Medieval German Literature

interested in Irish or Polish or Catalan history will find in it something to satisfy their interest. On the other hand, those looking for common patterns emerging out of a juxtaposition of separate and distinct national movements will look in vain. Nothing really emerges. Why? Why should a study which has been so carefully prepared produce such meagre results? Perhaps there was some deficiency in the planning. Perhaps the comparativists make the mistake of compiling disparate essays by distinguished scholars, hoping that common features will become apparent without a common design. That may be a miscalculation. It might be better to entrust a single author with the analysis of different areas and times, sacrificing technical expertise for methodological uniformity. In general, the arrangement of books of this sort around distinct regions or periods may also be a source of weakness. Perhaps it would be wiser to cut across geographical and chronological boundaries in dealing with problems of comparative ideology, structure, organization, or loyalty. Or is it possible that the shortcomings of such books are inherent in their underlying assumption? Is it possible that the diversity and uniqueness of historical experiences are such that they do not lend themselves to fruitful comparison? To examine side by side the national movements in the nineteenth century of Irishmen, Poles, Catalans, South Slavs, Greeks, Italians, Scots, and Germans may enhance our understanding of each of them separately. But could it be that the differences in their history are so great that no meaningful pattern becomes discernible? Is that basically the trouble with this book? I wonder.

The political, mock-Arthurian festivities that chronicler Lodewijk van Velthem describes as allegedly held at the court of King Edward I are concluded by large scale 'battles' against those countries held by Velthem to be King Edward's enemies. For a proper understanding, knowledge of Middle Dutch romances and the tradition of the tournament is, howver, essential.

Chronomorphoses. Ahistorical Timelines in Medieval Historiography – The Middle High German ‚Kaiserchronik‘ Reconsidered: The narrator of the ’Imperial Chronicle’ (‚Kaiserchronik‘) takes great care to undergird his collected stories of emperors and popes with a coherent chronology. He specifies the duration of each principate by year, month and sometimes down to the number of days. However, this demonstrative precision does not prevent him from inserting obviously unhistorical emperors into his chronology, inverting the timeline given by his historiographical sources, or contracting or extending the duration of recorded events. Modern historical-critical philology therefore entirely discounts his ability and will to pursue a historiographical ordering principle, seeing him as a fictional author, avant la lettre, or dissecting his entire narration into a sequence of historical examples. In contrast, the following analysis of the first 4000 verses does not attempt to relativise the significance of time counting for the representation of history in the ’Emperor’s Chronicle’, but to reconstruct the chronicled period as an aggregate time (Aggregatzeit) resulting from the addition and coupling of different time models. In layers that are clearly distinguished from one another, these models capture imperial and astronomical, creation-historical and incarnation-theological, typological and revelatory aspects of the representation of history, in which a messianic chronomorphosis emerges in a parable-like and exemplary manner existing simultaneously on and alongside the timeline.

Das Buch behandelt die Anfänge der konkurrierenden Eckhart-Ausgaben, die als "Magistri Eckardi Opera Latina" (Verlag Meiner, 1934-1936) und "Die deutschen und lateinischen Werke" (Verlag Kohlhammer) erschienen und den Fortgang der letzteren Edition ab 1936.
Zu Wort kommen alle beteiligten Personen und interessierte beobachtende Zeitgenossen, dargestellt in der Literatur, Rezensionen, Tageszeitungen und Zeitschriften sowie den Akten der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft.
Eingebunden in den Kontext der nationalsozialistischen Herrschaft in Deutschland erhält man Einblicke in die Abläufe, Auseinandersetzungen, Charaktere, Diskussionen, Finanzen, Positionen, Streitigkeiten, Vorlieben und vieles weitere mehr.
Beigegeben sind fünf Anhänge und ein Register aller Einträge (ausführlicher s. eckhart.de)

Il contributo vuole rivalutare la complessità del Cgm 51 del Tristan di Gottfried von Straßburg e Ulrich von Türheim, un manoscritto che, nella rilegatura attuale, accompagna al testo poetico un ciclo completo di illustrazioni, annotate da un numero imprecisabile di mani secondarie. Ci si concentrerà in particolar modo su queste iscrizioni, prodotto della "scrittura collaborativa" di molti ignoti agenti, i quali, nell'arco di più di due secoli, hanno interpretato e commentato il romanzo poetico e visuale. A questo scopo (a prescindere dai nomi dei personaggi, che costituiscono la tipologia più frequente delle didascalie), le annotazioni sono state analizzate in quattro categorie testuali (1. iscrizioni diegetiche, 2. parenetiche, 3. drammaturgiche, 4. commenti soggettivi), riconsiderandone le caratteristiche paleografiche e le peculiarità linguistiche, stilistiche e contenutistiche. Pur nell'impossibilità di distinguere le mani che hanno annotato le illustrazioni, spesso sovrapponendosi le une alle altre negli stessi spazi di scrittura, i risultati dell'analisi paleografica delle iscrizioni, tentata qui per la prima volta, hanno individuato una serie di caratteristiche significative per la definizione del contesto culturale in cui si svolse parte della vita del manoscritto illustrato.

