The concept of the aesthetic is a modern one, not however the phenomenon of the aesthetic. Thus the collected papers in this volume set out to discover important dimensions of the aesthetic in medieval literature. In this endeavour they inquire into the relationship of aesthetics and religion as well as into that between aesthetics and rhetoric, and they search for relevant concepts and modes of presentation in the literary texts themselves. These various components combine to form an a ~aesthetics of alteritya (TM).

Narratology from the Perspective of Medieval Studies systematically compiles research on the otherness of medieval narratives. It places a particular focus on the way that narrative forms are always linked to the meaning of narrative content. Key topics include genre, narrative patterns, connections to contemporary world knowledge, models of time and space, plot structure, andnarrator concepts.The book is primarily intended for medievalists and advanced students."

This study of historical semantics and early modern-age literary history delineates the way in which ideas about marriage, love and friendship changed radically from the 15th to the 16th century. Taking its bearings from systems and discourse theory, it examines tractates and fictional literature. Georg Wickram's prose romances take up the discourse on marriage to be found in moral theology and in stark contrast to earlier romances instantiate new forms of passionate love and friendship. As such they respond to the increasing isolation of the individual in the wake of the thoroughgoing reorganization of (German) society at that time, a phenomenon reflected both in the AFortunatusA romance and in the course of actual historical developments.