A Companion to Wolfram's "Parzival"

Abstract

Hasty, Will, ed. A Wolfram's Parzival. Rochester, NY. Camden House, 1999. 318 pp. $75.00 hardcover. A number of Companion to volumes relating Middle High German literature have been, or are about be, published under this imprint, including Nibelungenlied and Gottfried's Tristan. The intended audience of present volume is not made absolutely clear (see xix), but impression gained is that it is directed more at students and medievalists in other fields than at cutting edge of scholarship. It is likely find its way onto all undergraduate reading lists on in English-speaking world, as it gathers together contributions on a number of important themes and topics, and offers help nonexpert reader, by providing English translations of quotations from primary sources. As such, its appearance is be welcomed, but with a number of caveats. Given boast for this volume that essays provide a treatment in English of significant aspects of Parzival (xix), we are bound ask how definitive and how significant? Answering second of these first, we now examine scope of volume, which is divided into four unequal sections, preceded by an introduction by editor, dealing with some aspects of previous scholarship, mainly at level of literary history. The sections are: People, Places, and Things in (1-96), with four contributions; Wolfram's Art of Narration (97-140), with two; Cultural Contexts (141-242) with five. and The Modern Reception of Wolfram's (243-58), with only one; a consolidated bibliography of 19 pp. completes volume. Clearly, a work such as this cannot hope do justice vast array of secondary literature on Parzival, but it is indicative of level and scope of volume that there are no footnotes and only minimal references secondary literature in brackets in text of articles. One must therefore ask: are topics treated those which one would most like see included in an introductory work on Parzival? The answer can be only a qualified yes, since, although many seminal topics are ostensibly treated, treatment of some is wayward, so that actual mainstream coverage of important aspects is often wanting. The first section contains a short and somewhat superficial treatment of Gahmuret and Herzeloyde by Francis Gentry, in which much more could have been made of heritage of Parzival's parents later in work. This is followed by Women Characters, discussed profitably by Marion Gibbs, who, while taking issue with more recent scholarship, especially relating negative aspects of Herzeloyde in Book III, does not see fit modify her conclusions, which are essentially those of her earlier monograph. Martin Jones offers a long, carefully argued, well-structured essay on Gawan Story, which is a model of clarity and brings out cogently both significance of Gawan action and its relationship that of Parzival. In his investigation of Wolfram's Grail (curiously always spelt with a lower case initial letter in volume), Sidney Johnson gives a convenient survey of nature, characteristics, and possible origins of that mystical object of Parzival's quest, although some parts of argumentation, especially references Old Testament, based on Horgan, fail convince. Introducing second section, Adrian Stevens's essay on Narrative Sources argues with considerable acuity, comparing Wolfram's mode of composition with that of Chretien de Troyes (in his Erec et Enide) and evaluating in Wolfram's dependence on, and independence of, Contes del Graal of Chretien (generally agreed be his principal source), alongside Wolfram's references his alleged source, fictitious Kyot. This essay contains many insights, including how, working within generic form of Arthurian romance, Wolfram consciously wrote fiction, enjoying the freedom alter, recast and invent (113). …