Erec

The Erec (k) is a Middle High German verse novel by Hartmann von Aue and was written around 1180/90. It is considered the first Arthurian novel in the German language and is an adaptation of the old French Erec et Enide by Chrétien de Troyes . The only almost complete version of Erec (k) is preserved in the Ambraser Heldenbuch , which the customs officer Hans Ried made for Emperor Maximilian I between 1504 and 1516 based on older manuscripts .

There are also four short fragments from the 13th and 14th centuries (K, V, W and Z). While K, V and part of W largely correspond to the text of the Ambraser Heldenbuch (A), another part of W and the fragment Z convey a clearly different wording, which follows the French model much more closely. Not a single text witness has passed down the French form of the name Erec . The protagonist is called either Erek (in the fragments) or Ereck (in the Ambras book of heroes). In the latest scientific text edition, the Arthurian novel is accordingly called Ereck .

Hartmann's creative period is estimated between 1180 and 1205. The Erec (k) is often assessed as the first of his narrative texts based on stylistic but by no means unequivocal observations in research. Gregorius , Der poor Heinrich and Hartmann's second Arthurian novel Iwein followed later . A sequence of these texts cannot be guaranteed philologically.

The beginning of Erec (k) , as conceived by Chrétien de Troyes in the original, has not survived either in the fragments or in the Ambras book of heroes (A). However, the beginning of the Erec (k) version in A is characterized by an independent prologue and an episode of action in which a magical cloak is the focus. According to the almost unanimous opinion of philology, these almost 1000 initial verses of the Erec (k) novel in A are not supposed to come from Hartmann von Aue, but were only connected with the verse novel in the 13th century. Recent studies make it probable that the Erec (k) was already bracketed with the mantle episode in the temporal vicinity of its creation and that this therefore cannot simply be excluded from the text of the novel. Although this episode has only been handed down in the Ambraser Heldenbuch, where it represents the prehistory of the Erec (k) story , research sees it as a story independent of Erec (k) with the title The Coat . This judgment is based on the fact that the mantel episode is based on an independent old French narration as a model: Du mantel mautaillé . The German text has changed its original at a crucial point: While the French text uses Carados and Galeta as the protagonist couple, the German text replaces this pair with Erec and Enite, which do not appear in the French text. Joachim Bumke has therefore judged that the coat is not an independent story in German, "but the secondary added Erec -beginning". The latest text edition therefore includes this episode in the novel, just as the Ambras book of heroes does.

Thematically, the Arthurian novel, based on the term coined by Jean Bodel , is assigned to the Matière de Bretagne .

Content according to A (with coat episode)

After an extensive prologue of 90 verses, the first narrative part is about a Whitsun festival at Artus Court, for which a large number of noble guests have gathered. On the third day of the festival, after early mass, everyone is waiting to start eating. However, Arthur refuses to eat his guests because he is hungry for an adventure. Finally, on behalf of his anonymous mistress from the fairy kingdom, who hates all the ladies of the Arthurian court, a young messenger brings a magical coat to the court that only fits the woman who is absolutely loyal to her husband or boyfriend. To the amusement of the men, all the ladies of the court gradually fail miserably at the test of virtue. Finally, Enite puts on the coat that fits her except for a few missing centimeters at the lower hem, which is interpreted by the narrator in such a way that Enite was only almost on a moral astray. Verses are now missing in the handwriting. The further plot tells the prehistory of this coat test, namely how the young and inexperienced knight Ereck meets Enite, gets married and the couple finally gets into existential difficulties: Ereck, son of King Lac, becomes the dwarf of the wandering knight in front of Queen Ginive Iders dishonored by a lash of the whip. Without further ado, Ereck takes up the chase and arrives at Duke Imain's Tulmein Castle. In search of accommodation, Ereck runs into the impoverished nobleman Coralus. From this he learns about the upcoming sparrowhawk fight in Tulmein and that Iders, the knight whose dwarf Ereck has humiliated, has already won the beauty prize for his girlfriend twice in a row. Ereck decides to also take part in the tournament . He promises Coralus that if she wins, he will marry his daughter Enite if she accompanies him to the Sparrowhawk fight. Ereck wins the tournament and the hand of Enites.

