1,721,003 research outputs found
Weltinnenräume. Literarische Erkundungen zwischen Spätmittelalter und früher Neuzeit (am Beispiel des 'Fortunatus'-Romans und der 'Geschichtklitterung' von Johann Fischart)
No full textManifestation und Konstruktion von Frauenmystik. Prozessuales Schreiben in der oberdeutschen Überlieferung der Mechthild von Hackeborn
No full textThis thesis suggests a new methodological approach towards medieval mystical texts associated with a female author figure. Instead of a historical-critical method, it proposes adopting a perspective rooted in the individual manifestation that places the text within its cultural context within and outside the manuscript. The 'Liber specialis gratiae' by Mechthild of Hackeborn provides a case study due to its large transmission and its textual instability, resulting in a variety of functional usages. The distribution of manuscripts across a wide area offers insights into the way in which different monastic orders, monasteries, or even individual recipients read the text. Compared to texts transmitted only in a small number of manuscripts, the 'Liber specialis gratiae' therefore allows an examination of the different layers of reception. Passages of the text can be presented as prayer books, didactic manuals, hagiographic manuscripts as well as textual witnesses transmitting the 'Liber' as its only text. By rearranging different sections or just individual phrases, alternative ways of reading are offered. Simultaneously, the context of reception acquires significance, for example the way in which the manuscripts were produced, distributed, and kept within monasteries. The change from manuscript to print and its effect can also be observed, leading to differing manifestations. Moreover, the material offers insights into the fact that reception does not stop at the end of the manuscript era but continues into the period of printed editions and academic engagement with the text. Considering how Mechthild and the 'Liber' were perceived across time is therefore an integral part of this study
Die Komposition der poetischen Welt: Eine Analyse des Raumkonzepts in den spätmittelalterlichen Prosaromanen Pontus und Sidoni-a, Magelone und Clamades. Ergänzt mit einer Edition des deutschen Clamades-Fragments.
Get PDFThe Composition of the Poetic World: An Analysis of the Spatial Configurations in the Late Medieval Prose Novels Pontus und Sidonia, Magelone and Clamades. Supplemented with a German Edition of the Clamades Fragment
This thesis demonstrates the productivity of spatial configurations within the three late
medieval prose novels Pontus und Sidonia, Magelone and Clamades. The Clamades fragment
(ca. 1496; stored in the Burgerbibliothek of Berne), which has survived as a mere four-page
manuscript due to its complex transmission process, is the starting point for this project.
Despite its shortness, it exhibits idiosyncracies such as a conspicuous concentration of
toponyms. In order to take account of this particularity and to contextualise the fragment, an
alternative methodological approach was established here. This new method focuses on the
spatial composition of the poetical world to fill the gaps in the fragmentary transmission.
In order to reconstruct the lost manuscript pages of the Clamades fragment (cf. chapters
6 and 7) two other late medieval prose novels from the second half of the fifteenth century have
been added to the study’s corpus and have been analysed in the same manner: Pontus und
Sidonia (cf. chapters 2 and 3) and Magelone (cf. chapters 4 and 5). Even though both novels
have already been discussed individually by scholars, this doctoral thesis offers a valuable new
contribution to the research field by comparing them with each other and with the underresearched Clamandes through a spatial and comparative lens (interlingual: French–German /
intermedial: manuscript–print). Indeed, each spatial analysis is followed by a comparative
discussion of the French source text and its German target text, since all three prose novels are
based on French models (cf. chapters 3, 5 and 6). With that in mind, theses prose novels have
been reassessed as complex and independent redactions of literary writings at the end of the
Middle Ages
Writing the Orient: Johannes Schiltberger's Reisebuch (1394–1427)
Get PDFThis thesis is the first book-length study of Johannes Schiltberger’s Reisebuch, the German-language account of the Bavarian crusader’s approximately 30-year captivity and enforced travels in the Middle East under the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I (r. 1389–1403), the Turko-Mongolian warlord Timūr (r. 1370–1405) and his successors. It investigates the Reisebuch’s representation of the Orient. My reexamination of the manuscript and print transmission from c. 1450 to 1600 has shown that there were various versions of the Reisebuch in circulation, and I base my reading of the work on this basic multiplicity and variety. This variance is pertinent for a literary interpretation of the Reisebuch because the manifest narrative and material transformations go hand in hand with differing thematic foci, narratological and representational strategies, so that one can confidently contend each version of the Reisebuch negotiates a distinct relationship with the eastern ‘other’. I argue that the transmission diverges into three strands as (1) an abridged chronicle that emphasises the complexity of political and military relations in the East; (2) a proto-ethnographic account with a focus on religious diversity; and (3) six paratextual reconceptualisations of the Reisebuch as Turcica in early print. In short, my study engages with the transmission and transformation of material, on the one hand, and with the consequences of this creative process for cultural ideas, on the other: it asks what role ‘rewriting’ – deliberate and inventive adaptation – plays in the Reisebuch’s portrayals of the East. My thesis therefore provides not only the first in-depth reading of Schiltberger’s Reisebuch as a “medieval multi-text” (a term coined by Iain Macleod Higgins to indicate the inter-textuality and intra-textuality common to the medieval travel account) but highlights its representational process as multiple, polyvocal and dynamic
From German to Yiddish: adaptation strategies in the Kuhbukh and the Siben weisen mainster bichel