Intellectuals constituted one of the most important categories of “travellers” throughout the modern age. It is therefore not surprising that Andrea Spinola (c. 1562 - 1631), a Genoese thinker of exceptional depth, was also the author of a long reflection on the theme of “travel”: one of the most extensive entries in his Ricordi (a “political-philosophical dictionary”). For many reasons, the entry Viaggi - unpublished and part of the last autograph tome of the Ricordi - deserves the attention it has so far been denied.

Samuel Meiger’s De panurgia lamiarum (Hamburg, 1587) is the only manual on demonological witchcraft known to survive in Middle Low German. Drawing on a vast array of classical, biblical and contemporary material, Meiger demonstrates that witchcraft constitutes a transgression of all Ten Commandments and consequently defines it as “the mother of all sins”. His volume – which combines theological discussion with a great wealth of gruesome anecdotes and historical testimonies of charms and evil eye performed throughout history – functions as a catalogue of all types of witches and sorcerers, who “violate and trample upon all the precepts of the divine law”. In the present essay, I offer a fresh, in-depth analysis of Meiger’s oeuvre developed in the course of the preparation of the first critical edition of the Middle Low German text.

Reviewed Work(s): Incantesimi e benedizioni nella letteratura tedesca medievale (IX-XIII
sec.) (Göppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik 717) by Eleonora Cianci
Review by: Peter Dinzelbacher
Source: Mediaevistik, Vol. 19 (2006), pp. 285-286
Published by: Peter Lang AG
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/42586366

Reviewed Work(s): Incantesimi e benedizioni nella letteratura tedesca medievale (IX-XIII
sec.) (Göppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik 717) by Eleonora Cianci
Review by: Peter Dinzelbacher
Source: Mediaevistik, Vol. 19 (2006), pp. 285-286
Published by: Peter Lang AG

Most scholars working on the concept of transculturality consider it a modern phenomenon, but we can discover forms of transculturality already in the Middle Ages, and this in terms of political, scholarly, artistic, medical and literary exchanges. Within the framework of Mediterranean Studies, this article examines the extraordinary case of Rudolf von Ems’ Der guote Gêrhart (ca. 1220–1225) which illustrates how much the Mediterranean world proved to be a highly useful backdrop for the description of transcultural exchanges between the protagonist and a Moroccan castellan, Stranmûr. The verse narrative is based on the experiences of a wealthy Cologne merchant who proves to be extraordinarily open to other cultures, languages and religions and encounters an equally minded Muslim lord. We would not be far off by describing the poet’s projections as a case of medieval tolerance.

The Life of St. Otmar, the first Abbot of St. Gall (d. 759) by Walahfrid Strabo, written ca. 834-838. The English translation aims at following the Latin text as closely as possible. Occasionally, we break up too long sentences, turning some passive constructions into the active form, and turning some participle constructions into main clauses or, depending on the context, into final or causal subordinate clauses.

Saint Henry belonged to the Liudolf-dinasty. After the death of Otto III he became king of Germany in 1002. Pope Benedict VIII. crowned him emperor in 1014. Emperor Henry died in 1024, and Pope Eugene III. cenonized him in 1146. His legend was written in the middle of the 12 th century. Saint Henry is important in the Hungarian culture because, as the brother of Gisela he was brother-in-law of King Stephan. We are publishing the Hungarian translation of his legend based of the edition of Marcus Stumpf, although the present translation omits most of the charters contained in the legend.

This article examines the Middle High German poem Erlösung, attributed to the Thuringian ministerial Heinrich von Hesler, in the context of its relationship to the Evangelium Nicodemi, a widely circulated apocryphal Gospel text in the Middle Ages. The study explores how Hesler reworks and reinterprets the Harrowing of Hell motif, drawing both on theological tradition and literary creativity. By comparing Hesler’s text with Latin and vernacular versions of the Evangelium Nicodemi, the article identifies significant transformations in narrative structure, emphasis, and doctrinal framing. Hesler’s Erlösung is shown to integrate courtly poetic conventions with soteriological concerns, producing a text that serves both devotional and aesthetic purposes. The analysis also considers manuscript transmission and reception, shedding light on the cultural and literary positioning of the work within the broader landscape of 13th-century German religious literature.

