On Chretien and WolframAuthor(s): A. T. HattoSource: The Modern Language Review, Vol. 44, No. 3 (Jul., 1949), pp. 380-385Published by: Modern Humanities Research AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3717658 .

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Mliiscellaneous Notes Mliiscellaneous Notes

early stages of the development, is a notoriously moot point of historical phonology: Steiger's plea to reconsider the entire issue, brushing aside the preconceived notion that pl- > ch- is necessarily a western trait, deserves careful consideration.1 At this juncture, each worker may classify churniego as a word radiating from the west as far as the centre of New Castile or else as a formation native to that region, according to his personal preferences and to the degree of importance he is willing to concede to diffusion. Be that as it may, after the standardization of llorar 'to cry, to whine' in the central dialects, its former cognate churniego became an entirely isolated formation, an easy prey to shifts of meaning. Before becoming extinct (as we may surmise it has throughout Castile), it experienced a change of emphasis and of range: once it had become primarily a designation of a fool, there were no obstacles to its wide application, in the spoken and even in the literary idiom, to the stupid male.

YAKOV MALKIEL BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA

ON CHRETIEN AND WOLFRAM

In a book to whose unusual merit frequent allusion has been made in this Review2 Professor Fourquet has some probing questions to ask concerning Wolfram's use of the name of Chretien de Troyes, the celebrated author of the main source of his Parzival. Why does not Wolfram mention Chretien at the beginning, as Hartmann does in his Iwein, instead of at the end, and then only to deny him?3 How can he deprive himself of the authority of such a master 4

To these questions Professor Fourquet supplies the following answers which can be studied at their full strength and subtlety in his book.

When Wolfram started work-on Book in, as Professor Fourquet has shown5- he based it on a manuscript of the Conte which did not contain Chretien's Dedication in which the French poet names himself.6 Such a MS. tradition is represented by the extant MS. 'R', which Professor Fourquet has in any event proved to be ex- tremely closely related to the MS. first used by Wolfram (W1).7 The chances are 14:1 that the second MS. of the Conte to be placed at Wolfram's disposal (W2) contained Chretien's Dedication and hence his name.8 W2 also contained the 'Continuation Gauvain' (but not the 'Continuation Perceval').9 The upshot of this was that Wolfram must have started work in ignorance of his author's name, so that it would have come as a shock to him to receive 'le poeme du grand maitre courtois' and find that after all it was only a reproduction of his anonymous story (W1) with a continuation that could not satisfy him.'0 Where modern scholars found it difficult to say just where Chretien stopped and his continuators began it would be understandable if Wolfram assumed the whole of W2, authentic text and continuation alike, to be the work of Chretien. To believe so would confer sense on the words 827, 1 Ob von Troys meister Cristjan

disem maere hat unreht getan, daz mac wol zirnen Kyot...

1 A. Steiger, 'Contribuci6n al estudio del he mentions Chretien in the middle, in passing vocabulario del Corbacho', in Boletin de la Real (1. 462912). Academia Espadola, x (1923), 173. 4 P. 171. 5 Op. cit. passim.

2 Wolfram d'Eschenbach et le Conte del Graal 6 Pp. 115f. (Paris, 1938). 7 P. 116 and Chap. I.

3 Op. cit. pp. 115f. and 171. As a matter of 8 P. 116.

fact, Hartmann does not name Chretien in his 9 Pp. 170 and 172. Iwein. In Erec (whose exordium has not survived) 10 P. 172.

early stages of the development, is a notoriously moot point of historical phonology: Steiger's plea to reconsider the entire issue, brushing aside the preconceived notion that pl- > ch- is necessarily a western trait, deserves careful consideration.1 At this juncture, each worker may classify churniego as a word radiating from the west as far as the centre of New Castile or else as a formation native to that region, according to his personal preferences and to the degree of importance he is willing to concede to diffusion. Be that as it may, after the standardization of llorar 'to cry, to whine' in the central dialects, its former cognate churniego became an entirely isolated formation, an easy prey to shifts of meaning. Before becoming extinct (as we may surmise it has throughout Castile), it experienced a change of emphasis and of range: once it had become primarily a designation of a fool, there were no obstacles to its wide application, in the spoken and even in the literary idiom, to the stupid male.

