Wolfram's Soltâne and its Literary Traditions — on the Impossibility of an Artificial Paradise. (3rd April 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Abel, Stefan
• Is Part Of: Oxford German studies. Volume 47:Number 2(2018)
• Page Start: 149
• Page End: 168
• Publication Date: 2018-04-03
• Subjects: Forest -- Chrétien de Troyes -- Conte du Graal -- Bliocadran -- Wolfram von Eschenbach -- Parzival -- Soltâne -- Ulrich Fuetrer -- Buch der Abenteuer; German literature -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; German philology -- Periodicals; 830.9
• DOI: 10.1080/00787191.2018.1452698
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0078-7191

Abstract

Abstract : Perceval grows up in the woodland solitude isolated from the courtly world and — at least so his mother intends — protected from the dangers of chivalry; this undertaking fails, however, for Perceval's predestination to be a courtly knight through his noble birth wins out in the end. This article shows how the motif of the woodland solitude develops thematically: from an idyll disconnected from time and space in Chrétien de Troyes ( Conte du Graal ) and from a place which must be created and cultivated in the course of strategic settlement ( Bliocadran ) into Wolfram von Eschenbach's Soltâne, an artificial paradise undermined by the acts of the characters living within it ( Parzival ), and into a fleeting episode in Ulrich Fuetrer's text which the young man suddenly leaves, 'after he became bored with his stay there' ( Buch der Abenteuer ).