Konfliktverläufe: Normen der Geschlechterbeziehungen in Texten des 17. Jahrhunderts by Ursula Kundert

Abstract

MLR, I0I.4, 2006 i i6i the latter add little essential new information to the survey of Gottfried manuscripts by Thomas Klein (in Deutsche Handschriften II00-I400: Oxforder Kolloquium I985, ed. by Volker Honemann and Nigel Palmer (Tiibingen: Niemeyer, I988), pp. i6o 67). By cutting down on these aspects, space might have been found for a collation (to name one desideratum) of at least the more significant readings ofW with the edited text of Marold/Schroder. As well as usefully complementing the similar collation of MSS M, B, and E by Bruggen and Ziegeler (in the volume cited above), such a list would have rendered instantly visible the interest and value ofW for textual criticism. Some of the extra space might also have been used for amplifying and contextual izing the major ambition that the editor hopes to see realized through her project. Firchow wants to draw a line under the whole sorry tale of Gottfried's treatment by philology; she offers her own edition as a fresh start ('Neuanfang'), in the hope that it will encourage scholars to relinquish themisguided project of a critical edition which purports to restore what the author originally wrote, and concentrate their efforts in stead on known quantities, namely the work as historically transmitted (pp. xiv-xv). One can certainly endorse all that as a defensible way forward; nevertheless, it is a pity that the introduction does not discuss any of the proposals for a new Tristan edition which are already on the table. For example, Rene Wetzel suggested several years ago a synoptic edition inwhich the archetype, reconstructed chiefly from H and W, would be placed opposite itsmost influential recension *BEbe (Die handschriftliche Uberlieferung des 'Tristan' Gottfrieds von Strassburg untersucht an ihren Fragmenten (Fribourg: Universitatsverlag, I992), p. 400); more recently Ingrid Bennewitz, in the volume cited above, has proposed a threefold synoptic text, which would allow readers to compare important transmission variants of Gottfried's text: the 'vulgate' version (represented by H), the abridged recension (represented by the oldest manuscript M), and the text of a third, late medieval witness. Itwould be interesting to know how Firchow sees her own plea for a new beginning in relation to these other suggestions for editing Gottfried (which, itmust be added, do not envisage 'restorative' critical editions of exactly the kind she justifiably questions); by not considering them, she misses an opportunity to argue that her 'Neuanfang' iswhat is really needed, rather than sheer endurance in seeing one of the existing proposals through to completion. What will actually happen next in the story of editing Tristan is, of course, another question altogether, and one towhich this reviewer does not know the answer. In the meantime, Gottfried scholars are bound to be grateful to the editor for giving us this excellent edition which we cannot afford to ignore. TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE MARK CHINCA Konfliktverldufe: Normen der Geschlechterbeziehungen in Texten des I7. Jahrhunderts. By URSULA KUNDERT. (Quellen und Forschungen zur Literatur- und Kul turgeschichte, 33) Berlin: de Gruyter. 2004. xi+322 pp. E98. ISBN 3-II OI-799I-I. In this thought-provoking study, Ursula Kundert examines the techniques through which fictional and non-fictional texts participated in the theological, political, and economic discourses which had a normative influence on gendered behaviour in the seventeenth century. She locates an impressive variety of works within these discourses, including Harsdorffer's Frauenzimmer Gesprdchspiele, Johann Gorgias's Jungferlicher Zeit-Vertreiber, and 'Landesordnungen' from Sachsen-Gotha. She is rightly not making a particular case for the direct influence of texts on social be haviour, since only around five per cent of the population in this period were literate. Rather, she examines how depictions of behaviour towards the opposite sex in texts are regulated by social norms as well as constituting ameans of transmitting norms. i i 62 Reviews Kundert interestingly suggests that inmany cases the texts she examines were aimed primarily atmale readers, who, itwas supposed, would directly regulate the behaviour of their female family members and servants. The first section of this work provides a detailed and informative overview of gen der theory, drawing widely on the work of Judith Butler. Texts, forKundert, contain a performance of gender, which draws on...