Masters Theses

Date of Award

12-1981

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Major

German

Major Professor

Henry Kratz

Committee Members

Ursula Ritzenhoff

Abstract

The purpose of this investigation is to establish how the beginning and the end of Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival is related to a work in the Middle Dutch Lancelot cycle, Moriaen. The two works have in common an Arthurian knight who fathers a son with a Moorish princess, and then deserts her. The child, once grown up, ventures forth to seek his father.

In Chapter I the narrative content of both works is outlined. In Chapter II the most important secondary literature on this topic is discussed and criticized. The common and disparate elements of the works with regard to characterization, narrative content, theme and style are discussed in detail in Chapter III. In Chapter IV a summary is made and conclusions are drawn.

It was found that Wolfram must have used a source independent from that which he used for the rest of Parzival, namely Chrestien de Troyes' Perceval. But since the work was probably written about a century before Moriaen, in spite of the contrary view of some Dutch scholars, he could not have used the latter as a source. Moriaen might be slightly influenced by Wolfram's work, but it is difficult to ascertain how much. As a work of the late Middle Ages it contains different elements: for-gotten Arthurian material, an archaic form of the tale of a son looking for his father and later versions of the story about Perceval's search for the Grail and the Lance. Whether the fusion of those elements can be ascribed to its author or to earlier sources is uncertain. Since there is no direct borrowing from Parzival and no other definite source for the work whatsoever, it is probably a Dutch original.

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