Mediality and ›Synesthesia‹. On the Voice of the Watchman in the Late-Medieval Dawn Song Tradition

Abstract

As in Aristotle’s definition of voice as a medium between the soul and the body’s exterior, the medieval tageliet offers a poetic reflection upon the correlation between voice, sound, space and perception. Even Wolfram has dawn songs in which the voice of the watchman is the first to reveal the perception of daybreak to the courtly lovers. In Wolfram’s poetry light and sound join together with the lovers for a synesthetic experience that also involves the sense of touch as a result of their loving embraces after waking. According to Martianus Capella, music is also perceived through the three human senses of sight, hearing and touch. Thus, minne and sane become connected with each other through their sensory perception. In Oswald’s tageliet (Kl 16), the perception of the watchman himself is marked as synesthetic. Love becomes a medial event in the sound of the voice: a voice is lent to the lyrical sound by the voice of the watchman.