Secret in Medieval Literature Alternative Worlds in the Middle Ages
Product details
Biographical note
Albrecht Classen is university distinguished professor of German studies at the University of Arizona, Tucson.Classen explores the secret as a compelling narrative device in medieval texts. His focus is not on magical and religious elements per se, but rather on the ways in which medieval writers grappled with unknowable, or secret, objects and events. Classen discusses not only characters who wield secret knowledge and powers, but also those affected by, but not privy to, those secrets. The comprehensive introduction defines the significance of secrecy throughout literary studies, and the chapters that follow are devoted to an array of writers and genres. Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.
Choice Reviews
Albrecht Classen, in The Secret in Medieval Literature, explores the concept of the secret, a hidden world where things happen that are supposed to be removed from public awareness, from the knowledge of the uninitiated or protected from abuses by the masses. Specifically, in a wide variety of texts, including medieval classics such as the Lais of Marie de France and Wolfram van Eschenbach’s Parzival, he studies the function of the secret as a narrative motive and not just as an explanation for faintly mysterious phenomena. This analysis of pre-modern literary works from the perspective of strange or inexplicable incidents and objects that move the account forward is a unique approach. It is not another book about religion, magic, or mysticism but rather a fresh look at what was considered privileged knowledge and how that knowledge alluded protagonists in medieval works.
- Connie L. Scarborough, Texas Tech University,
Albrecht Classen’s The Secret in Medieval Literature examines a particular phenomenon that has a place in the domains of philosophy, medicine, and theology just to name a few, but his concern is how it becomes an aspect to power narrative across the scope of medieval European literatures. Through very detailed analysis of plots, Classen demonstrates the intractable quality of the secret. It is recognized, but the authors typically do not sketch out exactly what they are. Will readers ever know? Most often the audience will never know the secret even when it appears before their very eyes as a materially represented object. Classen has discovered one of the most powerful drivers of medieval narrative, but it will remain what it is: the secret.
- Daniel F. Pigg, University of Tennessee at Martin,
The Secret in Medieval Literature explores the many secret agents, actions, creatures, and other beings influencing human existence. Medieval poets had a clear sense of the alternative dimension (the secret) and allowed it to enter quite frequently into their texts.
Introduction: The Secret in the Literary Discourse: The Challenges of Medieval Literature for Post-Modern Readers
Chapter One: Marie de France: The Lais—the Mysterious Black Ship, and Other Secrets in the World of Love
Chapter Two: Nordic Sagas and the Mabinogi: Secrets in Medieval Icelandic and Welsh Literature or: The Appearance of the Otherworld in the Human Context
Chapter Three: Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival—the Secret of the Grail at Munsalvæsche, and the Secret Inscription on the Dog Leash in Titurel
Chapter Four: Heldris de Cornuälle’s Roman de Silence: The Secret of Gender Identity and the Secret of the Self: Nature versus Nurture—A Debate Raging Already in the Thirteenth Century
Chapter Five: Secrets and Mysteries in the World of Heinrich von dem Türlin’s Crône: The Transformation of the Arthurian and the Grail Romance
Chapter Six: Secrets and the Secret World in Huon de Bordeaux Foreign and Yet Not Alien: The Good King Auberon
Chapter Seven: Secrets of the Mystical World: Mysticism and t
The field of medieval literature continues to attract interest as we discover ever-newer perspectives and levels of meaning. The growing number of young and seasoned medievalists bringing innovative approaches to the study medieval literature needs a publication forum for their works. Our new book series invites scholars to publish their most powerful, exciting, and forward-looking studies, which will thus become an excellent platform for Medieval Studies at large. This new book series invites medievalist scholars to submit their research in the form of book-length manuscripts. In particular, we would like to invite proposals for projects that take interdisciplinary, ecocritical, gender studies, xenology, or communicative approaches to the study of medieval literature. We welcome monographs on medieval women’s literature; comparative aspects of medieval literature in different languages or from different national, cultural or religious backgrounds; projects that apply space- and time-oriented or animal studies approaches to literature of the medieval era; and projects in the field of manuscript studies, textual analysis, and interdisciplinary literary studies.
Series Editor: Albrecht Classen
Advisory Board: Werner Schaefke, Christopher R. Clason, Andrew Breeze, Connie Scarborough, Gloria Allaire, Fabian Alfie, Raymond Cormier, Janina Traxler, Marianne Ailes