Description
Book SynopsisComprehensive survey of the legend of Charlemagne in the medieval German-speaking world. The legend of the Frankish emperor Charlemagne is widespread through the literature of the European Middle Ages. This book offers a detailed and critical analysis of how this myth emerged and developed in medieval German and Dutch literatures, bringing to light the vast array of narratives either idealizing, if not glorifying, Charlemagne as a political and religious leader, or, at times, criticizing or even ridiculing him as a pompous and ineffectual ruler. The motif is traced from its earliest origins in chronicles, in the Kaiserchronik, through the Rolandslied and Der Stricker's Karl der Große, to his recasting as a saint in the Zürcher Buch vom Heiligen Karl.
Trade ReviewThis useful and fluently written book fulfills its purpose very well: namely to acquaint English-speaking recipients with this part of the far-reaching medieval European literary tradition of Charlemagne, which is sometimes unfamiliar even to Germanists. -- Bernd Bastert * GERMANISTIK *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: From the Early Middle Ages to the Late Sixteenth Century 1. The Kaiserchronik: The Emergence of Charlemagne in Chronicle Literature 2. Priest Konrad's Rolandslied and the Glorification of Charlemagne 3. The Stricker's Karl der Große: Adaptation and Innovation of the Myth of Charlemagne in the Thirteenth Century 4. The Myth of Charlemagne in Fourteenth-Century German Literature:The Karl Meinet Compilation 5. Elisabeth von Nassau-Saarbrücken's Königin Sibille: The Double-Edged Sword in the German and the Dutch Prose Version 6. Charlemagne in the Dutch and German Tradition of Malagis 7. Charlemagne as Saint: The Religious Transmutation of the Early Medieval Myth. The Zürcher Buch vom Heiligen Karl (Fifteenth Century) 8. Charlemagne in Middle Dutch and Middle Low German Literature Afterword Bibliography
