, and lack in historical specificity. This situation changed, as this article demonstrates, with the case of Rudolf von Ems’s Der guote Gêrhart (ca. 1220) and the verse narratives by Heinrich Kaufringer (ca. 1400). This study examines the data we can cull from both sides and presents it as the crucial indicator for the emergence of a new literary discourse dedicated to the world of late medieval cities. We begin to discover, though not yet in any consistent way, the formation of urban protagonists and of narrative contexts that are predicated on urban settings.
When medieval poets began to reflect on love, it was, from the beginning, a highly complex and problematic phenomenon, mostly determined by frustration, contradictions, and a lack of fulfilment. ...Highlighting particularly two major texts, one in Latin, the other in Middle High German, this paper brings to light the critically important element of discourse as part of the public performance of theoretical and practical reflections of love in the Middle Ages. Since courtly love thus has to be defined as a literary medium for courtly debates about its own identity, it makes perfect sense that we hardly ever hear about actual individual satisfaction and the realisation of erotic dreams. Instead, the overarching intention by medieval poets was to problematise the issue of love and to present its paradoxes, difficulties, and conflicts through the literary performance, not to present a maudlin, sentimental story with a simple happy end. As we realise here, the debate about proper attitudes towards the other gender, the analysis of values and virtues all contribute to the realisation of the discourse itself.
It is highly fashionable today to project either a very negative or a very positive image of the Middle Ages. The invention of the printing press has hence often been associated with a radical change ...in literature, religion, politics, and generally the public media. Indeed, we can observe an imminent paradigm shift, ultimately leading, above all, to the Protestant Reformation, which would not have been possible without the printing press. However, technological revolutions do not necessarily transform the
Zeitgeist
or the history of mentality, the general value systems, and hence the fundamental concepts of literature. Although many medieval romances and heroic epics were soon eclipsed by new types of prose novels, for instance, printed and sold on the early modern book markets, in many other cases the medieval narratives, such as the various versions of the
Melusine
novel and the jest narratives of
Till Eulenspiegel
, experienced an astounding afterlife and renewed interests through the printed versions, and this far into the seventeenth century. This article does not intend to diminish the huge impact of the printing press on late medieval culture, but wants to qualify further and discriminate more in detail what really changed and what remained the same within the history of literature. Both the narratives discussed here and their accompanying woodcuts demonstrate a smooth continuation of late medieval topics well into the early modern period.
In light of countless problems, the modern world faces, especially religious fanaticism, violence, and hatred, it is high time to reflect on some of the older literary statements once again that had ...already voiced critical concerns about the principles of human interaction determined by good communication, love, and tolerance. Maybe surprisingly, when we turn to Lessing’s Nathan der Weise (1779), we come across a major literary document in which those ideals are formulated convincingly and dramatically. While German scholarship has already discussed this play for a long time, it deserves much wider attention because of its strong advocation of those ideals, which we are in the highest need as of today.
Much of medieval literature, irrespective of the genre, contains considerable criticism of the hero or protagonist. In fact, in many cases the narrator voices rather harsh condemnation of his or her ...main characters who often demonstrate a lack of rationality, fail to observe basic rules and laws, and tend to act rather foolishly. In a survey at first, this article illustrates the presence of this phenomenon in a number of European literary texts from the twelfth through the fourteenth centuries. The focus of the present article, however, rests on the anonymous thirteenth-century Old French
chanson de geste
(or romance)
Huon de Bordeaux
. Here, more than in most other medieval narratives, the protagonist regularly rejects or disregards all concrete instructions, severe warnings, or commands and promptly runs into major problems. Although these contribute to the narrative development (more adventures), the critical analysis reveals, after all, a disturbingly negligent, irresponsible, and defiant character whose behavior might mirror profound social problems with late medieval knighthood and the political structure of that time.
Zusammenfassung
Dieser Aufsatz bietet eine erste tiefergehende Interpretation einer der besten Novellen des baltisch‐deutschen Autors Werner Bergengruen (1892–1964), der noch bis in die siebziger ...Jahre hinein hohes Ansehen genoss, der aber anschließend geradezu systematisch aus vielerlei, vor allem aber politischen Gründen aus der Öffentlichkeit verdrängt wurde. Literaturwissenschaftliches Arbeiten muss sich aber davor hüten, subjektiv‐ideologische Kriterien zu verfolgen oder sich einem kanonischen Denken zu verschreiben. Die Tatsache selbst, dass Bergengruen sozusagen über Nacht jedenfalls im germanistischen Kontext zu einer Person non grata wurde, verdient der kritischen Analyse insbesondere im Licht seiner vielleicht aussagekräftigsten aber weitgehend unbekannten Novelle „Der Strom“. Wie die Untersuchung erhellt, griff Bergengruen hier auf eine alte, bis ins Mittelalter zurückreichende literarische Tradition zurück, gestaltete aber den Stoff für seine eigenen Zwecke neuartig um: auf der einen Seite können wir feststellen, dass Bergengruen zu den wichtigsten Vertreterm des Medievalism im zwanzigsten Jahrhundert gehörte, auf der anderen lässt sich nachweisen, dass der doch sehr begabte Autor zu Unrecht in den Schatten gerückt wurde, obwohl er doch sehr eindrucksvoll mittels mittelalterlicher Motive tiefgründig über die Bedeutung des Lebens reflektierte.
Zusammenfassung
Dieser Aufsatz bietet eine erste tiefergehende Interpretation einer der besten Novellen des baltisch‐deutschen Autors Werner Bergengruen (1892–1964), der noch bis in die siebziger ...Jahre hinein hohes Ansehen genoss, der aber anschließend geradezu systematisch aus vielerlei, vor allem aber politischen Gründen aus der Öffentlichkeit verdrängt wurde. Literaturwissenschaftliches Arbeiten muss sich aber davor hüten, subjektiv‐ideologische Kriterien zu verfolgen oder sich einem kanonischen Denken zu verschreiben. Die Tatsache selbst, dass Bergengruen sozusagen über Nacht jedenfalls im germanistischen Kontext zu einer Person
non grata
wurde, verdient der kritischen Analyse insbesondere im Licht seiner vielleicht aussagekräftigsten aber weitgehend unbekannten Novelle „Der Strom“. Wie die Untersuchung erhellt, griff Bergengruen hier auf eine alte, bis ins Mittelalter zurückreichende literarische Tradition zurück, gestaltete aber den Stoff für seine eigenen Zwecke neuartig um: auf der einen Seite können wir feststellen, dass Bergengruen zu den wichtigsten Vertreterm des Medievalism im zwanzigsten Jahrhundert gehörte, auf der anderen lässt sich nachweisen, dass der doch sehr begabte Autor zu Unrecht in den Schatten gerückt wurde, obwohl er doch sehr eindrucksvoll mittels mittelalterlicher Motive tiefgründig über die Bedeutung des Lebens reflektierte.
