German Arthurian Romance Research Articles

Putting the Net Back into the Internet: The Materiality of Networks from a Premodern Perspective

This essay engages head on with this special issue’s central question—what do medieval things have to tell us about connectivity and object-mediated communication?—by comparing the depiction of nets in medieval sources with our contemporary imaginations of the Internet. The Internet is popularly thought of as immaterial—as wireless and ethereal lines of communication—rather than as pipelines and server villages. While the terms network, Internet, and World Wide Web are modern, nets are among the oldest human technologies. Medieval sources portray them as composed of both material and immaterial elements; as both strings and the gaps between. The elements of a net that are seen as immaterial—the spaces between the strings—are essential to its function. Whether a net is used for carrying, hunting, or decorating, those spaces ensure that prey cannot see it from the outside, that it is stretchable, and that it allows a glimpse into what is within. The material strings are equally essential: they are the elements that capture and hold. Medieval texts and images (for instance, various depictions of Vulcan’s net and Arachne’s net and weft, the German Arthurian romance Daniel of the Blossoming Valley, and the Arabic story collection Kalila and Dimna) emphasize the tension between material and immaterial components by exaggerating the inescapability of the nets from the inside and the invisibility of the nets from the outside. They also stress the nature of nets as traps rather than connectives and use them as metaphors for narratives, much as network analysis uses nets as metaphors for a variety of structures and areas of knowledge. In this essay I suggest returning to a notion of nets, including the Internet, as material, as a corrective to current perceptions. I also argue that the fear of nets as traps might persist in modern imaginations of the Internet.

German romance, v.5: Erec

Erec is the earliest extant German Arthurian romance, freely adapted and translated into Middle High German by the Swabian knight, Hartmann von Aue, from the first Old French Arthurian romance, Chretien de Troyes' Erec et Enide. Hartmann's work dates from c. 1180, but the only (almost) complete manuscript dates from the early sixteenth century, copied into the huge two-volume Ambraser Heldenbuch, now housed in Vienna - the most comprehensive extant compilation of medieval German romances and epics, commissioned by Emperor Maximilian I. Otherwise, only a few earlier medieval fragments survive. Erec tells the story of a young knight at King Arthur's court, whose early prowess wins him high repute, and a beautiful wife, Enite. He falls into disrepute because of his excessively zealous devotion of his time to her. Alerted to his notoriety, he embarks on a series of symbolic adventures, which eventually lead to his achieving a new balance between the claims of love and those of society. Far more than a simple translation, Hartmann's first attempt at an Arthurian romance is notable for its zest and gusto. This is the first edition with a parallel text translation into English; it is presented with explanatory notes and variant readings. Cyril Edwards is a Senior Research Fellow of Oxford University's Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, and an Honorary Research Fellow of University College London.

