The first edition of this book appeared in German in 1985, and set a new agenda for the study of medieval literary theory. Rather than seeing vernacular writers' reflections on their art, such as are found in prologues, epilogues and interpolations in literary texts, as merely deriving from established Latin traditions, Walter Haug shows that they marked the gradual emancipation of an independent vernacular poetics that went hand in hand with changing narrative forms. While focussing primarily on medieval German writers, Haug also takes into account French literature of the same period, and the principles underlying his argument are equally relevant to medieval literature in English or any other European language. This ground-breaking study is now available in English for the first time.

The first edition of this book appeared in German in 1985, and set an agenda for the study of medieval literary theory. Rather than seeing vernacular writers' reflections on their art, as found in prologues, epilogues and interpolations in literary texts, as merely deriving from established Latin traditions, Walter Haug shows that they marked the gradual emancipation of an independent vernacular poetics that went hand in hand with changing narrative forms. While focusing primarily on medieval German writers, Haug also takes into account French literature of the same period, and the principles underlying his argument are equally relevant to medieval literature in English or any other European language.

Either directly or with reference to its repercussions, the essays assembled here deal with the intellectual revolution that transformed western culture in the 12th and 13th centuries and paved the way for the modern age. Two major innovations claim central interest. One is the project of a fictional form of literature that instead of claiming possession of the truth, as in the traditional view of the world, set out to in quest of it. The other is the idea of a new, personal relationship between 'I' and 'you', both in its religious form and as erotic encounter between the sexes.

Das Thema 'Erotik und Sexualitat' ist im Mittelalter und in der fruhen Neuzeit auf unterschiedlichen Ebenen abgehandelt worden. Entgegen den bislang ublichen Formen der Darstellung und Interpretation, bei denen man sich je nach Interesse beliebig aus den verschiedenen Bereichen bediente, werden hier die spezifischen Diskurse zunachst soweit wie moeglich auseinander gehalten. Es sind zu unterscheiden: der kirchlich-kanonistische, der medizinische, der feudale, der philosophisch-theologische und der theoretisch-didaktische Diskurs. Erst danach kann es um die Frage gehen, ob und, wenn ja, in welcher Weise die Diskurse aufeinander eingewirkt haben und welches Konzept der Geschlechterbeziehung schliesslich aus den Konflikten und Verschrankungen hervorgegangen und an die Moderne vermittelt worden ist. Die Neuauflage ist grundlegend uberarbeitet und stark erweitert. Neuere Literatur wurde einbezogen.

This is Volume 16 of the AFortuna VitreaA series and also brings it to a close. The topic central to the whole series - the transition from the medieval to the modern age - is once again taken up and the major aspects and striking lines of development carefully traced with a view to reemphasizing the diversity of changes, upheavals, and innovations and replacing the clichA(c) of 'one epoch after another' with the complex picture of a process taking place at different speeds and different levels across the centuries.

The volume contains a collection of 29 articles from the last years of Walter Haug's life, in particular theoretical literary and historical philosophical studies on the courtly romance and on mysticism, which are drawn closely together from the aspect of negativity. In addition, it includes texts on the heroic epic, MArendichtung (medieval fables) and many others, and through six speeches and tributes affords a very personal insight into Walter Haug as a scholar and as a man.

The studies assembled in this volume were presented at an interdisciplinary colloquium in 1998 on the subject of research into Western mysticism and where it stands at the present moment. In historical and geographical terms they cover a broad range of texts extending from the earliest beginnings to the flowering of mysticism in the late Middle Ages and the early modern age. In addition they confront fundamental issues of a theoretical and methodological nature, notably in connection with mystic language, mystic imagery and the question of corpo-reality. The edition also presents a number of hitherto unknown or unpublished texts.