Water in Medieval Literature

Albrecht Classen is University Distinguished Professor of German Studies at the University of Arizona.

• Introduction – Theoretical, Methodological, and Interdisciplinary ReflectionsChapter One – Water, Literature, Symbolism, and Epistemology in the Pre-Modern Age: A Pan-European PerspectiveChapter Two – Water and Voyages in the Goliardic Epic Poem of Herzog Ernst: Transformation and Maturation through Travel into the Mysterious OrientChapter Three – The Experience with Water in The Voyage of St. Brendan: Spiritual Epistemology in the Western SeasChapter Four – Water Worlds in the Lais by Marie de France: The Search for Happiness in a Fluid WorldChapter Five – Hartmann von Aue’s Gregorius: The Religious Transformation Through WaterChapter Six – Water Symbolism in Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival: The Material and the Spiritual Dimension of Water in a Middle High German Grail RomanceChapter Seven –Mechthild of Magdeburg’s Mystical The Flowing Light of the Divinity: Spirituality, Liquidity, and EpistemologyChapter Eight – Boccaccio’s Decameron (ca. 1351): Narrative Explorations of Tears, Water in Fountains, Wells, and in the MediterraneanChapter Nine – Water as Markers of Identity, Space, and Time in the Icelandic Saga Njal’s Saga: Travel, War, and Water in the World of Old Norse LiteratureChapter Ten – Water Creatures, Wells, the Other Life, Hybridity, and the Aquatic: The Myth of Melusine in the Verse Romance by Jean d’Arras Chapter Eleven – Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptaméron and other Problems with Water: Flooding, Voyaging, Sexual Violence, and RefugeEpilogue

This study argues that water, an underexamined motif in medieval literature, merits closer attention, especially given recent developments in ecocriticism. Seeking to remedy this neglect and show how central water was to early literature, Classen (German studies, Univ. of Arizona) offers a set of ten studies of the symbolic and spiritual uses of water in European works from the 12th through the 16th centuries, including the Goliardic Herzog Ernst; The Voyage of St. Brendan; the Lais of Marie de France; Hartmann von Aue’s Gregorius; Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival; Mechthild of Magdeburg’s The Flowing Light of the Godhead; Boccaccio’s Decameron; the Icelandic Njál’s Sage; Jean d’Arras’s version of the Melusine myth; and Margaret of Navarre’s Heptameron. The book’s introduction touches on a range of other medieval texts, including Beowulf, the Romance of the Rose, and stories from the Gesta Romanorum…. Classen’s book is compendious, comparativist, and learned…. [I]t is a good place to start thinking about the significance of water in early texts. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.