Amadis de Gaula

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First edition from 1508.
Title page of a Spanish Amadis edition from 1533

Amadis de Gaula is the hero of a chivalric novel which - together with its many extensions and sequels - formed one of the most popular readings in Western Europe during the Renaissance .

Prose novel

The prose novel describes the heroic deeds and virtues of the title hero and is based on the subject of Arthurian legends .

narrative

Amadis is the son of King Perion of Gaula and the British Princess Elisena; he is abandoned as an infant and taken to Scotland . There he falls in love with Oriana, the daughter of King Lisuart of England. Finally he can marry Oriana.

“Gaula” is traditionally identified partly as Gaul (France) and partly as Celtic Wales . However, according to Edwin Place, it is best interpreted as a fictional kingdom within Britain.

author

According to recent studies, the author of the Amadis de Gaula is Heinrich of Castile (1230–1304), a son of King Fernando III. of Castile . As a roving knight he had traveled to England, France, Italy, Tunis, Constantinople and the Mediterranean islands and fought in the battle of Tagliacozzo as the leader of the cavalry of Konradin von Hohenstaufen , his cousin. He may have written the Amadis during his long imprisonment in Canosa di Puglia and Castel del Monte . Henry of Castile was a recognized poet in Italy. The Amadi novels emerged from the original version of the 14th century two centuries later .

Amadis novels

This is a group of chivalric novels that were extremely popular in Europe in the late Middle Ages . They go back to a Portuguese prose novel, which was written by Vasco de Lobeira around 1370 , but probably had older predecessors. This was entitled Amadis de Gaula and consisted of three (or four) volumes. This original version has not been preserved; The oldest surviving adaptation is the version by the Spaniard Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo from 1508.

Already this added another volume. In the following decades not only twelve more editions appeared, but seven additional volumes in which the family history of the Amadis descendants was presented in detail and embellished. At the same time, the novels underwent numerous translations as well as revisions and continuations in foreign languages, which eventually led to the novel of the Baroque era.

Montalvo's extension already contained the story of Esplandian, the eldest son of Amadis and Orianas, after whom others have increased the descendants of the old hero. Other books described the fate of his nephew Florisando, then that of Lisuarte of Greece, a son of Esplandian, and the adventures of Amadis of Greece , a great-grandson of the Gallic hero. It was followed by Don Florisel de Niquea and Anaxartes, son of Lisuarte, whose stories filled the 9th to 11th books with those of the latter's children. Finally, a twelfth book, printed in 1549, reported the deeds of Don Silves de la Selva .

The fashion of the Amadis novels was in decline when Cervantes dealt them the fatal blow: in Don Quixote he made explicit reference to Amadis and ridiculed the subject.

reception

As the name of the hero suggests, the Amadis novel comes from the tradition of the Celtic Arthurian legends , but in fact the differences are considerable: the heroes are idealized - Amadis himself is noble, strong, chaste and invincible. Chastity and chivalry are the keywords for a changed ethos , the medieval loyalty to the feudal lord is replaced by the obligation to the king (the absolutism of Philip II is heralded).

The figure of Amadis was very popular during the Renaissance. In the French language , words like amadis , chivalrous man, seductive man, amadisé , exquisite; presumptuous, pompous, screwed ', amadisien ' knightly 'and amadisian ' seduce '. Its popularity also persisted in the Baroque period: based on the opera Amadis, which was first performed in 1684 and was composed by Jean-Baptiste Lully , in which the main character wore a dress with tight sleeves, amadis became the word for 'tight shirt or half-sleeves' and finally in the diminutive Amadīsli u. Ä. in the Upper German dialects of Alsace ( Alsatian ) and the city of Basel ( Basel German ) for the 'wrist warmer'.

In 1771, Christoph Martin Wieland published the story The New Amadis , which explicitly refers to Amadis de Gaula.

Opera adaptations

expenditure

  • Amadís: Amadís of Gaul , revised according to old chronicles, exp. u. verb. by Garcí Ordonez de Montalvo in 1508. Ed. translated by Fritz Rudolf Fries . [Transfer of the poems by Eberhard Wesemann]. 2nd edition, Insel-Verlag, Leipzig 1985.
  • Amadis des Gaules . [Ed .: Mademoiselle de Lubert]. [Microfiche output]. Translated from Spanish. Microfiche edition: Belser, Wiss. Dienst, Wildberg 1989–1990. Jolly, Amsterdam, ISBN 3-628-55031-9

literature

  • Henrike Schaffert: “Not less / but just as well / where not higher.” The Amadis as a stylistic-aesthetic model. In: Jan-Dirk Müller , Ulrich Pfisterer , Anna Kathrin Bleuler , Fabian Jonietz (eds.): Aemulatio. Cultures of competition in text and images (1450–1620) . De Gruyter, Berlin 2011 (=  pluralization & authority, 27), ISBN 978-3-11-026230-8 , pp. 417-448.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Edwin Place: Amadis of Gaul, Wales, or What? In: Hispanic Review , 23 (1955), pp. 99-107.
  2. ↑ See Peter Herde : The Battle of Tagliacozzo .
  3. ↑ See Walther von Wartburg : French Etymological Dictionary . Volume XXIV. Basel 1969-1983, p. 383, article Amadis; also Schweizerisches Idiotikon . Volume I. Frauenfeld 1881–1885, Col. 214, article Amadīslin and Christoph Landolt : Ammedyysli. In: Wortgeschichte from May 16, 2012, ed. by the editors of the Schweizerischer Idiotikon.