YAKOV MALKIEL BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA

ON CHRETIEN AND WOLFRAM

In a book to whose unusual merit frequent allusion has been made in this Review2 Professor Fourquet has some probing questions to ask concerning Wolfram's use of the name of Chretien de Troyes, the celebrated author of the main source of his Parzival. Why does not Wolfram mention Chretien at the beginning, as Hartmann does in his Iwein, instead of at the end, and then only to deny him?3 How can he deprive himself of the authority of such a master 4

To these questions Professor Fourquet supplies the following answers which can be studied at their full strength and subtlety in his book.

When Wolfram started work-on Book in, as Professor Fourquet has shown5- he based it on a manuscript of the Conte which did not contain Chretien's Dedication in which the French poet names himself.6 Such a MS. tradition is represented by the extant MS. 'R', which Professor Fourquet has in any event proved to be ex- tremely closely related to the MS. first used by Wolfram (W1).7 The chances are 14:1 that the second MS. of the Conte to be placed at Wolfram's disposal (W2) contained Chretien's Dedication and hence his name.8 W2 also contained the 'Continuation Gauvain' (but not the 'Continuation Perceval').9 The upshot of this was that Wolfram must have started work in ignorance of his author's name, so that it would have come as a shock to him to receive 'le poeme du grand maitre courtois' and find that after all it was only a reproduction of his anonymous story (W1) with a continuation that could not satisfy him.'0 Where modern scholars found it difficult to say just where Chretien stopped and his continuators began it would be understandable if Wolfram assumed the whole of W2, authentic text and continuation alike, to be the work of Chretien. To believe so would confer sense on the words 827, 1 Ob von Troys meister Cristjan

disem maere hat unreht getan, daz mac wol zirnen Kyot...

1 A. Steiger, 'Contribuci6n al estudio del he mentions Chretien in the middle, in passing vocabulario del Corbacho', in Boletin de la Real (1. 462912). Academia Espadola, x (1923), 173. 4 P. 171. 5 Op. cit. passim.

2 Wolfram d'Eschenbach et le Conte del Graal 6 Pp. 115f. (Paris, 1938). 7 P. 116 and Chap. I.

3 Op. cit. pp. 115f. and 171. As a matter of 8 P. 116.

fact, Hartmann does not name Chretien in his 9 Pp. 170 and 172. Iwein. In Erec (whose exordium has not survived) 10 P. 172.

380 380

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Miscellaneous Notes 381

for it would be irrational of Wolfram to reproach Chretien for not having finished his story, but judicious to consider that through his 'continuation' he had ruined it.' To this ingenious and consistent theory the following must now be objected.

Even if W, did not contain Chretien's Dedication (as likely it did not) that would not be a sufficient cause for the absence of his name in the first part of Parzival, for two reasons.2 First, it is scarcely credible that Wolfram and his whole circle did not know the famous book and its famous author by repute (a source of information unhappily not available to modern scholars, but none the less real for that). Indeed, the present writer found it profitable to assume that some among Wolfram's audiences had a better reading knowiedge of the Conte than he, which is no strange thing considering the n-idespread knowledge of French and of French literature in the Germany of the day.3 This leads to the second objection. It is quite possible that Wolfram did cite his authority by name at the beginning of his first edition of Parzival and yet expunged it in his second owing to the storm of protest occasioned by his infidelity to Chretien both voluntary and involuntary.4 A firm believer in the idea that Wolfram re-edited his work, Professor Fourquet would find no difficulty in principle here.5 But in any case, if Kyot was right, as Wolfram asserts, then Chretien was wrong, which many of his listeners were not prepared to accept. But Wolfram knew the sort of horse he was riding and intended to bring him to stable- if there was to be any trouble he would have it there. Owing to his imperfect grasp of French he did not succeed without mishap. But this experience must surely have warned him that the flat statement that the great Chretien was wrong had better be saved up for the end.

