Christian Kiening (review)

Abstract

252 Reviews A particular strength of Heinzle's book is that it gives up-to-date information about survivingtextual witnesses, including severalthat have come to light only in recent years. The information about the manuscript situation of AlphartsTod (pp. 83-84) is important.Heinzle also drawsattention to problemsthat stillcry out for attention:thus on page 60 he stressesthe need for furtherworkon the historical epics, and then there is stillthe vexed question of the relation of the Eckenlied to the French Chevalier duPapegau (p. II9), which he now seems to regardas a much more open question than in his book of 1978(see there,pp. I44-57). Each section is given its own bibliography, with emphasis on the most recent secondary literature(one small correction:Autor undAutorschaft imMittelalter, ed. by Elizabeth Andersen and others, mentioned on page 75, appeared in I998, not i988). There is an index of authors of secondary literature, a separate index of primary authors and works, a list of manuscriptsmentioned, and a list of relevant illustrativematerialdiscussed.A smallnumber of illustrations,gatheredtogetherat the end, is a very welcome but tantalizingfeature:they make us long for a thorough and comprehensive treatment of the whole tradition of Theodoric-Dietrich in sculpture,carving,painting, and book illustration. INSTITUTE OFGERMANIC STUDIES, LONDON JOHNL. FLOOD Schwierige Modernitdt. Der Ackermann' desJohannes vonTeplunddieAmbiguitit historischen Wandels. By CHRISTIAN KIENING. (Munchener Texte und Untersuchungen zur deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters, 113) Ttibingen: Niemeyer. 1998. viii + 716 pp. + i6 plates. DM 156. A venerable interpretativetradition,associatedperhapsmost closelywith the name of KonradBurdach,haslong seenJohannes von Tepl'sprosedialogueDerAckermann ausBohmen (c.I400) as a work of epoch-making importance, representing no less than the first flowering in German of 'modern', Italian-inspired Renaissance Humanism. Along with so many other tenets of old-school 'Geistesgeschichte', however,thisview now seemsatbestpartial,afactthathasneverbeen demonstrated more thoroughly or persuasivelythan in this majornew study (ChristianKiening's 'Habilitationsschrift'). Kiening's is an ambitiousproject.He not only seeksto applyto the interpretation of theAckermann Bakhtin'stheory ofdialogicity, Kristeva'sofintertextuality, and his own of 'schwierigeModernitat' (in which 'modernity'is understood as the process ofmoving away,howevercautiouslyandambivalently,fromestablishedconventions and ideologies), but also attempts an immensely wide-ranging survey of the Ackermann's manuscriptand incunable tradition,textual history,sources,reception, and influence. An opening chapter ('Schwellen') sets out his agenda. Then a pair of chapters ('Texte' and 'Kontexte') examine in detail what might be called the text-internal and text-external 'Uberlieferungsgeschichte'of the dialogue. This investigation, which hasnever seriouslybeen attemptedbefore,yieldsmany insights.Forexample, Kiening demonstrates cogently the impossibility of reliably reconstructing the Ackermann's archetype,refutes(tomy mind conclusively)Antonin Hruby'snotion of itspossessinga common sourcewith the Czech Tkadlecek, revealsthe importancefor its transmissionof Diebolt Lauber'sAlsatian scriptoriumand of Albrecht Pfister's Bamberg press, and points to its appearance in several manuscripts with such apparentlydiversetexts as the German Belial,the Sieben weisen Meister, and Heinrich von Langenstein'sDe contemptu mundi. Variousfactorsimply that the Ackermann was valued by fifteenth-centuryand sixteenth-centuryreaders perhaps primarilyas a 252 Reviews A particular strength of Heinzle's book is that it gives up-to-date information about survivingtextual witnesses, including severalthat have come to light only in recent years. The information about the manuscript situation of AlphartsTod (pp. 83-84) is important.Heinzle also drawsattention to problemsthat stillcry out for attention:thus on page 60 he stressesthe need for furtherworkon the historical epics, and then there is stillthe vexed question of the relation of the Eckenlied to the French Chevalier duPapegau (p. II9), which he now seems to regardas a much more open question than in his book of 1978(see there,pp. I44-57). Each section is given its own bibliography, with emphasis on the most recent secondary literature(one small correction:Autor undAutorschaft imMittelalter, ed. by Elizabeth Andersen and others, mentioned on page 75, appeared in I998, not i988). There is an index of authors of secondary literature, a separate index of primary authors and works, a list of manuscriptsmentioned, and a list of relevant illustrativematerialdiscussed.A smallnumber of illustrations,gatheredtogetherat the end, is a very welcome but tantalizingfeature:they make us long for a thorough and comprehensive treatment of the whole tradition of Theodoric-Dietrich in sculpture,carving,painting, and book illustration. INSTITUTE OFGERMANIC STUDIES, LONDON...