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Wolfram von Eschenbach was a German knight, poet and composer, regarded as one of the greatest epic poets of medieval German literature. As a Minnesinger, he also wrote lyric poetry.
Poetry took numerous forms in medieval Europe, for example, lyric and epic poetry. The troubadours and the minnesänger are known for their lyric poetry about courtly love.
Medieval literature is a broad subject, encompassing essentially all written works available in Europe and beyond during the Middle Ages. The literature of this time was composed of religious writings as well as secular works. Just as in modern literature, it is a complex and rich field of study, from the utterly sacred to the exuberantly profane, touching all points in-between. Works of literature are often grouped by place of origin, language, and genre.
The chanson de geste is a medieval narrative, a type of epic poem that appears at the dawn of French literature. The earliest known poems of this genre date from the late 11th and early 12th centuries, shortly before the emergence of the lyric poetry of the troubadours and trouvères, and the earliest verse romances. They reached their highest point of acceptance in the period 1150–1250.
The Matter of France, also known as the Carolingian cycle, is a body of literature and legendary material associated with the history of France, in particular involving Charlemagne and his associates. The cycle springs from the Old French chansons de geste, and was later adapted into a variety of art forms, including Renaissance epics and operas. Together with the Matter of Britain, which concerned King Arthur, and the Matter of Rome, comprising material derived from and inspired by classical mythology, it was one of the great European literary cycles that figured repeatedly in medieval literature.
Parzival is a medieval romance by the knight-poet Wolfram von Eschenbach in Middle High German. The poem, commonly dated to the first quarter of the 13th century, centers on the Arthurian hero Parzival and his long quest for the Holy Grail following his initial failure to achieve it.
The story of the Knight of the Swan, or Swan Knight, is a medieval tale about a mysterious rescuer who comes in a swan-drawn boat to defend a damsel, his only condition being that he must never be asked his name.
Lohengrin is a character in German Arthurian literature. The son of Parzival (Percival), he is a knight of the Holy Grail sent in a boat pulled by swans to rescue a maiden who can never ask his identity. His story, which first appears in Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, is a version of the Knight of the Swan legend known from a variety of medieval sources. Wolfram's story was expanded in two later romances. Richard Wagner's opera Lohengrin of 1848 is based upon the legend.
Kyot the Provençal is claimed by Wolfram von Eschenbach to have been a Provençal poet who supplied him with the source for his Arthurian romance Parzival. Wolfram may have been referring to the northern French poet Guiot de Provins, but this identification has proven unsatisfactory. The consensus of the vast majority of scholars today is that Kyot was an invention by Wolfram, and that Wolfram's true sources were Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval, the Story of the Grail and his own abundant creativity.
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Prise d'Orange is a mid-12th century chanson de geste written in Old French. Its fictional story follows the hero Guillaume as he captures the walled city of Orange from Saracens and marries Orable, its queen. Other characters include Arragon, the king of Orange, and Tibaut, Orable's erstwhile husband and Arragon's father. The anonymously written poem, part of a larger cycle about Guillaume called La Geste de Garin de Monglane, consists of 1,888 decasyllable verses in laisses. It combines motifs of courtly love with an epic story of military conquest. The narrative is humorous and parodies the tropes of epic poetry.
Dennis Howard Green was an English philologist who was Schröder Professor of German at the University of Cambridge. He specialized in Germanic philology, particularly the study of Medieval German literature, Germanic languages and Germanic antiquity. Green was considered one of the world's leading authorities in these subjects, on which he was the author of numerous influential works.
Cyril William Edwards was a British medievalist and translator. Teaching in London and Oxford, he published extensively on the medieval German lyric and Old High German literature, and translated four of the major Middle High German verse narratives.
In the Middle High German (MHG) period (1050–1350) the courtly romance, written in rhyming couplets, was the dominant narrative genre in the literature of the noble courts, and the romances of Hartmann von Aue, Gottfried von Strassburg and Wolfram von Eschenbach, written c. 1185 – c. 1210, are recognized as classics.
References
- ↑ Gibbs, Marion; Johnson, Sidney, eds. (2002). Medieval German Literature: A Companion. New York, London: Routledge. p. 195. ISBN 0-203-90660-8.
- ↑ Book: Rennewart in Wolfram's "Willehalm": A Study of Wolfram von Eschenbach and His Sources, by Carl Lofmark, year 1992 -- for that book reviewed, see Ref. See also The Source of Wolfram's "Willehalm", by Susan Almira Bacon, year 1910, 190 pages.
- ↑ H. M/ Mustard/C. E. Passage eds., Parzival (1961) p. xvi-viii
- ↑ W. Haug/P. Boyle, Vernacular Literary Theory in the Middle Ages (2006) p. 180
- ↑ H. M/ Mustard/C. E. Passage eds., Parzival (1961) p. xvi
- ↑ J. B. Bury ed., The Cambridge Medieval History (1929) Vol. VI p. 819-21
- ↑ Charles E. Passage, translator, The Middle High German Poem of Willehalm by Wolfram of Eschenbach (1977) New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Company, Inc., p. 12
- ↑ H. M/ Mustard/C. E. Passage eds., Parzival (1961) p. xvi-vii
- ↑ W. Haug/P. Boyle, Vernacular Literary Theory in the Middle Ages (2006) p. 318
- ↑ Charles E. Passage, translator, The Middle High German Poem of Willehalm by Wolfram of Eschenbach (1977) New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Company, Inc., pp. 11 and 28-31