The view that Wolfram knew full well who was the author of his source helps us over a minor difficulty in Professor Fourquet's theory: it would enable us to imagine the acquisition of W, and W2 as purposive acts instead of a game of bibliographical blind man's buff! Having lost the use of one copy of the Grail story by the fashion- able author whose earlier German adaptor he was determined to outshine,6 he took steps to secure a second-and succeeded. It is more reasonable to suppose that his patrons wished to have a rendering of a famous story about the Grail by Chretien de Troyes than of just any book about the Grail, in French, to be supplemented by any other half-way through.

But before Wolfram succeeded in obtaining his second manuscript he employed his freedom on the spontaneous composition of Books I and ii, a conception which Professor Fourquet was the first to place on a sound basis, though he neglects to utilize it for the purposes of the present argument. In Book I the strange figure of Feirefiz appears, and Feirefiz looks forward to Books ix, xv and xvI, the turning- point of the story and its end. But even before Book I, in the order of composition, Wolfram was thinking about this figure who links us to the end. Professor Tonnelat considered that Feirefiz was simply dragged in at 316, 29:

waer ze Munsalvaesche iu vragen mite, in heidenschaft ze Tabronite diu stat hat erden wunsches solt: hie het iu vragen mer erholt.

1 Pp. 171f. 4 Ibid. 2 The first and only mention of Chretien in 5 Fourquet, op. cit., for example p. 127, and

Parzival is in fact at 827, 1-thirty lines from the frequently in the course of the book. end. 6 Hartmann von Aue, Parz. 143, 21.

3 See M.L.R. xLm (1948), 220ff.

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Miscellaneous Notes

jenes landes kiinegin Feirefiz Anschevin mit herter riterschaft erwarp, an dem diu manheit niht verdarp, die iwer beder vater truoc. iwer bruoder wunders pfligt genuoc: ja ist beidiu swarz unde blanc der kiingin sun von Zazamanc.1

In a sense it is so. But in view of the chronological sequence-Books m-vi, I-n, vii, etc. this passage reads better as an attempt on Wolfram's part to provoke curiosity about Feirefiz and the Queen of Zazamanc (in the manner of an Elizabethan title- page), curiosity which he is about to satisfy 'in the next'. If this is so it would merely imply that Wolfram knew by repute that Chretien had died before finishing his story and that a denouement was required. Such early thoughts about the ending of his story would have preceded and so have been unaffected by what he may or may not have found in W2, since by the middle of Book vi he had lost W1 and presumably not yet found W2.2

If these objections be accepted, how must we envisage Chr6tien's 'dealing badly by the story'? Professor Fourquet does not take Kyot any more seriously than the present writer, and it was said above that if Kyot gave us the right story then Chretien must have given us the wrong. But perhaps the charge is to be taken rather more seriously.

At least one German versifier, Heinrich von dem Tiirlin,3 and several French ones thought that as Chretien left the story, Gauvain and not Perceval was destined to find the Grail. Such a solution though logically permissible is not aesthetically so. For Wolfram it was also emotionally impossible to end it thus, for he has clearly given his heart to the boy from the outset.4 It is possible he may have suspected that Chr6tien would have decided against Perceval despite the sympathetic begin- ning; at least he feels the need to placate the pro-Gawan party among his audience.5 But quite apart from such doubts and suspicions and the consideration that after the die was cast only Kyot could be right and all others wrong, there are unmistakable signs in Wolfram's text when closely compared with Chr6tien's that the French poet at times caused him to smile wryly or even aroused him to indignation. Measuring himself against Hartmann he soon came to the correct conclusion that he was the better man, and it would not be surprising if he favoured a like opinion with regard to Chretien.

