Gewalt und virtuelle Räume in Mittelhochdeutscher Heldenepik: Rezeptionsästhetische Untersuchungen by Tamara Elsner (review)

Medieval German heroic poetry is a narrative genre represented by some twenty texts, some of them preserved only as fragments, the others mostly known in several different versions. The corpus developed in the thirteenth century and was read until the sixteenth century. A relevant number of manuscripts belong to the fifteenth century, which is the period in which we also encounter the first larger specific collections. One of them, simply called the Heldenbuch, “Book of Heroes,” made it into print and was reprinted until the late sixteenth century. While for us the most distinguished (and earliest) representative of the genre is the Nibelungenlied, for contemporary readers this text rather seems to have been a separate case. Most of the works deal with the literary character of Dietrich von Bern (which translated would be Theodric of Verona) and tell stories either about his adventures and his gathering of the best heroes of all times (these are called the “adventure epics”), or about his fierce war against the mean king Ermenrike (these texts are called “historic epics,” although the correct definition would rather be “historicizing epics”). This kind of heroic poetry does not deal with the conquest of territories, the foundation of kingdoms, or the fight against the unfaithful. Still, its theme is battle and combat and it often casts a questionable light on the excesses of violence.Tamara Elsner presents us with an interesting book (it is her doctoral dissertation, which she wrote at the University of Jena, Germany) that tries to develop an idea about how the physical violence described in these poems could have been perceived by the contemporary audience. The subtitle “studies on the aesthetics of reception” points to this research focus on how the description of violence in these texts stimulates sensorial imagination, engages the audience emotionally, controls sympathies, and, most relevantly, creates a narrative space in which violence can be experienced virtually by using rhetorical strategies to affect or ‘include’ the audience.Elsner analyzes three episodes that belong to three different texts. First, she deals with the episode of the war against the Saxons in the Nibelungenlied (ca. 1200), which she analyzes for two particular reasons: because it is an early and not very central scene of the plot and therefore less affected by other conditions of the text, and also because it is the first moment in this text that an outstanding hero like Sifrit engages in military action and thus satisfies possible expectations by the audience. Elsner uses this scene to show how the text exploits the potential for visualizing violence and transmitting it in a vivid manner to the audience. At the end of the chapter, she also shows how these narrative means are used and expanded in the later battle scenes of the text. In second place, Elsner examines the final battle scene in the Rabenschlacht (thirteenth century). The text belongs to the so-called “historicizing epics” dealing with Dietrich, and it is characterized above all by this one (but not only) grueling and devastating battle scene. Elsner uses the episode to show how the depiction of violence in the text, even if it is repeated countless times and becomes increasingly hyperbolic (the blows and wounds described in detail are endless, the heroes wade knee-deep in blood), can still remain exciting and achieve closeness to the action—that is, that no dulling occurs, at least not one that might be inferred from the text. In third place, Elsner examines a battle scene in Laurin (thirteenth, possibly early fourteenth century), a text belonging to the so-called “adventure epics,” which tells of the encounter and confrontation between Dietrich von Bern and the dwarf king Laurin. It describes a huge battle between Dietrich and his men and the army of the dwarves in their kingdom inside a mountain. In the main version of this text, the scene is much less detailed in its description of violence than the two episodes analyzed previously, though with some exceptions: the blows and wounds are mentioned in general and not described individually. In this respect, the text does not seem as appropriate for her study. However, Elsner uses a later version of the work, the so-called Dresdner Laurin (fifteenth century), which massively intensifies and specifies the descriptions of violence, to show how the reception process of the work makes it clear that the virtual ‘experience’ of violence is precisely the aspect that interested the recipients and that was elaborated on. The case demonstrates that the interest in the depiction of violence does not characterize the literary genre without reason.Elsner's textual analyses display an astonishingly high degree of accuracy; her readings weigh up the formulations of the text very precisely and describe their potential sensory effects with astonishing simplicity and precision. Elsner repeatedly points out details that even the experienced reader who knows the text repeatedly overlooks. In this respect, reading Elsner's book is recommended for anyone interested in the depiction of violence in medieval literature, for her analysis of these texts reveals aspects that also apply to other premodern works. As daring as it might be to examine how medieval recipients might have read or heard a text, Elsner's interpretations of the specific wording in each case are very convincing.My assessment of the methodological superstructure is somewhat more nuanced. I do not refer here to methodological bases, for Elsner knows perfectly well how to read, analyze, argue, and write about medieval texts. Rather, I refer to a methodological superstructure, because Elsner prefaces her textual analyses with three theoretical chapters: one on violence, another on “virtual spaces,” and a third on the potential for inclusion in reading literature. The chapter on violence sheds light on types of violence, especially in literature, and makes it clear that literary violence is capable of triggering emotions that affect the recipient and thus offer them an “experience.” How this experience takes place is the subject of the second chapter. Elsner argues, based on an impressive bibliography on this aspect of literary theory, that the reception of literary texts takes place in something like a “virtual space,” which she wants to differentiate from imagination. According to her exposition, literature as a form of communication is able to “create a space of reception in which text and recipient meet” (p. 76). According to the third chapter, it is possible to involve the recipient in this virtual space via the text. However, such strategies of immersion, which can be very diverse, are also conditioned by the subject matter of the narrative, and here, according to Elsner's argument, the narration of violence is particularly suitable for involving the recipient “in the communication situation and creating a virtual space of reception.” (p. 113).Elsner's interpretations of the texts in the following chapters then operate with these concepts and try to show how they apply to these texts, and specifically to the depiction of violence which characterizes them. Although I am inclined to agree with her interpretations, I am less convinced that the very tightly knit conceptual superstructure is really necessary everywhere in order to explain her examinations of the texts. On the one hand, even at the risk of being considered old fashioned, I must say that I do not quite understand the difference between my visualization of the narrated story, which I would call “imagination,” and what Elsner, on the basis of other theoretical studies, calls “virtual space.” On the other hand, for a publication as a monograph, the doctoral dissertation could have been purged of a good part of its methodological argumentation and, in return, provide us with another example of those excellent textual analyses.Nevertheless, the dominance of theoretical argumentation (which is understandable in a doctoral dissertation and characteristic of German research practice) does not detract from the interest of Elsner's book and the quality of its textual interpretations. Also, the reader will be very grateful for the frequent summaries and recapitulations at the end of each chapter and also at the end of the book; they do not substitute the reading, but they clearly assist mental organization or help to get back to what has been said previously. A fairly large bibliography of thirty-five pages rounds up this very readable monograph.