On May 7, 2025 Shami Ghosh released in The Medieval Review (TMR) a review of my Nostalgia and the German(ic) Past. On May 11, 2025 my response appeared. I took issue with sloppiness and incoherence, misrepresentation, mindreading, and ad hominem attacks in the review.

Der Aufsatz versucht zu erklären, warum es sich bei der Verserzählung nicht um ein Werk aus dem Hochmittelalter handelt und weshalb der Autor des Mauritius von Craûn die berühmten Adelsnamen der Craon und Beaumont für seine "kleine Skandalgeschichte aus den Kreisen des französischen Hochadels" wählt und was er damit bezweckt.

The essay explores how the 9th-cent. 'Hildebrandslied' stagesapre-modern form of recognition that is not based on interpersonal affirmation. Although father and son fail to identify each other directly, their dispute coordinates mistrust and resignation in astonishing balance. On the verge of war, this formal balance constitutes an ambivalent gift of recognition. Anerkennung scheint eine Frage des Friedens, nicht des Kriegszustandes. So könnte man einen Konsens auf den Punkt bringen, der sich in neuzeitlichen Philosophien der Anerkennung zunehmend durchgesetzt hat. Seine diskursgeschichtliche Genese haben Axel Honneth und Paul Ricceur in maßgeblichen Überblicksarbeiten und Positionsbestimmungen zur Debatte nachgezeichnet.

This volume interrogates the role of the manuscript medium in conveying history to medieval and early modern readers. The contributors adopt a capacious understanding of "history" to explore history-writing in its materiality from a variety of methodological and disciplinary perspectives. The core contentions of this book are that the material features of manuscripts helped shaping historical narratives and defining history conceptually, and that therefore, the makers of these manuscripts played an instrumental role in history-writing alongside authors. Ranging from the ninth to the sixteenth centuries and comprising materials from across Western Europe in Latin and the vernaculars, the ten chapters of this volume uncover stakes and strategies tied to highly specific contexts, such as late thirteenth-century Corbie or fifteenth-century Zurich, yet partaking in a shared practice of history-writing with manuscripts. Manuscript makers "made" history through layout, rewriting, illumination, compilation, choice of script, and annotation, and conferred history-writing its material dimension. This volume therefore situates the writing of history in its material dimension and invites us to consider medieval and early modern historiography in its medium.

Ut a tróni8 KORTÁRS SZENTEK isTVÁN KIRÁLY ÉS HENRIK CSÁSZÁF3 HAGIOGRÁFIAI PÁRHUZAMAI Az ezredforduló korának, ennek a végítéletre váró kornak emlékezetes alakja volt 11. Henrik, német király és római császár. Idén, 2o24-ben ezer éve annak, hogy földi élete véget ért. A kerek évforduló jó alkalmat ad a rá való emlékezésre, legendáinak felidézésére. Henrik személye azért is kü-1önleges, mert õ volt az egyetlen német származású császár, akit szentté avattak. Magyar szempontból azért jelentõs, mert sógora volt Szent lstván királynak, fivére Boldog Gizellának, nagybátyja Szent lmre hercegnek. Adódik a lehetõség, hogy összehasonlítsuk az uralkodócsalád szent életû tagjairól szóló forrásokat és legendákat. Mit mondanak a kortárs források az elsõ ezredforduló idején élt keresztény uralkodóról, Henrikrõl, akit ii46-ban szentté avatott a pápa? Miként fejlõdtek a róla szóló legendák? A legenda-fejlõdés áttekintése módot ad a magyar szentekrõl való hagyomány jobb megértésére is.í Ami Szent Henrik születésének évét illeti, ellentmondanak egymásnak a források. 973 és 978 egyaránt kiszámítható a ránk maradt különbözõ emlékekbõl. Stefan Weinfurter, német történész amellett foglalt állást, hogy 973-ban jött világra. A napot viszont már egyértelmûen ránk hagyományozták a kortársak: május 6-án született Civakodó Henrik, bajor herceg és Burgundi Gizella gyermekeként. Apja halálát követõen 995-ben Bajorország ura lett. ioo2-ben nagy lehetõség csillant fel elõtte, amikor másodfokú unokatestvére, 111. Ottó, német császár gyermektelenül meghalt. Henrik ekkor határozott lépéseket tett a hatalom megszerzésére. Kezébe ragadta a német uralkodói jelvényeket, köztük a Szent Lándzsát, és elérte, hogy ioo2. június 7-én, német királlyá koronázza a mainzi érsek, majd szeptember 8-án, Szûz Mária születésének napján elfoglalta a trónt Aachenben. A fennmaradt források alapján Henrik önmagával fontosabb szemben igényes, ugyanakkor ellentmondást alig tûrõ személyiség volt. mozzanatai A korban bevett uralkodói szerepfelfogásnak megfelelõen saját hatalmát Istentõl kapott küldetésként értelmezte. Ugy tekintett magára mint lsten házának intézõjére, akire a jól elvégzett munka után jutalom vár, ám szömyû büntetés lesz osztályrésze, ha hanyagnak bizonyul. Ez motiválta egyházpolitikájában, amikor a megüresedett püspöki stallumokba többnyire saját híveit ültette, akárcsak az egyes apátságok élére. Henrik alakját és a hatalomról való gondolkodását remekül szemlélteti a regensburgi szakramentárium ábrázolása.2 Az uralkodó két karját két VIGILI6 84 i Életrajzát elsõsorban Weinfurter, tiszteletének fejlõdését Kandhza mûve alapján vázolom. Stefan Weinfurter: Hé?z.73rz.ch JI (ioo2-io24). He>7'7':schGr cm E7?c!e dG7' ZG3te72. Pustet, Regensburg, iggg; Iliana Ka[rLdzha:. The Cult of the Chaste lmpericü Couple.. He`nry 11 omd Cmigunde in the Hotgiog"phic Trcûd2tt.ons, Arf, cz7td MG772o7y of f72G Hozy Romcín E77zpz.rG (c. i35o-i5oo). PhD-Dissertation, Central