See also: → Sparrowhawk fight .

The wedding will be held at Artus Court. Then he moves with Enite to Garnant, his father's court (who renounces the rule in favor of Ereck). There neglected Ereck its rulers duties because he love of Enite the day in bed with her spending (in the study of literature is this offense Erecks mostly as verligen , a term which directly Vers 3963 - ancient counting: V. 2971 - daz untz He is even taken from the publisher). When he learns from Enite that he has become the mockery of the court, he decides to secretly leave the court and seek adventure . Enite, whom he forbids speaking on the death penalty, has to accompany him. When the latter, contrary to his command, warns him of approaching robbers, he treats her from now on like a servant: She has to lead eight horses that Ereck wrested from attackers. In doing so, she breaks the ban on speaking again. It consists of a series of adventures (in double adventure series: first he fights against rude robbers, then for Enite against a traitorous count; the fight against King Gifurais ends the first series of adventures . After a stop at Artus Court and a short rest begins the second series of adventures : he saves Sodoch from the land of Bafriol, a nobleman, from two violent giants, defends his wife against Count Oringles, who wants to marry Enite, and finally fights again against King Gifurais). In the last adventure - called the 'Joy of the Court' ( Joied Illecurt ) - Ereck fights the gigantic Mabonagrim , who, because of a promise made to his girlfriend, who is a cousin of Enite, is forced to find strange knights who invade her tree garden. to kill. Ereck's father dies while the young knight celebrates his victory over Mabonagrim at Artus Court. He then moves back to his country with Enite and rules there without guilt or fault. In the course of the adventure trip, Ereck recognized the right balance between love and domination - mainly because of Enite's loyal perseverance - an insight that he can finally pass on to the defeated Mabonagrim. In the end, Ereck and Enite return to Garnant, where they live from then on as an exemplary ruling couple. (11116 verses plus 57 verses from manuscript W, which are inserted after verse 5616)

swell

French Arthurian novel - Chrétien de Troyes

Chrétien de Troyes sets new standards for vernacular narration with his work in the 12th century. According to the current state of research, his Erec et Enide (c. 1170, the first large-scale Arthurian novel in literary history) is the only model for Hartmann von Aue. The Ereck is again the first Arthurian novel in German-language literature, so it is an adaptation of Chrétien's work. The not inconsiderable differences in content compared to the French original are probably due to Hartmann's deliberate shifts in accent. An influence of other written sources ( Mabinogion , Nordic Erex saga), however, appears unlikely.

Lore

Surprisingly few text witnesses have survived from the Erec : only an almost complete manuscript in southern Bavarian writing, however, from the 16th century ( Ambraser Heldenbuch , Vienna Cod. Ser. Nova 2663) has survived. In addition, three fragments from the 13th and 14th centuries are known, a double sheet from the 1st half of the 13th century. in Rhenish Franconian Middle High German, which is now in Koblenz, two Central German double pages from approx. 1250–75 in Wolfenbüttel and a Bavarian-Austrian page in St. Pölten from the end of the 14th century. This does not correspond to the effect that the text must have had and which is also likely due to the wide geographical and temporal dispersion of the four sources. One can only speculate about the reasons for the sparse tradition.

The discovery of fragments in 2002 raised questions about the history of transmission. The so-called Zwettler fragment from Zwettl Abbey ( Lower Austria ), the find of which went through the international press in 2003 as a supposed fragment of the Nibelungenlied from the 12th century, turned out to be an Erek fragment from the 2nd quarter of the 13th century. In 2015 another fragment was found in Zwettl. The Central German text goes back independently from Hartmann to Chrétien's version and formed a parallel version that is closer to the French model than the text of the Ambras book of heroes. It remains unclear whether this version, which is also referred to as the Middle German Erec , ever included the entire novel or only intervened in certain places in Hartmann's text and redesigned it.

