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  • Labiler Wegweiser. Studien zur Kontingenzsemantik in der erzählenden Literatur des Hochmittelalters
  • Evelyn Meyer
Labiler Wegweiser. Studien zur Kontingenzsemantik in der erzählenden Literatur des Hochmittelalters. By Sabine Seelbach. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2010. Pp. vi + 212. $53.31

Sabine Seelbach states at the beginning of Chapter 2 that this study was not originally intended to be about a "mittelalterliche[s] Kontingenzbewußtsein" (p. 20), but instead about "die Problematik von Normenkonflikten, deren Auswirkung auf einen subjektiven Handlungsspielraum und mithin die Zurechenbarkeit solchermaßen begrenzten Handelns" (p. 20). Yet the problem of norm conflicts remains a driving force, especially since the author explores situations of dilemma in which multiple factors such as moral behavior, binding responsibilities, oaths, and considerations of personal good vs. summum bonum are brought into tension, conflict, or friction with one another in narrative texts. What are the guiding moral-philosophical principles that shape decision-making processes in situations when characters are confronted with a dilemma? How does contingency—a concept Seelbach discusses in Chapter 1—come into play when assumed stable guiding principles, such as doctrines of the medieval Catholic Church, canon law, and philosophy cannot provide a clear solution to a dilemmatic situation?

This study aims to show that "contingency" was a concept of which medieval people were aware, which they debated especially in their fictional narratives, and that this debate was active, versatile and multifaceted. The author challenges the view that "contingency" became a relevant category only with the Enlightenment and its break from a closed, theocentric worldview. Seelbach shows that the problem of contingency was discussed by Solon as early as the sixth century [End Page 554] BCE, and that since then, and also during the Middle Ages, moral philosophy and contingency shaped a lively debate in the sciences as well as in secular literature (see chap. 1, esp. pp. 4-6).

In Chapter 1, Seelbach lays the theoretical foundation for this study of "das Kontingenzproblem" diachronically, positioning her argument within the current scholarly context of rather specialized fields, namely "Kontingenzsemantik," medieval narratology, and structuralism. While the author explores multiple meanings or applications of the concept of contingency, its meanings are difficult to grasp. Moreover, Seelbach's prose can be dense, and contains technical terms that demand expert previous knowledge of the subject matter. Despite multiple re-readings of this chapter, it left the reader feeling defeated and with no clear understanding of Seelbach's conceptual framework.

In Chapter 2, Seelbach describes how she came to this study: it began as a study of conflicts with norms, and their effects and limitations on room for action (see p. 20), to which she then added the study of medieval contingency awareness. She briefly introduces the key passages from Hartmann von Aue's Iwein in light of both conflicts of norms and contingency awareness. These passages feature prominently in the following chapters: Laudine's dilemma after her husband's murder, the Harpin episode, Guinevere's abduction, and the inheritance dispute of the two daughters of Count Blackthorn. Seelbach follows this section with another technical one explaining the usefulness of the concept of conflict of norms, the "diachron-systematisches Moment" (p. 27), and the "diachron-narratives Moment" (p. 28), in which she shows how her themes and their development from the Antique to the Middle Ages contain a "systemisches Kontingenzbewusstsein im Sinne nicht antizipierbaren Interaktionswissens" (p. 28).

Each of the following four chapters concentrates on one type of "Normenkonflikt": Chapter 3 focuses on "die Blankogabe/das Blankoversprechen" and the logic of the gift (see pp. 37-38, where Seelbach discusses the implications and limitations of these and several other translations of this term), Chapter 4 on "die Güterabwägung," Chapter 5 on "Handlungsblockaden und ihre Auflösung," and Chapter 6 on "Überschreitungen im Dienste der Ordnung." Each conflict is represented and analyzed by one of the Hartmannian passages mentioned above: Guinevere's abduction in Chapter 3, the mourning but easily consolable widow Laudine in Chapter 4, the Harpin episode in Chapter 5, and the inheritance dispute in Chapter 6. In each of these chapters, Seelbach shows that the development of these themes long predates the matière de Bretagne and that they are...

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