Middle High German Arthurian Romance: New Readings

When Bonnie Wheeler approached me with the idea of assembling a special issue on the Middle High German Arthurian romances, I immediately became interested in the project. Indeed, as a long-time reader of Arthuriana I had often lamented that so few articles on the German romances appear in the journal, and this despite the large size of the German corpus and its centrality to the medieval European Arthurian tradition. I also realized that the scarcity of German pieces in Arthuriana was but a symptom of a larger phenomenon. Thus despite the relatively large number of North Americans working on German Arthurian romance, those scholars tend to present their findings in conference and print venues devoted narrowly to German Studies. And unlike colleagues in English, French, and Dutch, for example, North American scholars of German Arthuriana both participate less in interdisciplinary organizations like the International Arthurian Society and seem ever more detached from doing collaborative work with Arthurian researchers outside German. All this seems to have contributed to a declining awareness of German Arthuriana by colleagues working in the other Arthurian national traditions, a trend that decreasing German-language literacy among humanities scholars has only exacerbated. While the ability to read scholarly German well is still fairly common among the generation of Arthurian experts who are at retirement age, such proficiency is now rare among scholars under sixty. This means that few young scholars outside German Studies ever even consider venturing into the thorough and generally excellent-but notoriously dense, often awkwardly written, and sometimes repetitive-research on medieval Arthuriana that appears voluminously every year in the German language. Arthuriana's current editor, Dorsey Armstrong, and I hope that this special issue helps to remedy, albeit in a very small way, some of these issues. By presenting essays in English, we intend both to give colleagues outside German Studies an idea of the types of innovative research scholars of German Arthuriana are currently pursuing as well as to encourage those colleagues to revisit the German Arthurian romances and to incorporate them into their research and teaching. Further, we hope that this volume will motivate German Arthurian scholars to publish more of their findings in English so as to make them accessible to scholars outside German Studies. And lastly, we hope that this special German issue will encourage more North American researchers of German Arthuriana to contribute their scholarship to this journal and to interact more greatly with Arthurian scholars outside German Studies. The articles appearing in this issue, by five North American scholars at very different stages in their careers, represent a variety of approaches to medieval Arthuriana. James H. Brown, for instance, investigates the use of ekphrasis in a work that was enormously successful in the Middle Ages but which is today strangely underappreciated, namely, Wirnt von Gravenberg's Wigalois. As Brown deftly illustrates, the author employs ekphrasis to establish a message of religious toleration that is unusually progressive for the time. Straddling both medieval German and Old French traditions, Stephen Mark Carey's contribution is a piece of philological detective work that uses the average time of delay in reception for Old French works into Middle High German to date the romances of Chretien de Troyes. …

Hospitality and Status: Social Intercourse in Middle High German Arthurian Romance and Courtly Narrative

Within medieval German Arthurian romance and courtly narrative leading nobles actively cultivate hospitality and jealously guard their roles within this fundamental social institution. In these texts ideas about hospitality center on notions of power and status, and hospitality becomes an important expression of the implicit rules governing social discourse.

Select Bibliography for Middle High German Arthurian Romance of English-Language Translations and Recent Scholarship in English

