Wirnt von Grafenberg

Wirnt von Grafenberg was a Middle High German poet of the thirteenth century.

Grafenberg was a Bavarian nobleman who between 1202 and 1205 wrote an epic, entitled Wigalois , which describes the adventures of Gawain's son, the name being a corruption of Guinglain le Galois. Wirnt likely took material from French sources, and earlier portions of his work parallels the French romance Le bel inconnu of Renaud de Beaujeu, ^[1] but otherwise has taken great liberties with the material, ^[2] and his claim that he learned the material orally from some squire is thought to be a pretext for not constraining himself to the norm. ^[3] Though extravagant and didactic, ^{[2] [4]} the poem was one of the most popular and distinguished romances of the Arthurian cycle written in Middle High German, ^[1] apart from the works of Wolfram von Eschenbach and Hartmann von Aue. ^[2]

Wirnt is thought by many to have been of an elite noble family in Gräfenberg, Bavaria, ^{[1] [2]} possibly having served as ministerial (clerical administrator) for the town. ^[3] His literary patron was most likely Berthold IV of Andechs-Merania (d. 1204). ^{[1] [3]}

The fully illustrated Wigalois manuscript produced in 1372 (MS LTK 537) is held at Leiden University Libraries and a digital version is available on its Digital Collections. ^[5] A prose version Wigoleis vom Rade was made toward the close of the fifteenth century and printed at Augsburg in 1493. ^[1] Wigalois has been edited by Georg Friedrich Benecke (Berlin, 1819), Franz Pfeiffer (Leipzig, 1847) and others. ^[6]

Wirnt appears a central character playing the role of the knightly servant of Frau Welt in Konrad von Würzburg's Der Welt Lohn  [ de ], Wirnt von Grafenberg himself becomes a literary figure, but otherwise little is known about his life. ^{[1] [7] [8] [9]}

References

1. Wailes, Stephen L. (1996). "Wirnt von Grafenberg". In Lacy, Norris J.; et al. (eds.). The Arthurian Encyclopedia. New York: Peter Bedrick. pp. 635–636. ISBN   9781136606335.; New edition 2013, "Wirnt von Grafenberg".
2. New International Encyclopedia (1905).
3. Emmerson, Richard K., ed. (2013). "Wirnt von Grafenberg". Key Figures in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia. New York: Routledge. p. 674. ISBN   9781136775192.; New edition 2013, "Wirnt von Grafenberg".
4. "many pious excurses" ^[1]
5. "Digital version of Wigalois / Wirnt von Gravenberg, LTK 537". Leiden University Libraries . Retrieved 2024-04-10.
6. Seelbach & Seelbach ed. tr. (2005), p. 323.
7. Thomas tr. (1977), p. 6.
8. Thomas (2004), p. 2.
9. Jones, Howard; Bratic, Martin H. (2024). "T2 Konrad von Würzburg: Der Welt Lohn". An Introduction to Middle High German. Oxford University Press. pp. 88–89. ISBN   9780198894001.

Bibliography

• Wirnt von Grafenberg (2005). Seelbach, Sabine [in German]; Seelbach, Ulrich [in German] (eds.). Wigalois: Text der Ausgabe von J. M. N. Kapteyn (in German) (1 ed.). Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. ISBN   9783110897579. (Nachwort und Kommentar zu: Wirnt von Grafenberg: Wigalois. pp. 263–318)

• Wirnt von Grafenberg (1977). Wigalois: The Knight of Fortune's Wheel. Translated by Thomas, J. W. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN   9780803298279. snippet

• Thomas, Neil E. (2004). "10. Wigalois and Parzival: Father and Son Roles in the German Romance of Gawain's Son". In Wheeler, Bonnie (ed.). Wirnt Von Gravenberg's Wigalois: Intertextuality and Interpretation. Arthurian studies 57. DS Brewer. pp. 101–116. ISBN   9781843840138.

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain:  "Wirnt von Grafenberg"  . New International Encyclopedia . 1905. This work in turn cites:
  • F. Saran, Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Litteratur, vol. xxi. (Halle, 1896).