For where Chr6tien forgets that Perceval has already seen stirrups on the knights and says (in so many words) that the boy had never seen such things before, Wolfram jingles stirrups, writes stirrups large before the boy's eyes.6 Where Chr6tien makes the boy ask 'What is a church?' Wolfram substitutes 'What is God? ,7 a shrewd blow at Chretien's purely orthodox religious instruction and one which Wolfram follows-up

1 See E. Tonnelat, Parzival (Paris, 1934), I, not persuaded that Wolfram was influenced by 276 footnote. It would be fruitless to argue that Chr6tien's continuators. this passage is a later interpolation by the author, 3 M.L.R. loc. cit. for pseudo-oriental matter crowds in from this 4 See the following footnote. point-unless one makes the claim that it is all 5 338, 1 ff. though he is careful to reassure the second edition! pro-Parzival section when their hero goes out of

2 Whereas the writer is fully convinced by the story (333,15ff.) and when he returns to it Professor Fourquet's brilliant refutation of (503, 1ff.). Dr Rachbauer's thesis that Bock II was in- 6 Conte 1187; Parz. 122, 5 and 157, 28. fluenced by the Bliocadrans's Prologue, he is 7 Conte 573; Par7. 119, 17.

382

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Miscellaneous Notes

to the full. Chretien says explicitly he will not speak of Perceval's meal chez Gornemant, but Wolfram uses the opportunity to demonstrate his lack of table- manners.' Chretien calls his heroine 'Blancheflor': Wolfram disapproves of her behaviour and changes her name and character to 'Condwiramurs'.2 At the very point where Chretien is repeating his excuse for Perceval's failure at the Grail Castle (he will say it a third time), Wolfram says that if his audience will bear with him he will proceed with the story.3 Conversely, where Chretien affirms that it would be a waste of effort-paine gastee-to describe a martial encounter, Wolfram makes it the occasion for a full-length report!4 Needing snow for a new episode Chretien turns it on rather suddenly, but Wolfram comments that it is out of season and altogether odd that Arthur is always holding court at Pentecost.5 Chretien causes Gauvain, the ladies' man, to bestow captured horses on ladies, whereas Parzival, a man's man after his creator's heart (whom he has introduced fleetingly into this episode on his own responsibility) bestows his captured horses on warriors who can use them.6 In the Conte the Hermit tells Perceval not to fail to go to church (the third time since he was told at his mother's knee), but in Parzival the hero confesses to Trevrizent that he has not been to church, and Trevrizent (who has sublimer matters to attend to) ignores the confession!7 In the Conte there is a horse which having fallen into a river refuses to budge until its rider has rubbed it down, but the hard-riding author of Parzival, with what inner indignation can be imagined, makes it shake itself and go about its equine business with all gravity.8

These are small points, but they show unmistakably the spirit in which Wolfram faced the major task of transforming and completing the unfinished work of a master to whom he considered himself superior. Remembering who Kyot really is, we begin to appreciate the flavour of ziirnen in the phrase

Ob von Troys meister Cristjan disem maere hat unreht getan, daz mac wol ziirnen Kyot....9

Wolfram's gropings for an ending to the unfinished story have been traced back to about the middle of Book vi. On the other hand, there are signs, that by the middle of Book v he was still without a plan and thus (after his own fashion) sub- servient to Chretien. This appears from a scrutiny of the curious fate of the motif of Trebuchet's sword.

In Chr6tien's account the Fisher King gives Perceval the sword just before the Grail is carried in.l1 The gift is explained to him later by the Damsel with the Slain Knight: he is never to rely on it, for it will fly to pieces and could only be forged anew by a smith named Trebuchet who lives beside the Lake of Cotoatre. In his version Wolfram arranges for the gift to be made after the Grail ceremony as a last hint to Parzival to ask the question. Sigune explains it in terms similar to those used by Chr6tien's Damsel, but adds the condition that Parzival must have brought the appropriate sword-charm from the Grail Castle.

1 Conte 1562ff.; Parz. 165, 15ff. Wolfram von Eschenbach undseinefranz. Quellen, I 2 Conte 2417; Parz. 177, 30. (1943), 260. 3 Conte 3202ff.; Parz. 232, 5ff. 7 Conte 6440; Parz. 461, 4. 4 Conte 3918ff.; Parz. 262, 14. 8 Conte 8511ff.; Parz. 602, 8ff. 5Conte 4164ff.; Parz. 281, 12ff. 9 Parz. 827, 1ff.

6 Conte 5576ff.; Parz. 389, 16ff. Cf. B. Mergell, 10 Conte 3131ff. and Parz. 239, 18ff.; Conte 3654ff. and Parz. 253, 24ff.

