Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival

Marion E. Gibbs

Ed. by Gerhard P. Knapp, University of Utah
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.4.1: German-language Writing and Culture: Germany, 500-present.
Vol. editors: Gerhard P. Knapp (University of Utah), Jennifer Marston William (Purdue University), Herbert Rowland (Purdue University), Jill E. Twark (East Carolina University)

Dates

First circulation or publication c. 1203 - c. 1208

Places

Germany (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Poetry (any)
Romance

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

Recommended Reading

The best known work of Wolfram von Eschenbach is his

Parzival,

and at almost 25,000 lines in rhyming couplets, it is also the most substantial. At its core is a courtly romance with many of the ingredients familiar to the audience of Chrétien de Troyes and, in Germany, Hartmann von Aue. The source for his tale of the hero's quest for the Grail is Chrétien's unfinished

Perceval

Li Contes del Graal

of about 1185, but Wolfram has extended and deepened the material and given to the traditional theme of the knight's quest the spiritual significance of man's search for his identity and his destiny. He has placed this story centrally in a multi-faceted work that stands alone in Middle High German literature and is justly regarded as one of the masterpieces of European literature. Composed,…

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

2131 words

Citation: Gibbs, Marion E.. "Parzival". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 09 January 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=13213, accessed 23 November 2024.]

View recommended reading for this article

Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival

Dates

Places

Genres and Modes

Resources

Save this article

Leave Feedback