Even parts of the Wolfenbüttel fragment from the middle or third quarter of the 13th century with some probability pass on the same Central German Erek .

interpretation

For a long time, researchers believed that the ereck could not be understood without taking into account the " two- way structure" first formulated by Hugo Kuhn in 1948. “Double way” means Ereck's way through the action. The action begins at Artus Court. Ereck leaves the farm twice and returns there again. On his journeys, Ereck finds himself in a crisis right from the start , in a dishonorable state from which he works his way through great knightly deeds that bring him greater fame than before. The return to the Artus Court confirms the status of knightly exemplary character on both occasions. The dishonorable state on the first path is caused by the dwarf's lash. The infamous state on the second path is through the verligen in Garnant caused. The first crisis is overcome by defeating Iders, the second crisis by the adventure path with Enite, which in turn is doubled and consists of two rows. The individual aventures are not just a series of episodes, but an arrangement with a programmatic quality of expression, a so-called symbol structure. The two adventure sequences (= "double course", Hugo Kuhn). with a stop at Artushof (= social location ). as well as the final stop and the coronation feast show Ereck's step-by-step path to becoming an exemplary knight who has reconciled his love for Enite and his existence as a responsible ruler. This structure, with its symbolic content, has lost its unquestionability for today's research. Joachim Bumke (2006) has pointed out that there are other ways of structuring the novel that do not focus on Ereck's path, but rather focus on the couple relationship. The beginning of the Ereck in the Ambraser Heldenbuch, where Enite has to pass the test with the magic cloak, would also fit very well .

In the more recent research very different interpretive approaches have been pursued, which started either from the knighthood of Ereck, his handling of violence and sexuality, or from the couple relationship and the difficulty of partnership-based interaction. There is broad agreement that at the end of his journey Ereck represents a new dimension of chivalry, for which the acquisition of honor at any price is no longer the highest attainable value. Instead, the ruler of peace is characterized by a reflective approach to violence, active compassion for the weak and persecuted, and a partnership with his wife. Uwe Ruberg emphasized that this amounts to “'relativising' the ideality of the Artus Court”.

Text output

• Albert Leitzmann (Ed.): Erec. (= Old German text library. 39). 7th edition. taken care of by Kurt Gärtner. Niemeyer, Tübingen 2006, ISBN 3-484-20139-8 .
• Volker Mertens (Ed.): Hartmann von Aue. Erec. Middle High German / New High German. (= Reclams Universal Library. 18530). Reclam, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-15-018530-8 .
• Manfred Günter Scholz (ed.): Hartmann von Aue: Erec. translated by Susanne Held. Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-618-66050-2 .
• Andreas Hammer, Victor Millet, Timo Reuvekamp-Felber (eds.): Hartmann von Aue: Ereck. Text history edition with imprint of all fragments and the fragments of the Central German 'Erek'. de Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2017, ISBN 978-3-05-009551-6 .
• Brigitte Edrich: Hartmann von Aue: Erec, Manuscript A . 2014. Diplomatic transcription of the Erec text from the Ambraser Heldenbuch.