While the living conditions of the Anthropocene pose dangerous consequences for humanity, they have also heightened our attention and sensitivity to nature, that is, our natural environment, even when looking back into the past. Scientists and literary scholars have discovered that ecocriticism strongly contributes to a deeper, refined insight into the interaction between human actors and natural agents. Many medievalists have thus begun to focus on how pre-modern poets reflected on water, the forest, mountains, animals, and plants as they impacted human life. This paper reviews a range of medieval heroic epics where specific aspects of nature matter extensively in shaping the protagonists' characters, experiences, and struggles. Activities, such as crossing a body of water, traveling through forests, climbing mountains, staying in caves, landing and fighting on islands, or living in wilderness areas assume critical functions in narrative development. Although the ecological concerns in these medieval texts may differ from those found in post-modern literature, close readings of major representatives of this genre indicate that medieval poets already demonstrated significant awareness of the close connections between humans and their natural environment.

'Grimms Wörter', Günter Grass’ „Liebeserklärung“ an die deutsche Sprache und die Verfasser des 'Deutschen Wörterbuchs' (2010), erlaubt sich zahlreiche ernste Scherze – erotischer wie auch erkenntniskritischer Art – mit den Elementarteilchen der Sprache, dem Alphabet. Als Kollege und Freund antwortet er auf den Parzivâl-Roman Adolf Muschgs 'Der Rote Ritter' (1993) mit Buchstabengedichten und Menschenalphabeten, weil für beide nur über die Sprache, das Lesen und das Schreiben eine Identität entwickelt werden kann. Ohne diese Elementarschule, an deren Anfang der Fall Adams in die Erkenntnis und an deren Ziel der Zweifel an allen Ideologien zwischen Rechts und Links steht, würde Parzivâl der reine Tor bleiben, als der er angetreten ist und als der er in seiner Narrheit Gewalt ausgeübt hat. Um von der anfänglichen Sünde Adams zum Ziel des Zweifels zu gelangen, muss der dumme Junge einen Lernprozess durchlaufen, in dessen Zentrum das Fragen steht: die Frage des Mitleidens und die der Schuld. – Ein anderer Parzivâl, erlebt auch Oskar Matzerath seine Blutstropfenszene, teilt mit dem Roten Ritter dessen Mutterkomplex, findet aber im Gegensatz zu diesem keine Erlösung, schon gar nicht durch die Vergewaltigung der Krankenschwester Dorothea, die die Jeschutes durch den törichten Parzivâl „imitiert“. Schuldig bekennt sich schließlich in aller Deutlichkeit Günter Grass selbst: als Tor, der nicht gefragt hat, als Juden deportiert wurden, und der unter der Narrenkappe des Simplicissimus in den Weltkrieg gezogen ist.