383

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384 Miscellaneous Notes

Now what does Wolfram do with this circumstantial and apparently promising beginning? The answer is that he acts most unaccountably and in a way that no

appeal to the sovereign rights of genius' can justify. After Books vnI and vII, which are devoted to Gawan, the story returns to

Parzival. What has the hero been doing all this time? He has passed through many lands and sustained many encounters. And then we have it in the space of seven brief lines: sin swert, daz im Anfortas

gap do er bime grale was, brast sit do er bestanden wart: do machtez ganz des brunnen art bi Karnant, der da heizet Lac. daz swert gehalf im priss bejac. swerz niht geloubt, der sundet.2

'Swerz niht geloubt, der siindet' ! There is the hint for those to whom Wolfram is no demi-god but a humorous indigent poet who must earn a living. With these seven lines he buries the sword of Trebuchet.

But the ghost of the sword rises again to haunt the story further on. There is another sword by another name which breaks in Parzival's hands at a vital point in combat with his half-brother Feirefiz as we approach the denouement of the tale.3 When the sword breaks Wolfram tells us that it was the sword of Ither von

Gaheviez, the Red Knight, whom cousin Parzival had slain with a javelin for the sake of his bright armour. Then

got des niht langer ruochte, daz Parzival daz re nemen in siner hende solde zemen: daz swert er Ithere nam, als siner tumpheit do wol zam.4

Professor Schneider has shown in a recent study that for the first time since Parzival slew his cousin he is now in a state of grace again, his failure at the Grail Castle having been but the outward expression of his earlier fall from grace.5 Now an effect of Parzival's failure was that he came away without the charm which would enable the gift-sword to be re-forged when shattered, much to Sigune's disappoint- ment for she knew what that portended:

'daz swert bedarf wol segens wort: ich fiirht diu habestu lazen dort, hats aber din munt gelernet, so wehset unde keret immer saelden kraft bi dir.... den wunsch uf der erden

1 Such as Dr Mergell has made on similar long and weary struggles. This part of the occasions. Studien is most convincing and rich in the light

2 Parz. 434, 25ff. it throws on Wolfram's major intentions and on 3 Parz. 744, 10ff. turns of phrase in the text (of which there are 4 Parz. 744, 14ff. more than Professor Schneider has quoted). 5 H. Schneider, Parzivaltudien (Sitz. ber. d. Professor Schneider could have made assurance

bayr. Akad. d. Wissenechaften. Phil.-hist. Kl. doubly sure by quoting Parz. 499, 22 to show Jhg. 1944-6, Heft 4.). Here Professor Schneider his mother's death counted with the slaying of characteristically exploits the fact that the most Ither, Chr6tien's Conte 6390ff. to show that the important precedent for Parzival qua religious French original considered it was due to the poem was Hartmann's Gregorius, the story of death of his mother, and Diu Crone 29490ff., a sinner who fell from a state of grace through that it was due to the slaying of Ither. no fault of his own and only regained it after

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Miscellaneous Notes Miscellaneous Notes

hastu vollecliche: niemen ist so riche, der gein dir koste mege han, hastu vrage ir reht getan.' er sprach 'ich han gevraget niht' 'owe daz iuch min ouge siht', sprach diu jamerbaeriu magt....'l

But in the seven lines in which he so hastily rids himself of the sword Wolfram informs us that it was shattered, restored and served him well-all without further mention of the charm which he has not and cannot have acquired since, for its

acquisition was bound up with success or failure at the Grail Castle, which in turn was governed by his state of grace ! It thus transpires that Wolfram has transferred the associations of grace from Trebuchet's sword to Ithar's. From this it follows that while he was writing Book v Wolfram was still prepared to follow Chretien with a reasonable fidelity, but that by the beginning of Book ix, where he decides to have done with the sword of Trebuchet, he has already imagined the solution to be realized through Feirefiz in Book xv. Now Book ix is the first place'where Wolfram can speak of Parzival in any detail after saying good-bye to him at the end of Book vi, and,the Feirefiz theme commences half-way through this same book. It is but a short step from here to suppose that, although he knew he would have to find an end to Chretien's unfinished story one day, the loss of the use of W1 before he had finished Book vi was the outward event which accelerated his

