The High Middle Ages, and particularly the period from 1180 to 1230, saw the beginnings of a vibrant literary culture in the German vernacular. While significant literary achievements in German had already been made in earlier centuries, they were a somewhat precarious vernacular extension of Christian Latin culture. But the vernacular literary culture of the High Middle Ages was an integral part of broader cultural developments in which the unquestioned validity of traditional authoritative models began to lose its hold. A secular culture began to emerge in which positive value began to be...

Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival expands and transforms the Arthurian tradition into a grand depiction of the medieval cosmos around 1200. Standing between clerical and chivalric cultures and articulating the interests and values of both, Wolfram produced the most popular vernacular work in medieval Germany and one of the most vibrant of the High Middle Ages. The brilliance, boldness, and astonishing originality of Parzival, along with the allure of its elusive author and his enigmatic grail, have continued to fascinate modern audiences since the nineteenth century. And in the late 20th...

The legend of Tristan and Isolde -- the archetypal narrative about the turbulent effects of all-consuming, passionate love -- achieved its most complete and profound rendering in the German poet Gottfried von Strassburg's verse romance Tristan (ca. 1200-1210). Along with his great literary rival Wolfram von Eschenbach and his versatile predecessor Hartmann von Aue, Gottfried is considered one of three greatest poets produced by medieval Germany, and over the centuries his Tristan has lost none of its ability to attract with the beauty of its poetry and to challenge -- if not provoke -- with...

The Medieval Risk-Reward Society offers a study of adventure and love in the European Middle Ages focused on the poetry of authors such as Marie de France, Chretien de Troyes, Wolfram von Eschenbach, and Gottfried von Strassburg--showing how a society based on sacrifice becomes a society based on wagers and investments. Will Hasty's sociological approach to medieval courtly literature, informed by the analytic tools of game theory, reveals the blossoming of a worldview in which outcomes are uncertain, such that the very self (of a character or an authorial persona) is contingent on...