Hartmann von Aue, Erec

William McDonald (University of Virginia)
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Around 1180, Hartmann von Aue, a knight in Southwestern Germany, composed the first German Arthurian romance,

Erec

in 10,000 rhymed couplets. The plot line is an amalgam of fairy tale,

Mirror of Princes

(

Fürstenspiegel

, i.e. rules for young princes and rulers, composed since classical antiquity and through the Middle Ages), and the hero journey familiar to myth – a rite of passage that involves crossing the threshold and emerging from the Realm of Death. Hartmann very freely adapted a French romance that had appeared a generation before,

Erec et Enide

(ca. 1170) by Chrétien de Troyes. Other literary sources, the Norwegian

Erexsaga

and the Welsh tale of

Gereint and Enid

from the

Mabinogion

, were perhaps known to him in some form. The manuscript transmission of the German

Erec

is…

1174 words

Citation: McDonald, William . "Erec". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 03 October 2006 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=13997, accessed 19 March 2024.]

13997 Erec 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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