preparations. In conclusion, then, the following alternative hypothesis may be offered to the

one propounded by Professor Fourquet: that Wolfram by repute knew that his First Manuscript contained the famous Grail romance by Chretien de Troyes; that even if this MS. did not name Chretien that would have been no reason why Wolfram should not have first included the name and then expunged it owing to the known

opposition of his listeners, although there is no knowing whether his first edition of Parzival mentioned Chretien at the beginning or not; that by repute he knew that the French master had died before completing Conte del graal and thus always knew he would have to find an ending for it one day; and that the process of finding an

ending was accelerated when, half-way through Book vi, he lost the use of his First

Manuscript and was still without the Second. From all of this we may infer that the position into which he had been driven

through his fabrication of Kyot made it impossible for him to acknowledge his very real debt to Chretien, even though obscured by his hypercritical approach to his work. Wolfram was a loyal-minded man, so let us hope for the peace of his mind that this last reference to Kyot was more or less an open joke.

A. T. HATTO LONDON

WERTHER'S 'NEID '-A REPLY

Miss Wilkinson's paraphrases in her observations on 'Neid' in Werther's letter of 1 July 1771 are admirably lucid, and her first four paragraphs convincingly demon- strate the irrelevance of lexicographical or grammatical evidence to a solution of the

problem which I originally raised. My own reasoning, however, did not depend 1 Parz. 254, 15.

hastu vollecliche: niemen ist so riche, der gein dir koste mege han, hastu vrage ir reht getan.' er sprach 'ich han gevraget niht' 'owe daz iuch min ouge siht', sprach diu jamerbaeriu magt....'l

But in the seven lines in which he so hastily rids himself of the sword Wolfram informs us that it was shattered, restored and served him well-all without further mention of the charm which he has not and cannot have acquired since, for its

acquisition was bound up with success or failure at the Grail Castle, which in turn was governed by his state of grace ! It thus transpires that Wolfram has transferred the associations of grace from Trebuchet's sword to Ithar's. From this it follows that while he was writing Book v Wolfram was still prepared to follow Chretien with a reasonable fidelity, but that by the beginning of Book ix, where he decides to have done with the sword of Trebuchet, he has already imagined the solution to be realized through Feirefiz in Book xv. Now Book ix is the first place'where Wolfram can speak of Parzival in any detail after saying good-bye to him at the end of Book vi, and,the Feirefiz theme commences half-way through this same book. It is but a short step from here to suppose that, although he knew he would have to find an end to Chretien's unfinished story one day, the loss of the use of W1 before he had finished Book vi was the outward event which accelerated his

preparations. In conclusion, then, the following alternative hypothesis may be offered to the

one propounded by Professor Fourquet: that Wolfram by repute knew that his First Manuscript contained the famous Grail romance by Chretien de Troyes; that even if this MS. did not name Chretien that would have been no reason why Wolfram should not have first included the name and then expunged it owing to the known

opposition of his listeners, although there is no knowing whether his first edition of Parzival mentioned Chretien at the beginning or not; that by repute he knew that the French master had died before completing Conte del graal and thus always knew he would have to find an ending for it one day; and that the process of finding an

ending was accelerated when, half-way through Book vi, he lost the use of his First

Manuscript and was still without the Second. From all of this we may infer that the position into which he had been driven

through his fabrication of Kyot made it impossible for him to acknowledge his very real debt to Chretien, even though obscured by his hypercritical approach to his work. Wolfram was a loyal-minded man, so let us hope for the peace of his mind that this last reference to Kyot was more or less an open joke.

A. T. HATTO LONDON

WERTHER'S 'NEID '-A REPLY

Miss Wilkinson's paraphrases in her observations on 'Neid' in Werther's letter of 1 July 1771 are admirably lucid, and her first four paragraphs convincingly demon- strate the irrelevance of lexicographical or grammatical evidence to a solution of the

problem which I originally raised. My own reasoning, however, did not depend 1 Parz. 254, 15.

385 385

M.L.R. XLIV M.L.R. XLIV 25 25

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