Organuse
As Ms. Gawans, Orgeluse is a female figure in Wolfram von Eschenbach's epic “ Parzival ”. The name Orgeluse is probably derived from the name of the figure in the old French model of Eschenbach's Parzival, the "Parceval - Conte du Graal" by Chrétien de Troyes . Here Orgueilleuse means the proud, the haughty.
Orgeluse appears for the first time in book X of the novel. She is the Duchess of Logroys and is primarily characterized by her proud, almost arrogant demeanor. Orgeluse differs from other women mainly in its unconventional behavior towards men, especially towards Gawan. When the Arthurian Knight meets the Duchess for the first time, he offers her his services because of her enchanting beauty. Although she only met Gawan in the following with ridicule and scorn and exposed him to several life-threatening ventures, he kept his promise of knighthood so that his loyalty ultimately led to a change in Orgeluse.
The reasons for Orgeluse's dismissive and proud behavior can be traced back to several events. On the one hand caused by the loss of her husband Cidegast , who had been killed by Gramoflanz . Because of this, she tries to bind knights who are supposed to kill her husband's "murderer" through her charms and enters into a pact with the magician Clinschor ( Klingsor ). On the other hand, however, their appearance is also due to the injury to Anfortas , for which Orgeluse blames himself. Her rejection by Parzival also certainly contributed to her development into an unemotional and arrogant woman.
Their change and their reintegration into court society only takes place slowly and with the help of Gawan. Because Gawan constantly talks to Orgeluse and shows her through his love-based loyalty that she can confide in someone, he is able to slowly break through Orgeluse's defenses. After Gawan's successful return from his last dangerous task of breaking a wreath from the Gramoflanz tree, the previous resistance is finally broken and the two married.
Its main function for the novel “Parzival” is that, through its relationship to the Grail family via Anfortas, it creates a connection between the two parallel storylines about Parzival and Gawan.
Precisely because of its independent appearance, Orgeluse can be seen as a representative of a new, almost modern image of women in the Middle Ages. At the same time, their bivalent character is typified in literary studies as a situation in a dilemma.
literature
- Friedrich Michael Dimpel: Dilemmas: The Orgeluse-Gawan-Action in "Parzival" . In: Journal for German Philology (2001) 120, pp. 39–59
- Friedrich Michael Dimpel: 'er solts et hân gediuhet nider'. Judgmental narration in the organ plot of Wolfram's 'Parzival' . In: Euphorion 105 (2011), pp. 251-281
- Emmerling, Sonja: Gender relations in the Gawan books of “Parzival” . Tübingen 2003.
- Scheuble, Robert: manhood, vrouwen master. Frankfurt am Main 2005.
- Zimmermann, Gisela: Investigations into the Orgeluse episode in Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival. In: Euphorion 66 (1972), pp. 128-150
- Baisch, Martin: Orgeluse - Aspects of their conception in Wolframs von Eschenbach Parzival. In: "Difficult women - difficult men in the literature of the Middle Ages", Ed. By AM Haas and I. Kasten, 1998, pp. 15–33