How did new literatures begin in the Middle Ages and what does it mean to ask about such beginnings? These are the questions this volume pursues across the regions and languages of medieval Europe, from Iceland, Scandinavia, and Iberia through Irish, Welsh, English, French, Dutch, Occitan, German, Italian, Czech, and Croatian to Medieval Greek and the East Slavonic of early Rus. Focusing on vernacular scripted cultures and their complicated relationships with the established literary cultures of Latin, Greek, and Church Slavonic, the volume's contributors describe the processes of emergence, consolidation, and institutionalization that make it possible to speak of a literary tradition in any given language. Moreover, by concentrating on beginnings, the volume avoids the pitfalls of viewing earlier phenomena through the lens of later, national developments; the result is a heightened sense of the historical contingency of categories of language, literature, and territory in the space we call 'Europe'.

This book offers a concise introduction to Gottfried von Strassburg's Tristan. The work is approached both through its context and through a close reading of key passages of the text. The contextual reading compares Gottfried with his predecessors Beroul, Eilhart and Thomas in order to reveal his independent response to the problems and possibilities with which he was confronted by his material. The close textual reading builds up a distinctive interpretation of the work, in which particular attention is paid to Gottfried's reworking of literary tradition, his use of religious analogies, and his awareness of the fictive potential of literary language. A concluding chapter examines Gottfried's medieval reception through the work of his continuators, Ulrich von Turheim and Heinrich von Freiberg, and the Herzmaere of Konrad von Wurzburg.

The most important part of the title of this book is the word 'and'. These words form the memorable conclusion to D.H. Green's study Medieval Listening and Reading; they encapsulate how, in the Middle Ages, orality and literacy are not to be considered as two separate and largely unrelated cultures or modes of textual transmission, but as elements in a mutual interplay and interpenetration. In this volume, scholars from Britain, Germany and North America follow Green's insistence on the conjunction of medieval orality and literacy, and show how this approach can open up new areas for investigation as well as help to reformulate old problems. The languages and literatures covered include English, Latin, French, Occitan and German, and the essays span the whole of the period from the early Middle Ages through to the fifteenth century.

This Festschrift has been written by 26 friends, colleagues and former pupils to honour a medieval Germanist whose work has illuminated the linguistic and literary achievements and courtly culture of the classical Middle High German period with humour and elegance. His recently published history of the medieval BlA1/4tezeit (Golden Age), the monumental pinnacle of his contribution to the field, is set to remain a seminal work in this most important area for many years to come. The contributors to the Festschrift give their response to the works, authors and themes dealt with in Johnson's history. Central to the volume, therefore, are the great literary works which remained influential well beyond the Middle Ages and today enjoy a firm place within the canon of world literature: Walther von der Vogelweide's lyrics and Spruchdichtung, the Nibelungenlied, and the epics of Wolfram von Eschenbach.