Abstract
In the J.T., the themes of authorship, narration, and narrator-identity are handled in a manner that is unusually complex, even by the standards of classical Arthurian romance. Following Haug, it has become commonplace to recognize a link between the transition from Mündlichkeit to Schriftlichkeit and the emergence of a self-consciously fictional form of narration (such as is exemplified by the model of Arthurian romance established by Chrétien de Troyes).1 As Schaefer points out, the transition to the written medium lends a certain artificiality to the construction of even the most basic narrator-role:
War der Rhapsode noch wahrhaft das Medium der Erzählung, wird mit der wachsenden Schriftlichkeit die Medialität des Erzählers nun zusehends inszeniert, weil das graphische Medium ihn eigentlich nicht meht braucht.2
[While the rhapsodist had truly constituted the medium of the narrative, the rise of ‘Schriftlichkeit’ (textual culture) means that the medial role of the narrator is now visibly being staged, because the written medium does not really require him any more.]
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Notes
Haug, Literaturtheorie, p. 194. See also Walter Haug, “Mündlichkeit, Schriftlichkeit und Fiktionalität,” in Modernes Mittelalter: Neue Bilder einer populären Epoche, ed. Joachim Heinzle (Frankfurt am Main: Insel, 1994), pp. 356–397.
Ursula Schaefer, “Die Funktion des Erzählers zwischen Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit,” Wolfram-Studien 18 (2004): 87–91 [83–97] provides a short, but very helpful, overview of the Mündlichkeit / Schriftlichkeit dichotomy (and of the limited extent to which these terms map onto the English terms orality and literacy). See also the following other studies by
Ursula Schaefer: Vokalität. Altenglische Dichtung zwischen Mündlichkeit und Schrftlichkeit, ScriptOralia 39 (Tübingen: Narr, 1992); “Zum Problem der Mündlichkeit,” in Modernes Mittelalter: Neue Bilder einer populären Epoche, ed. Joachim Heinzle (Frankfurt am Main: Insel, 1994), pp. 357–375; “Individualität und Fiktionalität. Zu einer mediengeschichtlichen und mentalitätsgeschichtlichen Wandel im 12. Jahrhundert,” in Mündlichkeit—Schrftlichkeit—Weltbildwandel. Literarische Kommunikation und Deutungsschemata von Wirklichkeit in der Literatur des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit, ed. Werner Röcke and Ursula Schaefer (Tübingen: Narr, 1996), pp. 50–70. For the differences between literacy, textualization, and textual culture (all of which may serve as translations of Schriftlichkeit, depending on context and nuance), see chaper 1 of this monograph. Given the absence of any set English equivalents for Mündlichkeit and Schriftlichkeit, the terms are most conveniently left untranslated when used in contrast to each other.
For the view that all writing fictionalizes its audience, see Walter J. Ong, “The Writer’s Audience Is Always a Fiction,” PMLA 90 (1975): 9–22. See also Manfred Günter Scholz, Hören und Lesen. Studien zur primären Rezeption der Literatur im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1980), particularly pp. 11–12, for the distinction between the potential and the fictional audiences of Middle High German texts.
See Monika Unzeitig, “Von der Schwierigkeit zwischen Autor und Erzähler zu unterscheiden. Eine historisch vergleichende Analyse zu Chrétien und Hartmann,” Wolfram-Studien 18 (2004): 76 [59–81]: “Indem fiktive Rezipienten in der Situation des Erzählens Einwände an Hartman adressiert formulieren, entsteht die Illusion, als könne die Geschichte noch verändert werden, als sei das Werk ein ‘opus in fieri,’ dessen Produktion in der Rezeptionssituation erfolge.” [When fictional recipients within the narrative situation formulate objections that are addressed to Hartman, this gives rise to the illusion that the story can still be changed, as though the work constitutes an opus in fieri, produced as it is being received.]
Unzeitig, “Autor und Erzähler,” 60. For the metaphor of authorial signatures within the text, see also Thomas Bein, “Zum Autor im mittelalterlichen Literaturbetrieb und im Diskurs der germanischen Mediävistik,” in Rückkehr des Autors: Zur Erneuerung eines umstrittenen Begriffs, ed. Fotis Jannidis (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1999), pp. 303–320.
