{"title":"Wissen von Gawain","authors":"Thalia Vollstedt","doi":"10.1515/bgsl-2022-0029","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract With the narratological concept of a literary character existing only within the literary text, medieval literary characters pose a problem as they often appear in several texts that sometimes depict very different versions of them. Looking at King Arthur’s nephew Gawain as a character very much afflicted by this, the article suggests an approach to character that sees every single text drawing from an always-growing amount of collective knowledge about the character. Assuming that the perception of each version of the character is influenced by knowledge about the other versions, this approach sees the emergence of a complex character in medieval literature as a process that goes beyond any one single text.","PeriodicalId":42934,"journal":{"name":"BEITRAGE ZUR GESCHICHTE DER DEUTSCHEN SPRACHE UND LITERATUR","volume":"144 1","pages":"396 - 419"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1000,"publicationDate":"2022-08-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"BEITRAGE ZUR GESCHICHTE DER DEUTSCHEN SPRACHE UND LITERATUR","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1515/bgsl-2022-0029","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract With the narratological concept of a literary character existing only within the literary text, medieval literary characters pose a problem as they often appear in several texts that sometimes depict very different versions of them. Looking at King Arthur’s nephew Gawain as a character very much afflicted by this, the article suggests an approach to character that sees every single text drawing from an always-growing amount of collective knowledge about the character. Assuming that the perception of each version of the character is influenced by knowledge about the other versions, this approach sees the emergence of a complex character in medieval literature as a process that goes beyond any one single text.
期刊介绍:
The Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur (PBB) was founded by Hermann Paul and Wilhelm Braune in 1874. It publishes essays on diachronic linguistics and the history of German Literature from the beginnings to about 1600, as well as reviews of monographs and collected works in these fields. Whilst focusing on the German language and literature, it also contains contributions on Germanic languages (especially old Nordic) as well as middle Latin philology and interdisciplinary works.