As the earliest Arthurian verse-novel in the German language, Hartmann von Aue's Erec was highly influential, not only on the many Arthurian works that followed, but also on courtly narrative verse in general. However, his tale is of more than antiquarian interest. Its subjects the individual in conflict with society and the destructive force of possessive love are modern, and its language, when transferred into prose, is more direct and lucid than most contemporary writing. Indeed, it was the conviction that the story deserved a much larger audience than that of medieval scholars which...
As the earliest Arthurian verse-novel in the German language, Hartmann von Aue's Erec was highly influential, not only on the many Arthurian works tha...
Few stories were as widely known during the Middle Ages as the account of Iwein and Laudine, which appeared in French, Welsh, English, Norse, Swedish, Danish, Icelandic, and two German variants. The older German version, that by the Swabian nobleman Hartmann von Aue, won instant popularity and became a model of form, style, and language for the many courtly epics which his countrymen composed up to the beginning of the modern period. In recent years, his Iwein has enjoyed a remarkable revival among medieval scholars as traditional interpretations have been challenged by new ones.
Few stories were as widely known during the Middle Ages as the account of Iwein and Laudine, which appeared in French, Welsh, English, Norse, Swedish,...