Get PDFIn light of often derogatory and unqualified assessments of Yiddish literature adapted from German narrative models, this thesis will propose a different approach to viewing these adaptations. Building on methodologies and frameworks of analyses developed in contemporary medieval scholarship, this thesis pushes for a re-assessment of this literature and suggests a flexible model of adaptation that views adaptation as a creative interaction between two texts. In response to unsatisfactory approaches to judaizing strategies found in Yiddish texts adapted from German literature, this thesis also suggests a different approach. Judaizing processes can either be part of overall processes of adaptation aimed at coding the text as Jewish within an overarching framework of renewed cultural specificity; or, they can function as translation principles by achieving equivalence with the original model. To illustrate both ends of this scale of adaptation, this thesis centres on two early modern Yiddish texts: the Kuhbukh (Verona, 1595) and the Siben weisen mainster bichel (Basel, 1602). The four chapters at the core of this thesis develop and apply extensive frameworks of literary analyses which enable us to rigorously assess the differing levels of adaptations (translation and Wiedererzählen) of both texts. This thesis pushes for a future reassessment of other popular Yiddish narratives adapted from German models. This could ideally be achieved by a positioning of each individual Yiddish text based on German narratives on the proposed scale of adaptation. This should be backed by verifiable methodologies and analyses devoid of unjustifiably dismissive opinions. This would consequently move scholarship towards structured, methodological analyses of early Yiddish secular literature
Schrift- und Schreibmystik. Christina von Hane
No full textThe subject of my thesis is a little-studied hagiographical work that gives important insights into rewriting processes and their significance in medieval textual culture. The anonymous Life of Christina of Hane, a thirteenth-century Premonstratensian nun from the Palatinate, is an example of bridal mysticism which combines the medieval tradition of the reception of the Song of Songs with hagiographic elements. A codicological and palaeographical analysis of the only manuscript shows it to be a sixteenth-century copy, but the type of mysticism and the theological questions that it discusses suggest that the text was initially composed in the thirteenth century, when Christina is thought to have lived.The theological and spiritual ideas in the text belong to the wider context of communicating the transcendental within the world. My thesis uses performative language analysis to address the problems of textuality and authorization in the Life of Christina of Hane. It yields new insights into the ways in which this mystical text makes use of hagiographic strategies, how gender and vernacular theology are linked, how liturgical elements support the text’s pragmatic nature, and how somatic spirituality is reflected on an allegorical level in the embodiment of God’s bride. An assessment of three communicative aspects – medial, narrative, and allegorical – highlights the textualization of the mystical experience. The appellative structure of Christina’s text invites the reader to engage with the text.This study provides the first comprehensive interpretation of the text on Christina of Hane. It compares it to other mystical texts, to a German–Latin prayerbook, and to a fragmentary legend about Mary Magdalene. It challenges existing judgments about Christina’s biography and offers alternative solutions founded in the latest scholarship on female mystical literature
Late medieval Marian lyric in urban spaces: puy poetry and Meistergesang, 1388-1525
Get PDFAlthough it is often noted that there are striking similarities between the puys, Marian poetry competitions in Northern France, and institutionalised Meistergesang, very little comparative work has been undertaken investigating these similarities. This thesis aims to explore Marian lyric composed in urban spaces in the late Middle Ages, both to gain a greater understanding of the individual poetic traditions, and to assess the significance of urban Marian lyric. I argue that the figure of Mary appealed to those living in towns and cities because she reflected the boundedness and privilege of the ideal, imagined city. Moreover, Marian lyric is an ideal method of communicating religious knowledge, both catechetical and experiential. The form of poetry helps audiences to engage with knowledge doctrinally and affectively, with Mary acting both as inspiration for poets and as a teacher. In examining the interplay between the playful and devotional ends of Marian lyric produced in a competitive context, I show that play and piety are mutually enriching and suggest play is a helpful lens for understanding engagement with poetic traditions and the poetic community. Religious lyric is often neglected in discussions of late-medieval poetics in continental French and German Studies, and this demonstrates the need to take religious lyric into consideration as a significant element of poetic production. The comparative study enables us to understand late-medieval Marian lyric in its context, and is significant as the first such Anglophone study. This thesis shows that urban Marian lyric warrants further critical attention, and signals new directions for research into the puys and Marian Meistergesang. Furthermore, it has implications beyond the field of Marian lyric, opening up new avenues for research into the late-medieval lyric, lay piety and urban history
The Book Half Open: Humanist Friendship in Holbein’s Portrait of Hermann von Wedigh III
Get PDFA small, blind-tooled volume sits on a table covered in green baize: one clasp is open, the other is closed; and a slip of paper emerges from it reading Veritas odium parit (truth breeds hatred). This detail occurs in the foreground of a portrait by Hans Holbein of a young man identified as the Cologne patrician Hermann von Wedigh III (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). A study of the physical features of the book and of the history of the brief text — actually an ancient and then Erasmian adage — leads to a new interpretation of the painting in the context of humanist friendship. The book is seen to be a multivalent simile for the work of art authored by the artist as well as for the sitter himself, raising questions about the implications for these of a medium that can be opened and closed. The half-open condition of the book is understood to reflect the complementary pressures of openness and closedness, accessibility and intimacy, that characterized the Renaissance republic of letters
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