general scholarship on middle high german arthurian romance Gibbs, Marion E. and Sydney M. Johnson. Medieval German Literature: A Companion. New York: Garland, 1997. Green, D.H. Medieval Listening and Reading: The Primary Reception of German Literature 800-1300. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. _____. Women and Marriage in German Medieval Romance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Gurttler, Karin R. 'German Arthurian Literature (Medieval).' In The New Arthurian Encyclopedia. Ed. Norris J. Lacy. New York: Garland Publishing Inc., 1991. Pp. 182-88. Henry, April Lynn. 'The Female Lament: Agency and Gender in Medieval German Literature.' Diss. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2008. Jackson, W.H. and S.A. Ranawake, eds. The Arthur of the Germans: The Arthurian Legend in Medieval German and Dutch Literature. Arthurian Literature in the High Middle Ages 3. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2000. Mayer, Hartwig. 'The Round Table: Survey of Recent Arthurian Scholarship in German.' Arthuriana 5.4 (1995): 89-94. _____. 'The Round Table: A Survey of Recent Scholarship [i.e. 1993-2001] in German.' Arthuriana 12.1 (2002): 141-52. Rasmussen, Ann Marie. 'Medieval German Romance.' In The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Romance. Ed. Roberta L. Krueger. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp.183-202. Sterling-Hellenbrand, Alexandra. Topographies of Gender in Middle High German Arthurian Romance. New York: Garland, 2001. Sullivan, Joseph M. Counsel in Middle High German Arthurian Romance. Goppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik 690. Goppingen: Kummerle Verlag, 2001. Summers, Sandra L. 'Frouwen Schouwen: The Female Gaze in Middle High German Texts.' Diss: Duke University, 2004. albrecht's jungerer titurel [younger/newer titurel] Gibbs, Marion. 'Fragment and Expansion: Wolfram von Eschenbach, Titurel and Albrecht, Jungerer Titurel.' In The Arthur of the Germans: The Arthurian Legend in Medieval German and Dutch Literature. Ed. W.H. Jackson and S.A. Ranawake. Arthurian Literature in the High Middle Ages 3. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2000. Pp. 69-80. Parshall, Linda B. 'Albrecht.' In The New Arthurian Encyclopedia. Ed. Norris J. Lacy. New York: Garland Publishing Inc., 1991. Pp. 4-5. _____. The Art of Narration in Wolframs 'Parzival' and Albrecht's 'Jungerer Titurel'. Anglo-Germanica Series 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Volfing, Annette. 'Albrecht's Jungerer Titurel: Translating the Grail.' Arthurian Literature 22 (2005): 49-63. _____. Medieval Literacy and Textuality in Middle High German: Reading and Writing in Albrecht's Jungerer Titurel. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. der pleier's garel von dem bluhenden tal [garel of the blooming valley], meleranz, & tandareis und flordibel The Pleier's Arthurian Romances: Garel of the Blooming Valley, Tandareis and Flordibel, Meleranz. Trans. J.W. Thomas. New York: Garland, 1992. Tax, Petrus W. 'Pleier, Der.' In The New Arthurian Encyclopedia. Ed. Norris J. Lacy. New York: Garland Publishing Inc., 1991. Pp. 362-63. Wahl, James. 'Investigations of the Pleier's Meleranz.' Diss: University of Michigan, 1986. Wallbank, Rosemarie. 'Three Post-Classical Authors: Heinrich von dem Turlin, Der Sticker, Der Pleier.' In The Arthur of the Germans: The Arthurian Legend in Medieval German and Dutch Literature. Ed. W.H. Jackson and S.A. Ranawake. Arthurian Literature in the High Middle Ages 3. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2000. Pp. 81-97. der sticker's daniel von dem bluhenden tal [daniel from the blooming valley] Classen, Albrecht. 'The Role of Women in the Stricker's Courtly Romance Daniel von dem bluhenden Tal.' In Women as Protagonists and Poets in the Middle Ages: An Anthology of Feminist Approaches to Middle High German Literature. Ed. Albrecht Classen. …

A Companion to the works of Hartmann von Aue

In perhaps 25 years of creative productivity (ca. 1180-ca. 1205), Hartmann von Aue authored a dispute about love between the body and the heart, Die Klage, numerous songs of courtly love, crusading songs, and most likely took part in a Crusade himself. He composed the first German Arthurian romance, Erec, based on Chretien's like-named work, and he -- apparently -- ended his literary career with a second, Iwein. Further, he is the creator of two provocative rel-igious-didactic works, Gregorius, a tale of double incest, repentance, and redemption, and Der arme Heinrich, the account of a seemingly perfect nobleman who is stricken with leprosy and then ultimately cured by a process set into motion by a very young peasant girl, whom he ultimately marries. No other medieval German poet treats such an extraordinary breadth of themes at such a high level of artistic expression. The essays in this volume, written by scholars from North America and Europe, offer insight into many aspects of Hartmann's oeuvre, including the medieval and modern visual and literary reception of his works. The volume also offers considerations of Hartmann and Chretien; Hartmann's putative theological background and the influence of the Bible on his tales; the reflection of his medical knowledge in Der arme Heinrich and Iwein; and a complete survey of his lyric production. Newer avenues of research are also presented, with essays on issues of gender and on the role of pain as a constitutive part of the courtly experience. It is hoped that this volume will prove to be a stimulating companion not only for those familiar with Hartmann but also for those who are just making the acquaintance of one of the greatest of medieval German poets.Francis G. Gentry is Professor Emeritus of German at the Pennsylvania State University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Topographies of Gender in Middle High German Arthurian Romance

Topographies of Gender in Middle High German Arthurian Romance

Topographies of Gender in Middle High German Arthurian Romance

Topographies of Gender in Middle High German Arthurian Romance

Eyewitness Accounts of the Thirty Years War 1618-48 by Geoff Mortimer (review)