Secondary literature

• Joachim Bumke: The "Erec" Hartmanns von Aue. An introduction. de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2006, ISBN 3-11-018979-8 .
• Christoph Cormeau, Wilhelm Störmer: Hartmann von Aue. Epoch - work - effect. (= Workbooks on literary history ). 3. Edition. CH Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-37629-0 .
• Brigitte Edrich-Porzberg: Studies on the transmission and reception of Hartmann's Erec (= Göppinger works on German studies 557 ). Kümmerle, Göppingen 1994, ISBN 3-87452-797-2 .
• Rodney W. Fisher: 'Dô what are some nice'. How Does Hartmann Understand Erec's Manliness? In: Mediaevistik. 14, 2001, pp. 83-93.
• Irmgart Gephart: The hero's discomfort. Guilt and shame in Hartmanns von Aue 'Erec' (= culture, science, literature. 8). Lang, Frankfurt am Main a. a. 2005, ISBN 3-631-54114-7 .
• Sonja Glauch: Two 'Erec' at the beginning of the German Arthurian novel? Some conclusions from the newly found fragments. In: Journal for German Philology. 128, 2009, pp. 347-371.
• Andreas Hammer: Hartmann von Aue or Hans Ried? How to deal with the text and style criticism of the 'Ambraser Erec'. In: Elizabeth Andersen u. a. (Ed.): Literary style. Medieval literature between tradition and innovation. XXII. Anglo-German Colloquium, Düsseldorf (Bensberg) 2011. de Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2014, ISBN 978-3-11-034471-4 , pp. 423–443.
• Martin H. Jones: 'He spoke through beautiful cunning'. Empathy, Pretence, and Narrative Point of View in Hartmann von Aue's Erec. In: Mark Chinca u. a. (Ed.): Heyday. Commemorative publication for L. Peter Johnson. Niemeyer, Tübingen 2000, ISBN 3-484-64018-9 , pp. 291-397.
• Dorothea Klein: Gender and Violence. On the constitution of masculinity in the 'Erec' Hartmann von Aue. In: Matthias Meyer u. a. (Ed.): Literary life. Festschrift for Volker Mertens. Niemeyer, Tübingen 2002, ISBN 3-484-64021-9 , pp. 433-463.
• Hugo Kuhn: Erec. In: Festschrift for Paul Kluckhohn and Hermann Schneider. Mohr, Tuebingen 1948, DNB 451251261 , pp. 122-147.
• Henrike Manuwald: The 'coat' in the Ambraser Heldenbuch and the question of style. In: Elizabeth Andersen u. a. (Ed.): Literary style. Medieval literature between tradition and innovation. XXII. Anglo-German Colloquium, Düsseldorf (Bensberg) 2011. de Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2014, ISBN 978-3-11-034471-4 , pp. 445–464.
• Thomas Poser: Space in Motion. Mythical logic and spatial order in the 'Erec' and 'Lanzelet' (= Bibliotheca Germanica. 70). Narr Francke Attempto, Tübingen 2018, ISBN 978-3-7720-8645-8 .
• Bruno Quast: 'Getriuwiu wandelunge'. Marriage and love in Hartmann's 'Erec'. In: Journal for German Philology. 122, 1993, pp. 162-180.
• Timo Reuvekamp-Felber: Polyvalences and cultural criticism. For the necessary new edition of the 'Erec' Hartmann von Aue. In: Oliver Auge, Christiane Witthöft (Ed.): Ambiguity in the Middle Ages. Forms of contemporary reflection and interdisciplinary reception (= Trends in Medieval Philology. 30). de Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2016, ISBN 978-3-11-043391-3 , pp. 219–237 ( limited preview in Google book search).
• Uwe Ruberg: The crowning of the king Erecs at Chrétien and Hartmann in the context of Arthurian narrative conclusions. In: Journal of Literary Studies and Linguistics. 25, H. 99, 1995, pp. 69-82.

( The bibliographies listed by Hartmann von Aue provide a comprehensive list from 1927 to 1997 )

Web links

• Text of the Titus project of the University of Frankfurt based on the edition by Leitzmann
• Facsimile of Erek in the Ambraser Heldenbuch

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hammer / Millet / Reuvekamp-Felber, 2017
2. ↑ Joachim Bumke , 2006, 11; Henrike Manuwald, 2015
3. ↑ Reuvekamp-Felber, 2016
4. ↑ Bumke, 2006, 12
5. ↑ Hammer / Millet / Reuvekamp-Felber, 2017
6. ^ Marburg Repertory: Vienna, Österr. Nationalbibl., Cod. Ser. nova 2663 ( Memento of the original from April 30, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
7. ↑ Marburg Repertory: Koblenz, Landeshauptarchiv, Best. 701 No. 759,14b ( Memento of the original from April 30, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
8. ↑ Marburg Repertory: Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibl., On Cod. 19.26.9 Aug. 4 ° ( Memento of the original from September 15, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
9. ↑ Marburg Repertory: St. Pölten, Landesarchiv, Hs. 821 ( Memento of the original from April 30, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
10. ↑ Ruberg, 1995, p. 79