A study of structural aspects of Hartmann von Aue's Erec

A study of structural aspects of Hartmann von Aue's Erec Since Hugo Kuhn's pioneering essay on Hartmann von Aue's Erec in 1948,1 a number of proposals have been put forward with regard to the structure of the cycle of adventures undergone by the hero of the work. A n important part of each of these views of the structure of Erec has been Hartmann's 'doubling' technique, whereby the events of thefirsthalf of the cycle arereflectedin the events of the second half. This paper takes the view that the structures so far suggested for Erec's series of adventures, notably by Kuhn, Peter Wapnewski,2 and Kurt Ruh,3 seem inadequate, for reasons that will be discussed below. After looking at the shortcomings of these approaches, the paper wUl put forward an alternative view of the structure of Erec's cycle of adventures. It should be noted that one or other of the three structures so far proposed seems to have been accepted in Hartmann scholarship generally. There do not appear to have been any alternative structures proposed for Erec since Ruh's in 1967, despite the large body of Erec criticism that has appeared since then. Hugo Kuhn, at the start of the m o d e m period of Erec criticism, suggested a structure for the romance that gave due prominence to Hartmann's 'doubling' technique. In Kuhn's view, Erec's series of adventures on leaving Kamant is structured as follows:4 A B 1. Doubled robber adventure 2. First count 5. Second count (Oringles) 3. First encounter with Guivreiz 6. Second encounter with Guivreiz 7. Joie de la curt 4. Interlude with Arthur's court in 8. Final interlude at Arthur's court forest 1 Hugo Kuhn, 'Erec', in Festschrift fur P. Kluckhohn und H. Schneider zu ihrem 60. Geburtstag, Tubingen, 1948, pp. 122-47, repr. in Hartmann von Aue, ed. C. Cormeau and H. Kuhn, Darmstadt, 1973, pp. 17-48. Page numbers quoted in this paper refer to the 1973 version. 2 Peter Wapnewski, Hartmann von Aue, Stuttgart, 1962. 3 Kurt Ruh, Hofische Epik des deutschen Mittelalters, 1: Von den Anfangen bis zu Hartmann von Aue, Berlin, 1967. 4 Kuhn, 'Erec', p. 31. I have set out Kuhn's diagram slightly differently from the original, in order to show the relationships between the episodes more clearly. P A R E R G O N ns 12.1 (July 1994) 28 G. See In Kuhn's view the interlude with Arthur's court in the forest is only there as a contrast to Erec'sfinalvisit to Arthur's court,5 and the Joie de la curt adventure has no counterpart.6 Apart from these assumptions, with which this paper will later take issue, Kuhn's schema has a major flaw: it does not take due account of the scene involving the abduction of the knight Cadoc by the giants. Kuhn did not see this section as an adventure in its own right but as what he termed a 'Tag-Vorgeschichte', a prelude, to the encounter with Count Oringles. As such he considered that it corresponded to another 'Tag-Vorgeschichte', Erec's encounter with the friendly page prior to meeting thefirstcount7 As a result, Kuhn did not include the Cadoc adventure as a separate event in his diagram of the structure of Erec. In 1962 Peter Wapnewski corrected Kuhn's deficiency by proposing a structure for Erec that included the Cadoc adventure:8 1. Doubled robber adventure la. Victory over giants, rescue of Cadoc 2. First count 2a. Second count (Oringles) 3. First encounter with Guivreiz 3a. Second encounter with Guivreiz 4. Interlude with Arthur's court in 4a. Sojourn at Penefrec forest Joie de la curt As can be seen from this table, Wapnewski joins the robber adventures (his no. 1) with the Cadoc adventure (no. la) as doubles. One further change proposed by Wapnewski was that the interlude with Arthur's court in the forest (no. 4) be grouped together (i.e. doubled) with Erec's sojourn at Penefrec (no. 4a). Wapnewski makes this connection on the basis of the healing of the wounds suffered by Erec in hisfirstcombat against Guivreiz...