Lorenz, Wolfram-Fortsetzung, p. 112 follows Joachim Bumke, Mäzene im Mittelalter. Die Gönner und Auftraggeber der höfischen Literatur in Deutschland 1150–1300 (Munich: Beck, 1979), pp. 15–16 in identifying this patron as the Wittelsbacher Ludwig II (1253–1294). For a full discussion of Albrecht’s patrons, see Lorenz, Wolfram-Fortsetzung, pp. 112–129 and pp. 129–148. See also
Peter Kern, “Albrechts Gönner und die Wolfram-Rolle im ‘Jüngeren Titurel’,” Wolfram-Studien 8 (1984):138–152.
Vf 14,3: alle edliv chvnst sich bezzert, vnd niht bosert, vnd wehet [All noble art improves and becomes more splendid, rather than declining]. For the notion of aemulatio as an aggressive and competitive way of positioning oneself in relation to a literary precursor (as opposed to the more humble attitude implicit in sequela or imitatio), see G. W. Pigman, “Versions of Imitation in the Renaissance,” Renaissance Quarterly 33 (1980): 1–32; and
Annette Volfing, John the Evangelist and Medieval German Writing: Imitating the Inimitable (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 1–7.
See Annette Volfing, “Parzival and Willehalm—Narrative Continuity?,” in Wolfram’s ‘Willehalm’: 15 Essays, ed. Martin H. Jones and Timothy McFarland (Rochester, NY and Woodbridge, Suffolk: Camden House, 2002), pp. 45–59. The J.T. certainly presents both of these texts as the works of that ‘Wolfram’ who is also its narrator (cf. J.T. 5989 which criticizes the beginning of Willehalm and end of Parzival).
While Curschmann, “Das Abenteuer des Erzählens” identifies a number of distinctive roles or stances that are assumed successively by the Parzival-narrator (e.g., the poet, the destitute knight, the country bumpkin, the frustrated ‘Minnediener’), Albrecht seems particularly interested in foregrounding the lecherous tendencies of this figure. On the cruder aspects of the Parzival-narrator (as manifested most strikingly in Parzival 424,3–6), see also Eberhard Nellmann, Wolframs Erzähltechnik. Untersuchungen zur Funktion des Erzählers (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1973), p. 14 and Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival, ed. Nellmann, 2:655.
See Dagmar Hirschberg, “Zum Aventiure-Gespräch von der Bedeutung warer minne im Jüngeren Titurel,’” Wolfram-Studien 8 (1984): 108 [107–119]; Ragotzky, Wolfram-Rezeption, pp. 137–138. For these occasions when the narrator addresses vrou Aventiure without receiving a reply, it is useful to invoke the notion of the “half-dialogue,” as described by
Peter Wiehl, Die Redeszene als episches Strukturelement in den Erec- und Iwein-Dichtungen Hartmanns von Aue und Chrestiens de Troyes, Bochumer Arbeiten zur Sprach—und Literaturwissenschaft 10 (Munich: Fink, 1974), pp. 54–55.
For the distinction between “open” and “closed” dialogues, see Gerhard Bauer, Zur Poetik des Dialogs. Leistung und Formen der Gesprächsführung in der neueren Literatur (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1969), pp. 12–16;
Walter Haug, “Das Gespräch mit dem unvergleichbaren Partner. Der mystische Dialog bei Mechthild von Magdeburg als Paradigma für eine personale Gesprächsstrucktur,” in Das Gespräch, ed. Karlheinz Stierle and Rainer Warning, Poetik und Hermeneutik 11, (Munich: Fink, 1984), pp. 253–255 [pp. 251–279]; Almut Suerbaum, “Structures of Dialogue in Willehalm,” in Wolfram’s ‘Willehalm’: 15 Essays, ed. Martin H. Jones and Timothy McFarland (Rochester, NY and Woodbridge, Suffolk: Camden House, 2002), pp. 231–234 [pp. 231–247].
