Gender erasures, knightly maidens and (un)knightly knights in Hartmann von Aue’s Iwein

Abstract

This article proposes that in the editing process of Hartmann von Aue’s Iwein, Karl Lachmann and G. F. Benecke suppressed and edited out aspects of the gender system and reduced it to a binary system that in many ways reflects nineteenth-century notions more than medieval ones. The article clarifies that the greater gender ambiguity created by Hartmann becomes more readily apparent through the comparison to contemporary versions of the tale. This gender ambiguity exists on the semantic, syntactic and plot levels, which this article proposes to show along with a more nuanced interpretation of what knightly and unknightly behavior means in Hartmann’s adaptation of Iwein.