Wolfram von Eschenbach

German poet

• Born: c. 1170
• Birthplace: Probably Eschenbach bei Ansbach, Franconia (now in Germany)
• Died: c. 1217
• Place of death: Probably Eschenbach bei Ansbach, Franconia (now in Germany)

In the era of the High Middle Ages, Wolfram was a master in the tradition of the courtly epic; his works constitute one of the high points of the narrative writing produced during this first golden age of German literature.

Early Life

As is the case with many medieval figures, little is known about the life of Wolfram von Eschenbach (WOHL-fruhm fuhn EHSH-ehn-bahk). He probably was born and likely also died in the town of Eschenbach bei Ansbach and was a Frankish knight in the service of the count of Wertheim. He was married, had a child, and possessed a modest estate. His grave in the Frauenkirche of Eschenbach was unmarked and has become lost over the centuries. He was well read but received no formal education, felt close to the common people, and was deeply committed to the ideals of Christianity.

He lived during the reign of the Hohenstaufen Dynasty —its most notable ruler being Frederick I Barbarossa . It was the age of the Crusades and feudalism . European knighthood was in full bloom, especially in France, England, and Germany. The knights were the bearers of a culture that centered on the courts of the liege lords to whom they had sworn fealty. During a period when Christianity was in competition with the secular domain for political and cultural hegemony, the ethos of knighthood constituted an attempt to merge religious and profane values.

The courtly culture of the time was a formative influence on Wolfram and his writings. The knightly code of behavior was guided by a number of prominent formal virtues, some of which had descended from older Germanic tribal codes. Honor (ěre) was foremost and meant that the knight would do nothing in thought or action to disgrace himself or the order of knighthood before God and the king. The courtly culture was concerned with proper form, and a knight’s appearance before the world was of the greatest importance. Loyalty (triuwe) meant that the knight kept his oath of allegiance to his liege lord. Discipline (zucht) indicated that the knight must maintain his proper knightly attitude on the battlefield and in court. Moderation (mâze) suggested that he must avoid all extremes and maintain his formal bearing. A knight’s goals in life were threefold: to own property (such as an estate), to maintain his honor before his peers, and to strive for God’s blessing. As a landed knight, Wolfram was committed to the values of his class, and they are evident in his works. A deeply religious man, he regarded the institution of knighthood as a manifestation of God’s will on earth.

The High Middle Ages was also the period of the formalized institution of courtly love (Minnedienst). Although occasional sexual liaisons undoubtedly occurred, courtly love was not an erotic affair but a form of spiritualized service in which the knight pledged his loyalty and honor to the defense of a lady of the court and thereby believed himself ennobled. The knight’s adoration of his lady was most often manifested in the writing of love poetry (Minnesang). Wolfram did write some poetry, although he is not known primarily for this type of literary production.

Life’s Work

Wolfram’s greatest achievements were in the genre of the courtly heroic epic . Before turning to his individual works, a few words about this form of literature might be in order. The literary models for the German courtly epic came primarily from France in the chansons de geste, tales of great heroic deeds, such as the Chanson de Roland (c. 1100; Song of Roland), and especially in the tales of knightly glory that were associated with the legendary King Arthur and his Round Table. The French writer Chrétien de Troyes , who lived toward the end of the twelfth century, had given classic form to the genre with his Arthurian epics, and his works were an important influence on later German authors.

Wolfram’s most famous text was his courtly epic Parzival (c. 1200-1210; English translation, 1894), which consists of sixteen sections and was handed down in more than eighty manuscript versions and fragments. The text is written in rhymed couplets, the form characteristic of medieval German narrative poetry. It is based on Chrétien’s Perceval: Ou, Le Conte du Graal (c. 1180; Perceval: Or, The Story of the Grail, 1844), stories surrounding the legendary chalice that was held by Christ at the Last Supper and was used by the disciple Joseph to catch Christ’s blood. Wolfram’s version is the story of the young and naïve Parzival in his quest for the Holy Grail and for his true relationship to God and knighthood. Parzival serves as a literary representative of his social class.