MLRy 99.1, 2004 239 Topographies of Gender in Middle High German Arthurian Romance. By Alexandra Stirling-Hellenbrand. (Medieval History and Culture) New York and Lon? don: Garland. 2001. xviii + 244pp. $70. ISBN 0-415-93009-x(hbk). The review of this book can be short, but hardly sweet. The author writes as a feminist interested in the application of gender studies to medieval literature, an approach that has yielded, and can still yield, valuable insights, not least with regard to the works discussed in this book (Hartmann's Erec and Iwein, Wolfram's Parzival, and Gottfried's Tristan). The attempt is made to link two distinct research topics: space and movement on the one hand (already much worked on) and gender on the other. The result unhappily yields a little on the firsttopic, only scattered observations on the second, with no convincing linkage between the two. The text is little more than a rambling, unsystematic discourse, heavily dependent on selective secondary literature and at times degenerating into a string of quotations from other scholars with a rehash of their views. Much space is given up to a plot synopsis of each of the four works (for whom is this felt to be necessary?) and to frequent and lengthy quotations from the originals, together with translations. After all this has been deducted, what remains is a handful of observations of some use, but with little bearing on the theme of space and movement or on the 'topography of gender', a term which the author has adopted from a German feminist. The book is littered with printing (or authorial) errors and typesetting blunders and infelicities, leading one to question what proof-reading was done. (How can anyone with linguistic sensitivity allow the name 'Gottfried' to be divided regularly at the end ofa line into 'Got-' and 'tfried'?) Given the price of this book, one has a right to hope for a higher quality of scholarship and to expect more efficientprinting. Caveat emptorl Trinity College, Cambridge D. H. Green Eyewitness Accounts of the Thirty Years War 1618-48. By Geoff Mortimer. Bas? ingstoke: Palgrave. 2002. x + 2i4pp. ?45. ISBN 0-333-98404-8 (hbk). This remarkable work is based on an impressive sixty-six eyewitness accounts which the author has drawn together forthe firsttime. Although all the accounts have been published, mostly in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, few of them have been the subject of any detailed, modern research. Most of them were written by German speakers, and only one of them (by Colonel Robert Monro, published in 1637) appears to have been intended for immediate publication. The texts are personal accounts, written by men and women with direct experience of the Thirty Years War, who present an individual perception of the war, and focus on the war as their principal subject. Eyewitness accounts can be considered on the one hand as historical sources, and on the other as literary texts. Mortimer's valuable study combines both approaches in an interesting way. Early chapters (3-7) use the texts to correct our image of the Thirty Years War, while later ones (8-13) examine individual texts or groups of texts, asking how and why they were written. The popular image of the Thirty Years War is one of 'prolonged devastation', a 'cataclysm' from which it took Germany centuries to recover (p. 1). This image has dominated many fictional and historical accounts of the war in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, drawing on the most extreme depictions in contemporary accounts. However, eyewitness accounts, whether they are private diaries or officialrecords, do not always represent the war accurately, and none gives the whole picture. Some writers may be embellishing the truth for their own purposes, while others repeat questionable anecdotes which they believed to be 240 Reviews true and which were common currency at the time: Mortimer mentions, forexample, the frequent reports of cannibalism (pp. 99, 173). As Mortimer points out, modern historians of the Thirty Years War present a more differentiated picture, reminding us, for example, that while some areas of Germany experienced war,plague, and famine, others were untouched formany years. However, Mortimer presents a picture which goes beyond that of...

