Walter Haug might well be called the nestor of German medieval studies, being an emeritus professor since 1995 and looking back on an illustrious career at the University of Tubingen where he taught for twenty-two years. As part of his guest professorship at the University of Freiburg im Uechtland (Switzerland) 1999/2000, named after the famed Wolfgang Stammler, formerly professor of Germanic Philology at that university, Haug delivered a significant lecture on Gottfried von Strasbourg's Tristan within the context of the erotic discourses of the Middle Ages and the early modern period (this is the translation of his German title). Once again we are confronted with a global attempt to come to terms with one of the most complex and puzzling issues of the Middle Ages, and as Haug offers such a sweeping and thought-provoking explanation, this thin but rich publication deserves to be reviewed here.
One major problem of modern discussions about courtly love has always been, as Haug points out, that most scholars have not distinguished enough or at all the various levels of discourse on love. Rejecting both the thesis of Denis de Rougemont (L'amour et l'Occident, 1939) and of Norbert Elias (Ueber den Prozess der Zivilisation, 2nd ed.1969), and so also of many other scholars as too diffuse and undifferentiating, Haug suggests that we can only gain a solid grasp of the issue of the erotic ("das Problem des Erotischen," 13) if we distinguish between the following levels of discourse: 1. clerical discourse based on canon law; 2. medical discourse; 3. feudal discourse; 4. philosophical-theological discourse; 5. courtly-literary discourse; 6. burlesque-literary discourse; 7. theoretical-didactic discourse.
These individual discourses were shared to some extent, but from a methodological point of view we need to keep them carefully apart so as not to confuse the various modes of explanation. What would we have to make, however, of Abelard's autobiography, his Historia calamitatum, or the letters exchanged with Heloise? Would it be justified to categorize Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival or Dante's Divina Commedia as literary works only and thus exclusively as contributions to the courtly discourse? Haug places the latter, at least the Paradiso, in the philosophical category. Can we so easily distinguish between "courtly" and "burlesque", or are there not a number of poets who combined both elements and playfully toyed with the latter within the context of the former, and vice versa? Where would we have to place Juan Ruiz's Libro de Buen Amor, as it is both clerical and burlesque, both didactic and philosophical? In other words, Haug's hypothesis does not reduce the problems with courtly love, instead we are also in danger of not seeing the proverbial forest because of all the trees set up by him. Nevertheless, the effort to identify layers of discourse is valuable, and forces us to rethink some of our previous assumptions, as the key issue might well be the audience, that is, the question as to whom the authors addressed in their works. Curiously, Haug admits that he has great difficulties in dealing with Andreas Capellanus' De amore as it seems almost impossible, he thinks, to pinpoint the author's true intentions: satire, erotic teaching, or moralistic warnings against courtly love (24 f.). Although Andreas wrote in Latin, it appears most likely that his work had a strong impact on much contemporary (vernacular) literature, and so also on Gottfried von Strasbourg.
Even though it might be questionable to assume that these various levels of discourse operated without any kind of contact with each other, it is important to recognize the existence of these separate levels and to understand the innovative character of courtly love as a theme in secular courtly literature.
As in his earlier publications, Haug again emphasizes the significance of the discovery of "fictionality" in the high Middle Ages which transformed all previous literary endeavors and liberated them from their traditional functionality for society (moral, social, didactic, political, etc.). Gottfried's Tristan proves to be, as Haug rightly underscores, one of the masterpieces of medieval literature where this new topic, the intimate, erotic love, found its best realization.
Haug observes the radical change in Tristan's life when love strikes him, and argues that here for the first time the protagonist is given over to a power stronger than himself. Whereas before Tristan had always managed everything concerning himself and had demonstrated supreme mastery of every subject matter and skill, now, having fallen in love with Isolde, he has become an absolute victim of love's power. What about Isolde, however? Haug does not discuss her role in the romance at all, although at the end she appears as the true heroine, whereas Tristan succumbs to his physical weakness and cannot maintain, as it seems, the purity of his love because another Isolde confuses his heart.
Nevertheless, the love between Tristan and Isolde represents the highest ideal of human existence, and whereas Greek philosophy (Plato and Aristotle) had defined love as an emotion in response to the other's perfection and value, Tristan's love and that of all courtly lovers is a love simply for the other in its individuality. Insofar as Gottfried describes the account of Tristan's and Isolde's love as "bread for us living", the literary text assumes a spiritual function similar to the account of the New Testament. However, Haug goes one step further and claims that Gottfried's radical dialectic consists in his argument that this love between Tristan and Isolde is characterized by internal contradictions which cannot be overcome. The very openness and never-ending struggle to achieve this love constitute, as Haug sees it, the very essence of Gottfried's definition of love.
This is an illuminating and far-reaching attempt to gain a deeper insight in the literary-ethical and philosophical messages contained in Gottfried's Tristan. Considering the enormous complexity of this love, however, one wonders whether the distinction between the various discourses can be maintained. Certainly, Gottfried was obviously not a cleric, nor a philosopher or a jurist, but even though his romance is based on the concept of erotic fictionality, all the discourses so clearly defined by Haug seem to have contributed to the text. Methodologically, one has to agree with Haug in separating the many different genres and in defining their characteristic features independent from each other. Nevertheless it remains disputable whether the literary discourse can be so neatly divorced from all the others. On the contrary, as Bakhtin has lucidly demonstrated, heteroglossia is one of the basic elements of a literary text, a corpus of many different voices and hence discourses. In this sense, Haug's argument proves to be both highly clarifying and provocative, as one would certainly agree with his discussion of the discourse levels, and certainly also with his interpretation of Tristan. Yet one might also have to disagree with him in the final analysis, as Gottfried incorporated many different discourses and posited his lovers as the paragons of human life in all its tragedy and happiness.
In honor of Haug, the introduction by Hubert Herkommer offers a brief biography, in which he also outlines Haug's major scholarly contributions. At the end follows a curriculum vitae and an enormously extensive list of Haug's publications, providing sufficient evidence for calling him a nestor of German medieval scholarship.