In the transition from the late Middle Ages to the early modern period, the vernacular prose romance became popular throughout Europe. This new genre brought about the functional expansion of vernacular languages into the realm of prose, which had pre- viously been primarily the preserve of Latin. This paper discusses coherence-making strategies in prose romances from a diachronic perspective. In a case study of the Re- naut de Montauban, also called The Four Sons of Aymon, we explore a number of linguistic devices used to convey narrative coherence in the chanson de geste tradition and what happens to these patterns when the matter is transposed from verse into prose and across languages, from French into English. We focus on copula constructions with initial intensifiers, the discourse markers lors, adonc, or and si (and their English counterparts), as well as the narrative formula commonly referred to as entrelacement or interlacement. By combining linguistic observations with a narratological framework borrowed from literary analysis, we aim to shed light on further research possibilities into the realm of comparative medieval literature, which considers new generic (prose), material (print), and linguistic (French-English) contexts. Our results show that the change in form from verse to prose causes word order patterns with sentence-initial intensifiers to decline in favour of a general preference for discourse markers. These became the preferred way of establishing coherence in long prose texts. Their varied use in French and the English translation of the Renaut show a definite awareness of the significance of this resource for plot progression and the management of shifts between narrative levels. Furthermore, the combination of discourse markers with other narrative formulae, like interlacement, and typographical features underscore the deliberate use of these linguistic features as coherence-making elements in the prose Renaut tradition.

Major editorial work in the last few years has made it possible for us to gain a much better understanding of the genre of mæren, that is, short verse narratives in late Middle High German, composed in a similar vein as the Old French fabliaux, the medieval Italian novelle, or the Middle English tales. Those narratives were consistently predicated on the literary strategy of providing erotic entertainment and comedy involving ordinary people, but also individuals from the upper classes, all of whom tended to commit social mistakes, transgress the standard norms and ideals, and make fools of themselves and others. The humor represented here was not necessarily unique for that time period, but these tales make it possible to perceive, through the lens of laughter, ordinary aspects of everyday life, both in the city and in the countryside, but then also in the Roman Catholic Church and at court. We still do not know enough about the composers, collectors, and the audiences, but focusing on one particular collection, the Codex Karlsruhe 408, promises to yield more information concerning the background and intention of this genre, the audience, and the intellectual and social-historical framework. Laughter, above all, appears to have transcended all social classes, which we can observe also in the late medieval and early modern Schwänke, or jest narratives, then in the increasingly popular Fastnachtspiele and didactic tales (Johannes Pauli, 1522).

Stemming from the approach known as "material philology", this paper focuses on a part of the prologue of K, verse version of the Old French Seven Sages of Rome occurring in ms. BnF fr. 1553. Here a controversial baptism scene is described that is in need of re-assessment. Although it has been concluded that it only represents a historical account of a practice that did not concern the times of the poet (Speer 1986), this paper argues that other textual elements show the contrary. As the poet is referring to a practice promoted by dissent movements that troubled the Church at least from the 11 th century, another perspective of inquiry is proposed: how did these verses nd their way into a manuscript copied in Cambrai around 1285 (Lepage 1975)? e paper suggests possible pathways pointing to a historical contextualization of the manuscript.

Contrary to traditional perceptions, in the late Middle Ages numerous contacts developed between countries north of the Alps, especially the Holy Roman Empire, and the Mediterranean. Economic and political historians have already confirmed the true extent of exchanges; and art historians have added valuable insights as to the many links of communication. To deepen our understanding of this phenomenon, the present paper addresses the evidence of literary history. Fictional or factual narratives do not necessarily provide hard facts but shed relevant light on a broad concept about the foreign worlds (mentality) whereto especially knights and pilgrims were traveling. We can identify numerous poets who talked explicitly about their visits to the Mediterranean or who have their protagonists travel widely both all over Europe and the neighboring countries. With this evidence in hand, we can proceed to reevaluate late medieval culture as having been much more international if not even global than previously assumed. As much as the Alps appeared to be a significant geographical barrier, the Mediterranean hinterlands were certainly an intimate part of this significant contact zone where East and West met.

Since the publication of the Brothers Grimm collection of fairy tales in 1812, fairy tales, which until then were for the most part regarded as unworthy of scientific attention, became a topic of investigation for a significant part of European scholars. German Romantics in particular rallied behind the study of what Jacob Grimm described in his Deutsche Sagen (1816) as "the inexhaustible richness of fairy tales, legends and storiesˮ. In the 19 th century, Transylvania was building a reputation for its abundance of such mythical and magical "untrue talesˮ, including several that "explainedˮ two major topics of Transylvanian Saxon science, at that time still insufficiently known in historical writing and linguistics: that of the original homeland and colonisation of the German speaking population in the region during the Middle Ages. This paper will focus on the biographical narratives from the 19 th century concerning one of those German Romantics from Transylvania, Josef Haltrich (1822-1886), who spent most of his adult life gathering and publishing local fairy tales and many other folk creations, from superstitions and inscriptions, to riddles and children´s games, in an effort to preserve and promote Transylvanian Saxon identity, and to bring additional proof on the origin of his nation, specifically by the use fairy tales and philology. The sources employed in the building of this short biographyto my knowledge, inexistent in the English languageare accounts by his collaborators and mentors, from Jacob Grimm to Georg Daniel Teutsch, Friedrich Teutsch and others, who often described Haltrich in an affectionate, albeit subjective, manner, highlighting his qualities as a modest, empathic, child-like man, "the children´s favouriteˮ, and as tireless scholar and saviour of "Transylvanian Saxon soulˮ. Secondly, there are Josef Haltrich´s own remarks from some of his writings, which again paint a Romantic image of a fairytale life.

