Abstract
This essay, which takes as its starting-point an analysis of the prologue of the Wolfdietrich D, investigates the question of how far orality constitutes a generic criterion, and how reference to an oral source is to be understood in interpretative and aesthetic terms. A closely related question is that of the aesthetic perspectives underlying the work's reception. Wolfdietrich D tends to be dismissed by standard medieval literary histories as a second-rate and incompetent compilation, but it was regarded in the 15th and 16th centuries as one of the "bestsellers" of the genre. It is, however, conceivable that it was precisely the work's insistence upon oral transmission, and the fact that the narrative is anchored in a "heroic age" which defies more precise definition, that provided the agenda for ensuring the survival of the genre of heroic poetry - at least for some centuries to come.
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