Zur sozialen Logik der Tugendprobe

In a broad overview, this article examines the virtue test scenarios (›Tugendproben‹) in Arthurian romances and short narratives of the 13th and 14th centuries as well as in late medieval chivalric romance and Shrovetide plays. While literary research has mainly focused on didactic and comic moments of only two texts so far, the article aims at an underlying social structure formed by public control, rank representation, and concern for the cohesion of Arthurian society. This constellation, I argue, reflects the problem of reconciling two contradictory principles of courtly socialization: agonal competition and an assertion of virtual equality.

Knight Fever: Sickness, masculinity and narrative absence in the Mort Artu, Béroul’s Tristan and Thomas of Britain’s Tristan

The ideal knight protagonist of high medieval romance should be capable of engaging actively in chivalric activities, whether martial or amatory. What happens, then, when knight protagonists fall ill? Illness presents a problem: the knight loses his ability to act and is no longer in control of his own body. This article examines the fates of knights who fall ill in three Arthurian romances of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries: the Mort Artu, Thomas of Britain’s Tristan and Béroul’s Tristan. Illness has a marked effect on the presence of knights, both narratologically and to other characters in the text. When knights fall ill, they are temporarily excised from the narrative until their ability to be active is restored. An exception to this illness-absence paradigm occurs when the heroes of romance feign illness: at such junctures, these men are still exemplifying the agency and resourcefulness required of an effective hero, and the narrative maintains its focus on them at these moments regardless of how other characters might be treating them.

Heterotopien des Feierns

In so far as Arthurian narrative can be considered to be a utopian project, it converges in the festival motif at the Arthurian court. However, the festival ideal in particular is in danger of losing grip on reality as the process of literalizing Arthurian Romances advances. In this context the final festivities in the Arthurian Romances of the Pleier serve as a mediating principle. By connecting the leitmotifs of the histoire with his depiction of festivity scenes, the Pleier conceptualizes them as a space in which courtly norms are negotiated in a lively fashion. The festival scenes thus serve as venues for representation and reflection, thereby becoming ›heterotopias of celebrating‹.

Study Of Arthurian Romances: With Emphasis To Thomas Malory

The expedition on Malory’s Morte d’Arthur emphasis on the masculine activity of chivalry—fighting, questing, ruling— while parallelly reflects the chivalric enterprise as impossible in absence of the feminine in a subjugated position. The medieval romance text of Malory differs from other Arthurian romance literature in the explicit legislation (as opposed to implicit coding) of chivalric values, most notably in the swearing of the Pentecostal Oath, an event unique to Malory’s text. This paper emphasis on the way the institution of the Oath defines and sharpens specific ideals of masculine and feminine gender identities in the Arthurian community, arguing that a compulsion to fulfill these ideals drives the narrative of the Morte d’ Arthur forward to its inevitable ending. Thus, the function of gender in the Morte d’Arthur can only be adequately explored in a book that traces in depth the development of gender constraints from the beginning of the “Tale of King Arthur” to the “Day of Destiny” and its aftermath. One reason the Morte d’Arthur merits a sustained study in terms of gender is due to its status as the most comprehensive and sustained medieval treatment of the Arthurian legend by a single author. This text is about the famous fiction stories about legendary King Arthur, his life and death predominantly compose the spine of Malory’s tale. There are, as well, other passages and tales, in which Arthur is not in the centre of the plot. Stories were translated by Malory from French models, reflects the major branch of author’s all sources. most famous fiction stories about legendary King Arthur, whose life and death predominantly compose the spine of Malory’s tale. There are, as well, other passages and tales, in which Arthur is not in the centre of the plot.

Soziale Netzwerkanalysen zum mittelhochdeutschen Artusroman oder: Vorgreiflicher Versuch, Märchenhaftigkeit des Erzählens zu messen

This article discusses the question of how complex the narrations of Arthurian romances are by comparing them to the ‘simple form’ of fairy tales. In order to achieve this, we identify properties of the European folktale, which we then compare with an Arthurian text corpus consisting of Hartmann von Aue’s ‘Erec’ and ‘Iwein’ as well as Wolfram von Eschenbach’s ‘Parzival’. The typological investigation is carried out using data-driven methods, primarily Social Network Analysis, and focuses on various aspects of characters. By doing this, we gain an in-depth understanding of the relationships between Arthurian romances and fairy tales and of the differences within the genre of the Arthurian romance itself. We show that the results of statistical analysis refuse clear interpretation, thus providing new insights into the well-known objects.

«Do rei exemplar: alguns ecos bíblicos na oratoria do Lancelot en prose»

Resumen: O Lancelot en Prose, extenso romance que desenvolve a biografia de Lancelot, insere-se no grande ciclo de romances arturianos escrito em França durante a década de vinte do séc. XIII. Este texto testemunha, no nosso entender, uma clara exploração das potencialidades bíblicas na literatura medieval. A nossa análise incidirá essencialmente num momento discursivo que consideramos fundamental no romance, a repreensão dirigida a Artur por um preudome que se apresenta perante a corte do rei. Procuraremos identificar, através do confronto entre este excerto do Lancelot en Prose e as Escrituras, quais os elementos bíblicos nele retido e de que modo foram tratados. Esperaremos poder, assim, averiguar quais as intenções autorais no uso da fonte bíblica.Palabras clave: Lancelot en Prose, Bíblia, teoria da realeza, romance arturiano.Abstract: Lancelot en Prose, an extensive romance where Lancelot’s biography is developed, is integrated into the wide cycle of Arthurian romances that was written in France during the second decade of the thirteenth century. This text testifies, as long as we are concerned, a clear exploration of the biblical potentials in medieval literature. Our analysis will focus essentially on a discursive moment that we consider to be central to the romance: the reprimand directed to Arthur by a preudome that presents himself before the king’s court. We will try to identify, through the confrontation between the referred excerpt of Lancelot en Prose and the Scripture which are the elements withheld in it and how they were treated. By this confrontation we hope to ascertain the authorial intentions in the use of the biblical source.Keywords: Lancelot en Prose, Bible, theory of kingship, Arthurian romance.