Dennis Howard Green - Böcker

Although much work has recently been done on the relationship between poet, narrator and audience in medieval literature, no sustained attempt has yet been made to inquire into the ways in which the listener's responses are rhetorically controlled and guided in the case of the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach. This book attempts such an inquiry by combining five approaches which have so far been used only separately or partially: the narrator's use of a point of view technique, a specific problem concerning the medieval technique, a specific problem concerning the medieval reception of his work, a procedure best described as 'revealing while concealing', the technique used in naming characters, and the theme of recognition in Parzival. These approaches are combined and applied in detail to the narrative sequence of Wolfram's romance. Although the narratives dealing with Gahmuret, Parzival and Gawan are all dealt with, the lion's share falls to Parzival as the hero of the work (whereby special importance is attached to his crucial dialogue with the hermit Trevrizent in Book IX), but due regard is also paid to Gawan as a means of highlighting the special position of the hero. The discussion throughout is organised around the various encounters in the work in which recognition or non-recognition plays a part.

This new study brings recent scholarly debates on oral cultures and literate societies to bear on the earliest recorded literature in German (800-1300). It considers the criteria for assessing what works were destined for listeners, what examples anticipated readers, and how far both modes of reception could apply to one work. The opening chapters review previous scholarship, and the introduction of writing into preliterate Germany. The core of the book presents lexical and non-lexical evidence for the different modes of reception, taken from the whole spectrum of genres, from dance songs to liturgy, from drama and heroic literature to the court narrative and lyric poetry. The social contexts of reception and the physical process of reading books are also considered. Two concluding chapters explore the literary and historical implications of the slow interpenetration of orality and literacy.

Despite the fashionable standing of irony in studies of modern literature and its occasional application to medieval studies in a number of recent works, no sustained analysis of this phenomenon has yet been attempted for medieval literature. Professor Green attempts to fill the most important part of this lacuna by discussing irony in the medieval genre in which it is employed most frequently and with the greatest sophistication, the romance. The approach is therefore directed more towards the genre as such than to any specific example, and, although the book is written primarily from a Germanist's point of view, it also takes into account the romances of Chrétien de Troyes and their German adaptations, various examples from the Tristan tradition in France and Germany, Flamenca as an example from Provence, as well as Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight from England. Proceeding from a working definition of medieval irony and a survey of the signals which may allow us to perceive its presence, Professor Green considers the possibilities, rhetorical and otherwise, of registering irony in courtly literature at large. From this he moves on to discuss the major themes to which irony may be applied (chivalry and love), as well as the ways in which the narrative is organised so as to bring out any ironic implications of these themes. Subsequent chapters are concerned with the various types of irony to be distinguished: verbal irony, irony of the narrator, dramatic irony, the irony of values, and structural irony. A concluding chapter sums up the reasons, aesthetic and social, for the prevalence of irony in this particular genre of medieval literature.

Despite the fashionable standing of irony in studies of modern literature and its occasional application to medieval studies in a number of recent works, no sustained analysis of this phenomenon has yet been attempted for medieval literature. Professor Green attempts to fill the most important part of this lacuna by discussing irony in the medieval genre in which it is employed most frequently and with the greatest sophistication, the romance. The approach is therefore directed more towards the genre as such than to any specific example, and, although the book is written primarily from a Germanist's point of view, it also takes into account the romances of Chrétien de Troyes and their German adaptations, various examples from the Tristan tradition in France and Germany, Flamenca as an example from Provence, as well as Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight from England. Proceeding from a working definition of medieval irony and a survey of the signals which may allow us to perceive its presence, Professor Green considers the possibilities, rhetorical and otherwise, of registering irony in courtly literature at large. From this he moves on to discuss the major themes to which irony may be applied (chivalry and love), as well as the ways in which the narrative is organised so as to bring out any ironic implications of these themes. Subsequent chapters are concerned with the various types of irony to be distinguished: verbal irony, irony of the narrator, dramatic irony, the irony of values, and structural irony. A concluding chapter sums up the reasons, aesthetic and social, for the prevalence of irony in this particular genre of medieval literature.

Although much work has recently been done on the relationship between poet, narrator and audience in medieval literature, no sustained attempt has yet been made to inquire into the ways in which the listener's responses are rhetorically controlled and guided in the case of the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach. This book attempts such an inquiry by combining five approaches which have so far been used only separately or partially: the narrator's use of a point of view technique, a specific problem concerning the medieval technique, a specific problem concerning the medieval reception of his work, a procedure best described as 'revealing while concealing', the technique used in naming characters, and the theme of recognition in Parzival. These approaches are combined and applied in detail to the narrative sequence of Wolfram's romance. Although the narratives dealing with Gahmuret, Parzival and Gawan are all dealt with, the lion's share falls to Parzival as the hero of the work (whereby special importance is attached to his crucial dialogue with the hermit Trevrizent in Book IX), but due regard is also paid to Gawan as a means of highlighting the special position of the hero. The discussion throughout is organised around the various encounters in the work in which recognition or non-recognition plays a part.