Since his father, the heroic knight Gachmuret, had been killed on a crusade, Parzival’s mother, Herzeloyde, rears her son alone in a secluded wood so that he might be saved from the worldly fate of his father. One day, however, the young boy, unfamiliar with the ways of the world, does meet three knights who advise him to go to the court of King Arthur. Since it was then believed that a knight’s noble nature was inborn, Parzival’s true heroic heritage is awakened, and he leaves his mother, who dies, in order to pursue his dream of becoming a knight at Arthur’s court. There he kills the Red Knight Ither and is instructed in the ways of courtly behavior by Gurnemanz. He is told to be humble and modest and not to ask too many questions.

After becoming betrothed to the beautiful Condwiramurs, he journeys to the Grail Castle, whose lord, Amfortas, lies suffering from a terrible wound. Naïvely following the advice he has received, Parzival does not ask Amfortas about his suffering, and he is told that he shows no pity for his fellowman. Discouraged, he leaves Condwiramurs and Arthur’s circle and sets forth into the world, resenting God, who he believes has abandoned him. Parzival shows here that he lacks faith in God’s wisdom, and such religious despair is considered a major sin within Christian thought.

Parzival wanders in despair for four years and finally comes on Trevrezent, the brother of Amfortas and the uncle whom he has never known. From Trevrezent, he learns that his mother has died—as well as the secret of Amfortas’s wound. He is instructed in the meaning of sin, grace, and faith in God’s plan and comes to realize that his rejection of God was a result of his rage and pride. No longer naïve in the ways of God and humankind, Parzival finally attains an inner peace. He leaves his uncle and engages in combat with a strange knight who turns out to be his friend Gawain. They return to Arthur’s court, but Parzival longs for Condwiramurs and the Grail and once more sets out on a journey. He again engages in combat with an unknown knight, Feirefiz, who is his own half brother. They travel back to Arthur’s court, where it is announced that Parzival is to be king of the Grail Castle. He is also reunited with his love, Condwiramurs. Having finally attained worldly glory and God’s blessing, Parzival spends the remainder of his life committed to serving others in God’s name.

Parzival serves as a kind of Everyman figure. His individual destiny describes the road to ideal knighthood and is, broadly speaking, an idealized vision of the path of medieval education. As a boy he is an “innocent,” unwise in the ways of the world, but he eventually attains a prowess in battle that defines his social status within the hierarchy of the court. He is on his way to reaching the three goals of the Christian knight (worldly honor, wealth, and God’s blessing) but must embark on an arduous journey in order to attain them. These ideals are symbolized by the Grail Castle, a union of secular values (knighthood) and religious faith (the guarding of the sacred chalice). His seeming lack of human compassion (not asking about Amfortas’s wound) and his rejection of God during his years of self-imposed exile are symbolically illustrative of the difficulties the individual Christian knight would face in achieving the goals of his station.

Wolfram clearly indicates the Christian idea that despite people’s good intentions, sin and guilt are an inevitable result of human existence. Parzival’s battles with strange knights who turn out to be friends (Gawain) or relatives (Feirefiz) suggest his “blindness” to those around him. His education must be directed at learning to recognize the truths of his faith and his society: that of the spirit (faith and the acceptance of God’s will) and that of his class (learning how to conduct himself properly within courtly society). Parzival’s eventual appointment as king of the Grail Castle indicates that he finally does become the ideal knight. His journey moves him from the ignorance and naïveté of childhood to the wisdom and salvation of adulthood.

Wolfram worked on several other epics that remained uncompleted. In Titurel (c. 1217; Schionatulander and Sigune, 1960), he tells the tragic love story of Sigune and Schionatulander, two of the characters who had appeared briefly in the Parzival text. This tale reflects the influence of the courtly love lyric tradition and its idealization of the love experience. Wolfram had also composed some poetry in this genre. In {I}Willehalm{/I} (c. 1212-1217; English translation, 1977), written during his old age, he narrates the story of William of Toulouse and his battles against the heathen Saracens. This work owes its plot elements to the tradition of the heroic epic with its descriptions of battles and the bravery of the knights who fought them. Its theme focuses on the differences between the Christian and heathen worlds.

