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11.09.20, Knaeble, Hfisches Erzhlen von Gott

11.09.20, Knaeble, Hfisches Erzhlen von Gott


This analysis of Wolfram's Parzival bases itself (at least initially) upon the social (communication) theory of Niklas Luhmann, and the theoretical underpinning and justification occupies almost the first hundred pages of the study, which was originally a doctoral thesis for Bayreuth University. It has to be said that the theorising is somewhat excessive, and whether the insights gained (and so fully described) are of commensurate value is debatable, the more so as there is a certain tentativeness throughout about that value even on the part of the writer. However tempting it may be to try to apply insights from other disciplines (in the case of Luhmann those of communication and societal analysis) the ultimate question is always that of whether what it has to offer actually proves its worth. Here one wonders about more traditional entry-points, even as far back as something like Empson's types of ambiguity (especially the fourth)? The work also exhibits the dissertation-feature (it is not a flaw, of course) of needing to justify with chapter and verse even relatively obvious points.

Once the analysis of the text actually begins, however, there are many interesting insights as we are offered a (narratological, performative and reception-based) questioning of the way the interface of religion and the secular functions within the text, how the world of the grâl interacts with the courtly world. The author focuses first upon different and highly problematic passages in the work: the opening images in the prologue, the (fearsomely difficult) bow-image in Book V, and the Kyot-passage and first presentation and explanation of the grâl and its wunder in book IX. Of interest in the context of the prologue is the fairly briefly treated but significant comparison (104) with that of Hartmann's Gregorius, in which work, however, the whole theme is the possibility of redemption for all sins except zwîvel, described by Gregorius himself to his mother as being "against God's commandment," and for which dubitatio and desperatio overlap, with only Judas as the usual negative example. A centre of interest, however, is the commentary on the magpie-imagery and the directions of the Erzhlinstanz on those who cannot or do not attempt to grasp the sense of the story. The ambivalence, the ambiguity associated with the narrative process and that of redemption is central: "Das fast unmittelbare Wirken Gottes als transzendenter Macht im Bereich des Hfischen, hier: des immanent Profanen, scheint der Dreh- und Angelpunkt fr das selbstreflexiv werdende Erzhlen im Parzival zu sein: Die Erwhlung Parzivals und Erlsung der Gralsgesellschaft durch gttliche Gnade kann der Text nicht kommunizieren, das heißt, er kann ber das gttliche Heil nicht verfgen, sondern als hfischer Text kann er lediglich von den Effekten der Gnade Gottes erzhlen" (112). Emphasis is on triuwe, staete and kiusche. The roles of Narrative Authority in respect of the narrated world (the literary concept of sub-creation might be used, but the implicit notion of ranking in the word sub-system is dismissed later in the book, [230]) and of God in respect of religious communication are comparable but necessarily separate, and their potential overlap is complex (125). The self-reflexivity of courtly narrative in the bow-image and the notion of the hunt is linked with the zig-zag motion of the prologue, but more attention is paid to the intratextual genealogy of the text in the sequence Flegetanis-Kyot-Wolfram and the (asserted) move from orality to text and through baptism as the world of the grâl is presented.

The next section is concerned--as any study of this text must be--with the grâl itself, or here more specifically with how the courtly text-system permits the miracles of the grâl to link the immanent and the transcendental. It takes the words lapsit exillis as deliberately opaque and as such openly impossible to interpret, then focuses upon the role of Trevrizent as mediator and observer, unable himself to act. The food-miracle of the grâl is seen as a utopian fantasy within the courtly world, its castle being of course immune from siege and conquest. The writing, too, is stressed, as is the function of rejuvenation for Titurel (not the same as eternal life, [196]). Most important, however, is the question of baptism as the key to seeing the grâl (200-4); the theology of sight (restored in medieval thought by baptism after the inner eyes of mankind were paradoxically closed in spite of Genesis 3: 7) and of recognition is a key theme of other works, too, including Gregorius once again. Knaeble discusses further the community and its function in supplying rulers, and the case of the neutral angels. Again of special significance, however, is the question of a hierarchical relationship between the Arthurian and grâl court, the study stressing the equality of the two systems (rather than the usually assumed pre-eminence of the latter) and thus the necessary interdependence of the two. Neither is paradisiacal and both require salvation.

The book is not an easy one to read, and it is not unfair to say that there are occasional passages which might be overly complex in their presentation (one suspects the German word berproblematisiert might be used), but it addresses bravely and fruitfully the question of how in purely narrative terms (as opposed, for example, to the many approaches which have concentrated on Wolfram's external theological influences) the work goes about the balancing of the courtly world, that of the grâl, and the paradoxes of both within the context of the divine economy. Its examination of the religious textuality does not replace the other approaches based upon influence or indeed of parallelism of thought--I have, for example, viewed Parzival beside Book II of the Proslogion of Anselm of Canterbury by comparing Anselm's image of the way the fool can understand by a picture. [1] However, by adopting a consistent approach and tackling head-on the most difficult passages of a difficult medieval work and especially the central image of the grâl itself (which C. S. Lewis saw as deliberately ambiguous, for example), Susanne Knaeble's study provides a great deal of food for thought.

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Notes:

1. Brewer, D.S. Adam's Grace, Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2000, p. 92.