For a theoretical analysis of the Lehrgespräch, see Günther Buck, “Das Lehrgespräch,” in Das Gespräch. Poetik und Hermeneutik 11, ed. Karlheinz Stierle and Rainer Warning. (Munich: Fink, 1984), pp. 191–210; for a specifically medieval context, see also
Hannes Kästner, Mittelalterliche Lehrgespräche. Textlinguistische Analysen, Studien zur poetischen Funktion und pädagogischen Intention, Philologische Studien und Quellen 94 (Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1978); and
Karl-Heinz Witte, Der Meister des Lehrgesprächs und sein “In-Principio-Dialog”: ein deutschsprachiger Theologe der Augustinerschule des 14. Jahrhunderts aus dem Kreise deutscher Mystik und Scholastik, Münchener Texte und Untersuchungen 95 (Munich: Artemis, 1989), pp. 162–177. For the genre of the medieval Streitgedicht, see
Hans Walther, Das Streitgedicht in der lateinischen Literatur des Mittlelalters, Quellen und Untersuchungen zur lateinischen Philologie des Mittelalters 5.2 (Munich: Beck, 1920).
See for example Walter Haug, “Der Ackermann und der Tod,” in Das Gespräch. Poetik und Hermeneutik 11, eds. Karlheinz Stierle and Rainer Warning (Munich: Fink 1984), pp. 281–286.
Ragotzky, Wolfram-Rezeption, p. 138 associates these dialogues specifically with the disputational schemata used in the genre of the ‘Minnerede’ [discourse about love], presumably with reference to texts such as Hartmann von Aue’s Die Klage, also known as Das (zweite) Büchlein, ed. Herta Zutt (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1968), in which the body and the heart are in conflict. However, the religious didacticism of the J.T. makes it reasonable to look more widely at body-soul dialogues in the tradition of the Visio Philiberti—some of which specifically highlight the companionship between body and soul. For a general discussion of such dialogues, see Walther, Das Streitgespräch, pp. 63–80; for examples, see pp. 211–221. For the foregrounding of companionship, see in particular, example IX quoted by Walther on pp. 218–221, in which terms such as conpar mea nobilis (1.1 [my noble equal]) and mihi socia (31.1 [my companion]) are deployed. Note also the final affirmation of the otherwise problematic conjunction between body and soul in Mechthild von Magdeburg’s Das fließende Licht der Gottheit 7.65, p. 310: Die sele: “Eya min allerliebste gevengnisse, da ich inne gebunden bin, ich danken dir alles, des du hast gevolget mir.” [The soul: “Ah, my dearest prison-cell, in which I am bound, I thank you for all the time that you have followed me.”] On the friend and foe relationship between body and soul in mystical literature, see also Caroline Walker Bynum, The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity 200–1336 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), pp. 329–341.
Barbara Newman, God and the Goddesses: Vision, Poetry, and Belief in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), pp. 190–191.
Ingrid Hahn, “Kosmologie und Zahl. Zum Prolog des ‘Jüngeren Titurel,’” in Geistliche Denkformen des Mittelalters, ed. Klaus Grubmüller, Münstersche Mittelalter-Schriften 51 (Munich: Fink, 1984), pp. 230–231 [pp. 226–244]; Finckh, Minor Mundus, pp. 367–369. For a critical assessment of this approach, see Neukirchen, “Dirre aventiure kere,” 292–293, n38.
See for example Mechthild von Magdeburg’s presentation of the cosmos as a house built through words in Das fließende Licht der Gotheit 3.1, p. 74: Da sach ich die schoepnisse und die ordenunge des gottes huses das er selber mit sinem munde hat gebuwen … Dú schoepfnisse des huses heisset der himmel … [There I say the creation and the ordering of the house of God that he has built with his own mouth … The creation of the house is called the heavens …] The image of the house of Wisdom is also taken up by Heinrich von Mügeln, Der meide kranz 1495–1496; cf. Annette Volfing, Heinrich von Mügeln. Der meide kranz.’ A Commentary, Münchener Texte und Untersuchungen 111, (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1997), p. 259.
Cf. Mary Alberi, “The ‘Mystery of the Incarnation’ and Wisdom’s House (Prov. 9,1) in Alcuin’s Disputatio de vera philosophia,” Journal of Theological Studies 48.2 (1997): 505–516. On the other hand, there are precedents for a textual interpretation of the house of Wisdom. Honorius of Autun, for example, identifies the seven pillars with the seven most important books of the Bible (Speculum ecclesiae, PL 172:1101).
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© 2007 Annette Volfing
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Volfing, A. (2007). ‘Albrecht,’ ‘Wolfram,’ and Vrou Aventiure: Arguing with the Text. In: Medieval Literacy and Textuality in Middle High German. Arthurian and Courtly Cultures. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230607224_5
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