Bridal Quest Epics In Medieval Germany

König Rother, Salman und Morolf, the Münchner Oswald and Grauer Rock (otherwise known as Orendel) have had a troubled position in the literary history of medieval Germany. Forced into a normative generic framework as either 'Minstrel Epic' (Spielmannsepik) or 'Bridal-quest Epic' (Brautwerbungsepik), these texts have been viewed conventionally according to an essentially teleological classification or a schematic ideal. Bowden challenges the premises of such a view with a detailed history of the textual scholarship, and revaluates these so called 'Bridal quests' on their own terms, offering detailed and suggestive readings of each work without the distortions or limitations inherent in the traditional interpretative model. Sarah Bowden is Powys Roberts Research Fellow at St Hugh's College, Oxford.

This book presents the first collection of the earliest West Germanic bridal-quest narratives together with a comparative study of them. In contrast to earlier studies, the author locates the origin of this narrative tradition in the oral and written Germanic literary tradition, a result that leads to a re-assessment of the genesis of vernacular German and Scandinavian literature. The chapters deal in chronological order with the Latin chronicles of the Germanic peoples and with the early Latin and vernacular literature in Germany and Scandinavia.

In The Giant Hero in Medieval Literature, Tina Boyer offers an analysis of giants as antagonists and heroes in medieval European epics and romances.

A new view of King Rother in which not only the wooer but also his bride-to-be enacts a quest.

Cover -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- 1. Introduction -- 2. "Whither Am I to Go?": Old Yiddish Love Song in a European Context -- 3. (Non- )Intersecting Parallel Lives: Pasquino in Rome and on the Rialto -- 4. Purim Play as Political Action in Diasporic Europe and/as Ancient Persia -- 5. Vashti and Political Revolution: Gender Politics in a Topsy-Turvy World -- 6. The Political Liminality of Mordecai in Early Ashkenaz -- 7. Feudal Bridal Quest Turned on Its Jewish Head -- 8. The Other of Another Other: Yiddish Epic's Discarded Muslim Enemy -- 9. Conclusion -- Appendix: Elia Levita's Short Poems (English translation) -- Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- H -- I -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- V -- W -- Y

This book provides studies of narratives concerning the distant, ‘barbarian’ past, composed c.550–c.1000, ranging from Latin ‘national’ histories to Latin and vernacular epics and lays, and examines the place of this past in early medieval historical consciousness.

Guest Editors: Sarah Bowden, Susanne Friede and Andreas Hammer This special issue focuses on space and place in Arthurian literature, from a wide range of European traditions. Topics addressed include the connections between quest space and individual spirituality in the Vulgate Queste and Malory's Morte Darthur; penitence in Hartmann's Iwein and Gregorius; parallels in sacred spaces in the Matter of Britain and medieval Ireland; political prophecy in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Awntyrs off Arthure A; syntagmatic and paradigmatic spaces in Chrétien's Perceval; spatial significance in Wigalois and Prosa Lancelot; the political meaning of the tomb of King Lot and the rebel kings in Malory's Morte Darthur; and sexual spaces in twelfth-century French romance.