Wolfram von Eschenbach (1170–1220)

It has very encouraging reviews, but I simply couldn't get through the first chapter. The translation seems rocky and inconsistent, veering wildly in register within a single sentence, and I found it impossible to get a grip on Wolfram's voice and settle into the story. I suspect they were keen to retain as much as possible of the original, and this sabotaged the ability to produce a smooth and readable version. But I may be unfair; perhaps it was like that in the German.

It's also loaded with the same amount of detail as this genre likes; flicking through the book, I found him spending several sentences describing knives held by people forming one part of a procession that takes many pages. There was nothing to indicate these knives would be of later importance. It's just all about painting lavish word-pictures; more suited in my view to storytelling than reading.

In short, not for me.… (mais)

Parzival von Wolfram von Eschenbach ist ein Versroman der mittelhochdeutschen höfischen Literatur, der vermutlich im ersten Jahrzehnt des 13. Jahrhunderts entstand. Das Werk umfasst etwa 25.000 paarweise gereimte Verse und wird in den modernen Ausgaben in 16 Bücher gegliedert.
die abenteuerlichen Geschicke zweier ritterlicher Hauptfiguren – einerseits die Entwicklung des Titelhelden vom Unwissenden im Narrenkleid zum Gralskönig, andererseits die gefahrvollen Bewährungsproben für den Artusritter Gawan. Thematisch gehört der Roman zur sogenannten Artusepik, obwohl die Aufnahme Parzivals in die Tafelrunde des mythischen britannischen Königs nur eine Durchgangsstation seiner Gralssuche ist.… (mais)

I honestly don't know what to make of this. Somehow everything I understood in Chrétien, refracted through Wolfram, became confusing: why does Parzival disappear for almost the entire narrative? What's Gawain's point? Why the proliferation and names? What accounts for this paratactic aesthetic? I know it'd be fun to teach the authorial intrusions, and I'm sure the German is itself unbearably dense, probably the sort of thing that'd reward a life's attention. But lord knows I'll never put this on a syllabus: it's just too smart for me.… (mais)