Volume 130, Issue 1

The article focusses the important concept ›zerdehnte Sprechsituation‹ ( expanded speech-situation ) elaborated by Konrad Ehlich since the 1980s. The concept refers to ›texts‹ that are re-used and transmitted. It is employed especially in linguistics, cultural analysis and history of medieval literature and is thought to contribute to the understanding of certain types of oral discourse like ritual speaking, epics, oral poetry etc. Nevertheless the conceptualization of this fundamental communicative pattern proposed by Ehlich must be modified in the light of new theoretical insights.

Taking the example of Gottfried's ›Tristan‹ it can be seen how a paradoxical relationship between epic literature and Minnesang is being established which, far before the era of lyric poetry, allows a certain lyrical quality to appear in the narrative. The narrative, stressing the aesthetical effect of the Sang on different levels and even imitating it, leads – especially in ›Tristan‹ – to certain effects which can be described as »poetical emergence«. On the one hand Gottfried's narration – as in the sang – aims at overcoming its own undeniable temporal distance from the narrated by the contact-medium of voice. This is an attempt to sublate the narrative into a presence of its own, which is why it fails in the narrative course. On the other hand Tristan's and Isolde's failure and, likewise, that of their story and of its narrator turns out to be the prerequisite for aesthetically realizing the ideal of a time-exempt presence.

The author discusses some recent developments in literary theory concerning the notion of emotions, ›presence‹ and body. Taking a review of two monographs on the narrative function of emotions in medieval narrative texts as a starting point, the text focuses on the concept of ›performance‹ (Performanz) and ‹performativity‹ (Performativität) and argues, that the immediate can be represented by literature only in terms of intermediation, because literature itself is intermediation.

Initially, the article addresses the concept of performativity, its history, its media implications and its principal possibilities for utilization in (medieval) literature studies, to subsequently test it on the ›Krone‹ by Heinrich von dem Türlin. The thesis argued is that Heinrich's novel lays the focus on a specific literary performativity: the ›Krone‹ as measuring instrument for virtue and its reception as a test of virtue.