Romancing the Grail: Genre, Science, and Quest in Wolfram's ParzivalArthur Groos here challenges traditional approaches to Wolfram von Eschenbach's quest-romance Parzival (ca. 1210). He offers a new model for reading the text in the light of narrative theory by means of close textual analysis as well as scrupulous investigation of Wolfram's scientific sources. Taking as his starting point the assertion by the Russian narrative theorist Mikhail Bakhtin that Parzival achieved a pluralism of novelistic discourse generally associated with more recent works, Groos traces several strands of narrative - especially Arthurian and Grail. He focuses on crucial episodes in the hero's quest, ranging from his discovery of knighthood to the healing of the Fisher King, and shows how Wolfram transposes the clerical French perspective of Chretien de Troyes's Li Contes del Graal into the context of chivalric German culture. Examining the variety of language registers and genres incorporated in Parzival, Groos demonstrates that the interaction of chivalric romance, hagiography, dynastic chronicle, and scientific and medical treatise produces a decentered fictional universe in which various religious and secular viewpoints enter into dialogue. In the Grail episodes in particular, Groos finds a narrative universe that both suggests a transcendent teleology and resists ideological closure. |
Contents
Parzival and Prenovelistic Discourse | 21 |
The Grail Hero | 46 |
Parzivals Knighting Ceremony | 70 |
The Grail Hero Wins a Wife | 95 |
Liturgical Calendar at Munsalvaesche | 119 |
Treating the Fisher King | 144 |
Cundries Announcement | 170 |
Common terms and phrases
Adam adventures Altdeutsche Predigten Anfortas Anfortas's Arabic Arthur Arthur's court Arthurian astrological audience authorial beginning Bernard Silvestris Book XVI Bumke Chapter chivalric Chrétien de Troyes Chrétien's chronotopic clerical Condwiramurs courtly culture Cundrie Cundrie's announcement Deinert deutschen dialogic discourse divine dracontea emphasizes episode Erec Feirefiz Fisher King Gahmuret Gawan Gornemant Grail castle grâl grâle Gurnemanz hân Hartmann's hât heaven herb Hermann hero hero's Herzeloyde heteroglossia Ither Jupiter King knighthood knightly knights Kyot Kyot's Latin liturgical mære medieval Middle High German Mikhail Bakhtin mîn Mittelalters motion Munsalvaesche nâch narrator nature neutral angels niht paradise Parzivâl Parzival's Pentecost Perceval Perceval's planets Pseudo-Apuleius quest redeeming question references relationship religious Ritter romance salvation history scene Schönbach secular seems sîn social sprach suggests tion Trevrizent Trevrizent's twelfth-century Willehalm win the Grail Wolfram von Eschenbach Wolfram's narrative Wolfram's Parzival wound zival