Literatur – Theorie – Geschichte

In high medieval literature, manheit describes the ability to fight and to use violence, and was therefore the knight’s most important characteristic. This study shows how in texts like Iwein and the Steierische Reimchronik, warlike and violent actions are staged as manheit and battle, and how the legitimization of the chivalric potential for violence by aristocratic rulers is glorified.

The orchard is not some arbitrary, topical setting in the courtly romance. As a liminal space, it has a specific potential for action and conflict. This volume uses example analyses to show how the orchard is created in narrative as a consistent, three-dimensional space of action and imagination and how this develops, semanticizes, and functionalizes its conflict potential for the narrative.

This study examines pictoriality in the late courtly romance. With iconical narration, it provides evidence of a poetic strategy that makes use of the specific dimensions and premodern logic of images, thereby generating action and meaning. The volume thus makes a contribution to historical narrative studies and to research into the visual culture of the Middle Ages within the scope of transdisciplinary image studies.