Description
Book SynopsisThis volume explores a core medieval myth, the tale of an Arthurian knight called Wigalois, and the ways it connects the Yiddish-speaking Jews and the German-speaking non-Jews of the Holy Roman Empire. The German Wigalois / Viduvilt adaptations grow from a multistage process: a German text adapted into Yiddish adapted into German, creating adaptations actively shaped by a minority culture within a majority culture. The Knight without Boundaries examines five key moments in the Wigalois / Viduvilt tradition that highlight transitions between narratological and meta-narratological patterns and audiences of different religious-cultural or lingual background.
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments List of Figures Introduction 1 Adapting Wigalois 2 The Return of Wigalois: Disentangling a Shared Tradition 3 A Tradition Revisited: Contemporary Research 4 The Knight without Boundaries: Reconnecting the Disentangled 1 From Arthurian Romance to Fairy Tale: Concepts of Adaptation in Ammenmährchen and Beyond 1 Retelling, Transforming, and Transferring Medieval Literature 2 Ammenmährchen as Adaptation 3 Storytelling within the Wigalois/Viduvilt Tradition 4 Conclusion 2 Wigalois: The Heterogeneous Hero and His Narrative World 1 God and Fortuna’s Chosen One 2 Between Heathendom and Sorcery 3 Intertextual Hero(in)es 4 Conclusion 3 Viduvilt: The Arthurian Knight Who Speaks Yiddish 1 Viduvilt’s Origins, Humor, and Alterations 2 Viduvilt as a “Jewish Text” 3 May God Send the Messiah: Religion and Religious Forces in Viduvilt 4 Knighthood and the Jewish Imagination 5 Knighthood in a Nutshell: The Sketch in Cod. Hebr. 255 6 Arthurian and Anti-Arthurian Adaptations 7 Conclusion 4 Language Matters: Crossing Linguistic and Ethnocultural Borders in a Seventeenth-Century Yiddish Textbook 1 Wagenseil’s Textbook: Mission, Audience, and Language Philosophy 2 Wagenseil’s Artis hof Adaptation as Transcultural Narrative 3 Wagenseil’s Artis hof as Translational Union 4 Adaptation and Power 5 Conclusion 5 An Arthurian Knight on the Chinese Imperial Throne: Navigating Divine Providence and Cosmopolitan Identity in Gabein (1788/1789) 1 Is That Yiddish?! Text and Edition of Gabein 2 Nowhere in Camelot: Abandoning the Arthurian Realm 3 Eastwards: Familiarity and Otherness in the Depiction of China 4 The Pious Hero 5 Gabein’s Prayers and Christian Theology 6 The Chinese Rites Controversy 7 A Jewish Cosmopolite? 8 Conclusion Epilogue Bibliography Index