Significance

Along with Gottfried von Strassburg and Hartmann von Aue, Wolfram von Eschenbach is one of the greatest writers in the genre of the courtly epic, and his place within world literature is certain. His works indicate a talented artist with a well-developed sense of humor and fantasy, a visual and highly symbolic narrative style, and a deep concern with Christian values and the ideals of knighthood.

His Parzival is one of the few great epics of the German Middle Ages. This tale of its hero’s struggles to attain honor before his courtly peers, as well as the grace of God, presents a vision of ideal knighthood but is universal in its appeal. Such themes certainly relate to the individual’s experience in the modern world as well as to the life of the medieval man. Whatever their historical time or belief, all human beings must seek at some point in their lives to balance the spiritual and the material, or social, sides of existence.

The story of Parzival’s journey through life, his learning of his own strengths and weaknesses as well as the ways of God and the world, has represented in certain respects a model of the maturation of the exemplary individual. This kind of narrative has become, in its later manifestations, a genre in itself, the so-called novel of education (Bildungsroman), in which the inner and outer development of the protagonist from youth through adulthood serves as the central theme of the text. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (1795-1796; Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, 1825) and Thomas Mann’s Der Zauberberg (1924; The Magic Mountain, 1927) are later examples of this genre. Wolfram’s Parzival stands at the beginning of this tradition.

Major Works by Wolfram von Eschenbach

Date

• Work

c. 1200

• Lieder

c. 1200-1210

• Parzival

c. 1212-1217

• Willehalm

c. 1217

• Titurel (Schionatulander and Sigune)

Bibliography

Green, Dennis H. The Art of Recognition in Wolfram’s “Parzival.” New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982. Scholarly analysis of Parzival.

Hanlin, Todd C. “Wolfram von Eschenbach.” In Critical Survey of Poetry, edited by Philip K. Jason. 2d rev. ed. Pasadena, Calif.: Salem Press, 2003. A six-page entry on Wolfram that covers his life and provides analysis of his most significant works.

Hasty, Will, ed. A Companion to Wolfram’s “Parzival.” Columbia: Camden House, 1999. Essays provide analysis of the popular vernacular work as well as social and cultural context.

Hutchins, Eileen. Parzival: An Introduction. 1979. Reprint. London: Temple Lodge, 1992. Filled with spiritual wisdom and artistic beauty, Parzival is one of the greatest works of world literature. A basic introduction, accessible to students, to the story and its moral significance.

Jones, Martin, and Timothy McFarland, eds. Wolfram’s “Willehalm”: Fifteen Essays. New York: Camden House, 2001. Jones, a senior lecturer in German at King’s College, London, and McFarland, a retired senior lecturer in German at University College, London, provide fifteen essays on Wolfram’s epic of the Christian-Muslim conflict, placing it in historical and literary context and elucidating the epic’s main themes, characters, and techniques.

Poag, James F. Wolfram von Eschenbach. New York: Twayne, 1972. A useful introduction with quotations in both English and German. Contains index and bibliography.

Sivertson, Randal. Loyalty and Riches in Wolfram’s “Parzifal.” New York: P. Lang, 1999. A reinterpretation of Parzival as the presentation of a conflict in medieval knighthood between the fight for abstract ideals and service for material gain. The author argues that Wolfram’s epic defends feudal values that were in a state of decline. Compares works by Chrétien de Troyes and others.

Sullivan, Robert G. Justice and the Social Context of Early Middle High German Literature. New York: Routledge, 2001. A history of the Holy Roman Empire hinging on an examination of High German literature and its authors’ focus on social, political, and spiritual issues during a time of transformation. Bibliographical references, index.

Weigand, Hermann J. Wolfram’s “Parzival.” Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1969. General but very good introduction to Wolfram’s text by a noted scholar. Contains bibliographic references and index.