В статье рассматривается представление о «четырех частях» или «четырех четве-
ртях» речи, впервые упомянутое в «Ригведе» I.164.45. Интерпретация строф этого гимна, из-
вестного также как «гимн-загадка», заведомо проблематична. В контексте самого «гимна-загад-
ки» образ речи, разделенной на четыре части либо же стоящей на четырех ногах, отсылает к
отождествлению речи с коровой, исполняющей желания. Однако в последующей традиции этот
образ получил иное наполнение. В ранних комментариях (в «Шатапатха-брахмане» и в «Ни-
рукте») четыре части речи связываются с языками различных существ или с различными типа-
ми физических звуков. Грамматисты на протяжении веков интерпретировали «четверти» как
четыре морфологические части речи: имя, глагол, приставку/предлог и частицу. Примечатель-
но, что соотнесение «четырех четвертей» с представлением об уровнях речи, восходящем к фи-
лософии Бхартрихари (V в. н.э.), впервые в рамках грамматической традиции было произве-
дено только Нагешей Бхаттой в XVIII в. Вне грамматической традиции отождествление «чет-
вертей» и уровней речи встречается в комментариях Саяны (XIV в.). Интерпретация Саяны
интересна также и тем, что он, вероятно, следуя учению тантр, соотносит уровни речи с чак-
рами и описывает последовательный подъем праны в человеческом теле в процессе развора-
чивания речи от высшей (parā) до артикулированной (vaikharī).

Reynaert the Fox, a timeless character who has defied the centuries, remains a remarkable and vibrant figure in contemporary culture. His cunning nature and unpredictable behavior have captivated generations of readers, listeners, and viewers, with his influence still unmistakable in 2023. It is no exaggeration to assert that Reynaert the Fox is perhaps Flanders' greatest cultural icon. Recent testimonials attest to his enduring relevance, including Frits van Oostrom's in-depth study, "De Reynaert" (2023), which highlights the unique character of Reynaert within Middle Dutch literature and portrays the Flemish fox. Beyond literature, numerous examples demonstrate the strong appeal of the fox tale, such as the musical adaptation "Reynaert in Sin City" (2023).  This article explores the evolution of Reynaert from a medieval masterpiece to a modern musical, examining the character's lasting impact on Flanders' cultural identity and his continued relevance in contemporary society.

Palmyra was a unique place within the Roman Empire. The city, located in a Syrian oasis, preserved a culture and social organization of its own distinct character. It was closely intertwined with a larger region that extended beyond the boundaries of the Empire. Its livelihood was sustained through long-distance trade, not through agriculture or the production of commodities. And the people of Palmyra remained identifiable and distinguishable as Palmyrenes even when they left the oasis and established a life far from their homeland. Therefore, one can rightly speak of a Palmyrene diaspora, of which this book provides the first in-depth study.

This paper intends to engage with a broad discourse on death that determined the late Middle Ages. Although the greatest epidemic, the Black Death, was not really reflected in contemporary German literature, we observe a clear shift away from the traditional courtly to the deadly worldview since the early fifteenth century. Two poets deserve particular attention who were contemporaries and, drawing from very different genres, offered powerful poetic reflections on death as it affected them drastically in very personal terms, whether this was seen through a rhetorical lens or through standard poetic images. AIM: Both Johannes von Tepl and Oswald von Wolkenstein have already been discussed from many different perspectives, but by combining their comments on death, we can grasp more concisely the extent to which the topic of death occupied the public discourse in the post-epidemic period. To gain deeper insight into the prevalent discourse, their poems will also be viewed through the lens of contemporary art where we find countless examples of the theme of death, especially in a religious context. Method: Based on a cultural-historical investigation, this study addresses the timeless topic of death as discussed by prose authors and poets in the early fifteenth century and by contemporary artists. Combining the data from both sides, literature and the visual arts, this article pursues an interdisciplinary approach to establish a firm concept of the dominant discourse on death during the early fifteenth century. Results: The comparative analysis bringing together fifteenth-century German and European literature and contemporary artworks has shed significant light on the central topic of death which was perceived to be all-consuming and pervasive during the post-epidemic (Black Death) period.