Topographies of Gender in Middle High German Arthurian Romance by Alexandra Stirling-Hellenbrand (review)

MLRy 99.1, 2004 239 Topographies of Gender in Middle High German Arthurian Romance. By Alexandra Stirling-Hellenbrand. (Medieval History and Culture) New York and Lon? don: Garland. 2001. xviii + 244pp. $70. ISBN 0-415-93009-x(hbk). The review of this book can be short, but hardly sweet. The author writes as a feminist interested in the application of gender studies to medieval literature, an approach that has yielded, and can still yield, valuable insights, not least with regard to the works discussed in this book (Hartmann's Erec and Iwein, Wolfram's Parzival, and Gottfried's Tristan). The attempt is made to link two distinct research topics: space and movement on the one hand (already much worked on) and gender on the other. The result unhappily yields a little on the firsttopic, only scattered observations on the second, with no convincing linkage between the two. The text is little more than a rambling, unsystematic discourse, heavily dependent on selective secondary literature and at times degenerating into a string of quotations from other scholars with a rehash of their views. Much space is given up to a plot synopsis of each of the four works (for whom is this felt to be necessary?) and to frequent and lengthy quotations from the originals, together with translations. After all this has been deducted, what remains is a handful of observations of some use, but with little bearing on the theme of space and movement or on the 'topography of gender', a term which the author has adopted from a German feminist. The book is littered with printing (or authorial) errors and typesetting blunders and infelicities, leading one to question what proof-reading was done. (How can anyone with linguistic sensitivity allow the name 'Gottfried' to be divided regularly at the end ofa line into 'Got-' and 'tfried'?) Given the price of this book, one has a right to hope for a higher quality of scholarship and to expect more efficientprinting. Caveat emptorl Trinity College, Cambridge D. H. Green Eyewitness Accounts of the Thirty Years War 1618-48. By Geoff Mortimer. Bas? ingstoke: Palgrave. 2002. x + 2i4pp. ?45. ISBN 0-333-98404-8 (hbk). This remarkable work is based on an impressive sixty-six eyewitness accounts which the author has drawn together forthe firsttime. Although all the accounts have been published, mostly in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, few of them have been the subject of any detailed, modern research. Most of them were written by German speakers, and only one of them (by Colonel Robert Monro, published in 1637) appears to have been intended for immediate publication. The texts are personal accounts, written by men and women with direct experience of the Thirty Years War, who present an individual perception of the war, and focus on the war as their principal subject. Eyewitness accounts can be considered on the one hand as historical sources, and on the other as literary texts. Mortimer's valuable study combines both approaches in an interesting way. Early chapters (3-7) use the texts to correct our image of the Thirty Years War, while later ones (8-13) examine individual texts or groups of texts, asking how and why they were written. The popular image of the Thirty Years War is one of 'prolonged devastation', a 'cataclysm' from which it took Germany centuries to recover (p. 1). This image has dominated many fictional and historical accounts of the war in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, drawing on the most extreme depictions in contemporary accounts. However, eyewitness accounts, whether they are private diaries or officialrecords, do not always represent the war accurately, and none gives the whole picture. Some writers may be embellishing the truth for their own purposes, while others repeat questionable anecdotes which they believed to be ...

Topographies of Gender in Middle High German Arthurian Romance. Alexandra Sterling-Hellenbrand

Previous articleNext article No AccessReviewsTopographies of Gender in Middle High German Arthurian Romance. Alexandra Sterling-Hellenbrand Sarah Westphal-WihlSarah Westphal-Wihl Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Speculum Volume 78, Number 4Oct., 2003 The journal of the Medieval Academy of America Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1017/S0038713400101435 Views: 5Total views on this site Copyright 2003 The Medieval Academy of AmericaPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Patronage and literary context in a fourteenth-century German Arthurian romance: the Rappoltstein Parzifal

Patronage and literary context in a fourteenth-century German Arthurian romance: the Rappoltstein Parzifal

The Shape of the round Table: Structures of Middle High German Arthurian Romance

The Shape of the round Table: Structures of Middle High German Arthurian Romance

The Shape of the Round Table: Structures of Middle High German Arthurian Romance. James A. Schultz

Previous articleNext article No AccessReviewsThe Shape of the Round Table: Structures of Middle High German Arthurian Romance. James A. Schultz Jeff RiderJeff Rider Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Speculum Volume 60, Number 1Jan., 1985 The journal of the Medieval Academy of America Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/2852173 Views: 3Total views on this site Copyright 1985 The Medieval Academy of AmericaPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.