Buch, Englisch, Band 55, 264 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 159 mm x 239 mm, Gewicht: 562 g
Quest and Counter-Quests
Buch, Englisch, Band 55, 264 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 159 mm x 239 mm, Gewicht: 562 g
Reihe: Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture
ISBN: 978-1-57113-436-3
Verlag: Boydell & Brewer
A new view of King Rother in which not only the wooer but also his bride-to-be enacts a quest.
King Rother, a twelfth-century bridal-quest epic, occupies an important place in the history of German literature. The earliest surviving and structurally most sophisticated of the so-called minstrel epics, verse narrativesonce assumed to have been recited by itinerant minstrels before a courtly audience, it has its roots in German folklore and documents the transition from orality to the culture of the book. The text belongs to the subgenre of theperilous bridal quest, in which the disguised wooer deceives the bride's father and abducts her with her consent. This simple quest structure is doubled, if the wooer must win his bride a second time from her father, who has rescued her. The bride is almost always a passive figure in these events, the main conflict being the disparity in status between the wooer and his prospective father-in-law. King Rother is structurally complex, as the presentstudy is the first to recognize: the quest structure is doubled not only in the wooer's second quest, but also in the bride's own actions -- including her use of deception in a parallel quest for her wooer. This underscores her equality in status, which is her essential qualification to be his wife. The study includes an important English-language summary of scholarship on King Rother, on the minstrel epics, and on the bridal quest.
Thomas Kerth is Associate Professor of German at Stony Brook University.
Autoren/Hrsg.
Fachgebiete
Weitere Infos & Material
Minstrels and Bridal Quests
Sources and History
Rother
Constantin and his Queen
Rother's Quest
The Active Bride
Merging Quests
Counter-Quest
Doubled Quest
Reconciliation and Consent
Eternal Quest
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