Die sich in den letzten Jahren abzeichnende Konjunktur der Narratologie ging mit einer umfassenden Ausweitung ihres Gegenstandsbereichs einher: Erzäh-len als kulturanthropologische Konstante wurde als transkulturelles,-histori-sches,-mediales und-generisches Phänomen (wieder)erkannt, und das "Narra-tive" avancierte zu einem beliebten Schlagwort für sozial-, kultur-wie litera-turwissenschaftliche Forschungsanliegen. Insbesondere im Rahmen der soge-nannten new narratologies rückten transmediale und-generische Formen des Erzählens in den Fokus. 1 Eine solche Erweiterung sieht sich mit zwei Problemen konfrontiert. Mit der Omnipräsenz des Ausdrucks "Erzählen" geht erstens die Gefahr der Be-liebigkeit einher: Im Überschwang potentiell interdisziplinärer und transphä-nomenaler Applizierbarkeit werden dabei schnell Begriffsdifferenzen zugunsten eines scheinbar einvernehmlichen Gebrauchs der Bezeichnung, der jedoch kommunikative Schieflagen erzeugt, über Bord geworfen. 2 ...

In The Monstrosity of Christ, Slavoj Žižek devotes a mere ten pages to the high-medieval Christian mystic Meister Eckhart, whom he accuses of erasing the fundamental distinction between creature and creator, of reabsorbing the violent anti-pagan kenosis of Christ and relocating it in a Zen transposition after the manner of D. T. Suzuki (40). This misreading is, however, fecund; it dissolves Žižek’s beloved Pauline agape, most at the heart of Eckhart’s pseudo-Dionysian tradition. In doing so, Žižek goads Christians into a reevaluation of his own favored concept: the neighbor; the Other, who, he says in “Neighbors and Other Monsters,” must have his face shattered (142) in an act of fundamentally Christian ethical violence, the one in whom Eckhart reminds us “clearly how near God’s kingdom is” (“Sermon II”). Ironically, it is Eckhart whose non-Zen, agape-laden Gelassenheit, hermeneutically re-designated through a Žižekian lens, can reinvigorate Christian political theology, which is otherwise beset with the toxic subjects of liberal post-modernity, and the omnipresence of tolerant - and its parallax: anti-migrant - sentiment. In short, Žižek’s “neighbor” begs a re-reading, couched in thoroughly Eckhartian terms; our political theology depends on it.

«Большим вкладом» «Вестника Московского университета. Серия 9. Филология» в российское корееведение является статья Г.А. Амановой «Восточный последователь Маяковского – основоположник корейской эпической поэзии» (2012. № 4. С. 148-162, URL: https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/vostochnyy-posledovatel-mayakovskogo-osnovopolozhnik-koreyskoy-epicheskoy-poezii). В ней Г.А. Аманова объявила о своем «открытии» в филологии международного масштаба: якобы она первой в мировой науке обнаружила в корейской литературе первую в ее истории эпическую поэму (героический эпос), и что такой поэмой якобы является поэма Чо Гичхона (1913-1951) «Пэктусан», написанная в 1947 г. В этой статье приводится комментарий к ней известного российского востоковеда и эпосоведа С.Ю. Неклюдова.

Temporal Communities bilden sich in der vormodernen Exempeldichtung
nicht nur durch Überlieferungsgemeinschaften (etwa in kleinepischen Sammelhandschriften oder gedruckten Collectaneen). Sie ergeben sich auch über Formatwechsel im Transfer zwischen Gattungen und Medien. Dass Denkmuster verkleinert werden können (bis zum nucleus eines Figurennamens) oder sich vergrößern lassen (bis zum epischen Weltmodell), ermöglicht ihr Fortbestehen in den verschiedensten formalen und situativen Kontexten. Beispielhaft für eine solche Skalierbarkeit von Kalkülen und für die multiplen Temporalitäten ihres wechselnden Gebrauchs steht die apokryphe Episode von der Begegnung Alexanders des Großen mit dem Zwergenkönig Anteloie. Sie scheint über Namensbezüge oder agonale Handlungskonfigurationen bald biographisch und chronikalisch amplifiziert, bald kleinepisch und spruchdichterlich komprimiert. Dabei gewährt sie gleichnishaft Einblicke in die arcana imperii und in die Interdependenz von expansiver Großartigkeit und unterschwelliger Winzigkeit im Herrschaftshandeln.

Temporal communities in pre-modern exemplary poetry do not originate solely from communities of transmission (such as manuscript anthologies or printed collectanea). They also arise from format changes occurring during the transfer between different genres and media. The possibility of reducing or enlarging thought patterns down to the nucleus of a character's name or up to the epic world model enables them to persist in a wide range of formal and situational contexts. One example of this scalability and of the multiple temporalities of their use is the apocryphal episode of Alexander the Great's encounter with the dwarf king Anteloie. Through references to names or agonal configurations, the episode appears at times biographically and chronologically amplified, at times epically and poetically compressed, all while providing parable-like insights into the arcana imperii and the interdependence of expansive majesty and subliminal minuteness of cunning intelligence in imperial actions.

