mit worten lûter unde glanz

Esther Laufer

"How can you fathom a bottomless abyss? How can you capture ineffable beauty in words? How do you narrate the master of all stories? These are the challenges that seasoned poet Konrad von Wu rzburg set himself when at the end of the 13th century he composed his account of the Trojan War from a multitude of sources. Konrad has long been recognized as an exceptionally self-conscious author who frequently reflects on the nature, status and function of poetry, and who at times appears more concerned with the sparkling surface of his discourse than with the events he narrates. Taking these observations as a starting point, this study presents the first comprehensive treatment of metapoetics in the Trojanerkrieg. It uncovers the far-reaching network of explicit and implicit metapoetic expression that permeates the text on every level - even though its multifaceted imagery and arguments...