This article is a study of the Minneleich by the Middle High German poet Frauenlob (d. 1318) that includes a complete literary translation of the long poem (the first English translation ever). The Minneleich is a dense, highly crafted philosophical text touching on sexual physiology, childbirth, and the conventional and not-so-conventional praise of women. I focus on the character Selvon's vision of a "hermaphrodite," which occupies a unique place in the history of nonbinary gender because it has nothing to do with sodomy or monstrosity, antedates its closest analogues (the fifteenth-century alchemical androgynes) by almost one hundred and fifty years, and is explicitly gendered "she," even though masculine pronouns were normally used for hermaphrodites. The meaning of this vision has been much contested by Germanists. I argue that it celebrates not just fertility in the abstract, but a specific event: it was composed by the poet as a gift for his wife to celebrate the birth of their first child. I further analyze Frauenlob's controversial redefinition of the vrouwe (the "lady" of Minnesang) to denote a mother, along with his polemical intent in extending the courtly "praise of ladies" to honor motherhood in both affective and biological senses. This agenda includes explicit representations of pregnancy and labor, which are extremely rare in the genre of praise-poetry.

Bei dem sogenannten Lügenmäre handelt es sich um den ersten bekannten Repräsentanten eines gemeinhin als ‹Lügendichtung› bezeichneten Genres im Überlieferungsverbund der kleinen Reimpaardichtung. Der vorliegende Beitrag untersucht die Textgestalt des Lügenmäre mit Blick auf seine sprachlich-rhetorische Faktur, erschließt seine Position als Unikat im Kontext der Sammelüberlieferung des Wiener Codex 2705 und eruiert Bezüge zum zeitgenössischen (lateinischen) Lügendiskurs.

This article deals with the representation and the legitimising role of the ruler's body and associated attributes in the Mughal period. In particular, the article focuses on the question of how physical weakness was dealt with in this context. In order to address this question, the first part analyses how intact rule and intact - male - physicality of the ruler were considered. The main section deals with the events shortly before the transition of rule from Ǧahāngīr to Šāh Ǧahān, which was preceded by a conflict over his succession during the lifetime of the ill Ǧahāngīr. Male and female physicality and characteristics are interwoven in Fatḥnāma-yi Nūr Ǧahān in order to establish Nūr Ǧahān's position and claim to participation in rule.

Der Beitrag fokussiert die mediale Qualität ausgewählter deutschsprachiger Tristan-Dichtungen (Versepik, Prosaroman und Schauspiel) in ihrer Bedeutung für die Vergegenwärtigung des Erzählgegenstands sowie der Imagination narrativer Geschlossenheit. Zentral ist die Wechselwirkung von Klang und Bild, deren besondere Pointe in der Verbindung des Autorkonzepts mit der impliziten Stimmlichkeit der Tristan-Erzählung sowie der Emergenz einer Meister-Stimme liegt.

The article focuses on the medial quality of selected German-language Tristan poems (verse epic, prose novel and drama) in its significance for the visualisation of the narrative subject and the imagination of narrative closure. Central to this is the interaction of sound and image, the special point of which lies in the connection of the concept of the author with the implicit vocality of the Tristan narrative and the emergence of a master voice.

After my many years of efforts to produce a facsimile edition of the manuscript of the Shigar-nāma acquired by Emil Schlagintweit in Shigar in the 1850s, Charles Manson (University of Oxford, Bodleian Libraries Oriental Section) kindly sent me colour photographs of the manuscript for publication in the ZAS a few years ago. After I had succeeded in persuading Wolfgang Holzwarth to write an introduction to this edition and to complete the publication by replacing the missing or illegible pages of Charles Manson's photographs with black-and-white photographs in his possession, nothing stood in the way of the facsimile edition. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Charles Manson and Wolfgang Holzwarth for their help.
The Shigar Nāma is a chronicle written in Persian about the history of Baltistan from 1636 to the end of the 17th century. The events in the life of Imam Quli Khan, a ruler of Shigar in Baltistan who ruled in the 17th century, are at the center of the accounts. The author of this chronicle is unknown. The Shigar Nāma does not contain any dates for the events described, so that other sources must be consulted for the chronology of the events depicted. Nevertheless, apart from poetic exaggerations and inaccuracies, the description of events in the Shigar Nāma can be classified as historically reliable, making this chronicle the most important source on the history of Baltistan in the 17th century.