Gottfried von Strassburg

Gottfried von Strassburg, who died around 1210, wrote the Middle High German courtly romance Tristan, an adaptation of the 12th-century Tristan and Iseult legend. Alongside the Nibelungenlied and Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival, his work is considered one of the great narrative masterpieces of the German Middle Ages. He may also have composed a few surviving lyrics. Richard Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde (1865) drew inspiration from Gottfried’s poem.

Life

Nothing is known of Gottfried’s life except that he came from or was closely associated with Strasbourg. He appears to have been a man of good birth and position who held an important municipal office there. Since he is always called Meister (master) rather than Herr (sir), he was likely not a knight—a conclusion supported by the dismissive attitude toward knightly exploits in Tristan.

The poem ends abruptly, and two later writers, Ulrich von Türheim and Heinrich von Freiberg, who supplied endings, stated that Gottfried died before finishing it. References in the work place its composition in the first decade of the 13th century, and 1210 is conventionally accepted as the year of his death. His deep knowledge of Latin literature and rhetorical theory suggests a high-level monastic education. He also displays detailed technical understanding of music and hunting, far beyond that of his contemporaries.

Gottfried draws more on the learned tradition of medieval humanism than on the chivalric ethos shared by other major writers of his time. He appears to have been influenced by contemporary Christian mystics, especially Bernard of Clairvaux. The earliest Tristan manuscripts, from the first half of the 13th century, show features of Alemannic and specifically Alsatian dialect, supporting his Strasbourg origin. Gottfried’s rhetorical style is very distinct.

Style

It is highly complex, marked by extensive symmetrical structure in both the overall organization of Tristan and individual passages. He also uses detailed word and sound patterns, playing with rhyme, alliteration, and assonance. A hallmark of his style is his skillful use of irony, for both humorous and tragic effects; he may have relied on irony to disguise criticisms of contemporary society and avoid censure. Gottfried states that his source was the Tristan of Thomas of Britain, an Anglo-French work from around 1160.

Reception

He bases himself on Thomas because he “told the tale correctly,” distancing himself from less courtly versions by Béroul (Old French) and Eilhart von Oberge (Middle High German). Thomas’s work is also fragmentary, with little overlap with Gottfried’s poem, making direct evaluation of Gottfried’s originality difficult. However, Thomas’s version was the source for other adaptations, giving some idea of its style and content.

Text

It is clear that while Gottfried’s claim of reliance on Thomas is correct, he expanded on his source and refined the story psychologically. The 1995 discovery of the Carlisle Fragment of Thomas’s Tristan, which includes material from the Love Grotto episode, promises a better understanding of Gottfried’s use of his source. Thomas’s source, in turn, is a lost Old French Tristan story, reconstructed by Joseph Bédier, ultimately derived from Celtic legend. The text of Tristan is 19,548 lines long, written in rhyming couplets like all courtly romances.

The first section of the prologue (lines 1–44) is written in quatrains and called the “strophic prologue”; pairs of sententious quatrains mark the main divisions of the story. The initial letters of these quatrains, indicated by large initials in some manuscripts, form an acrostic with the names Gotefrid-Tristan-Isolde that runs throughout the poem. The initial letters of the prologue’s quatrains give the name Dieterich, assumed to be Gottfried’s patron. If completed, Tristan would likely have been around 24,000 lines long.

The story begins with the courtship of Tristan’s parents. Riwalin, King of Parmenie, travels to the court of King Marke in Cornwall, where he and Marke’s sister, Blanschefleur, fall in love. Blanschefleur becomes pregnant, and the couple steal back to Parmenie, but Riwalin is killed in battle. When she hears the news, Blanschefleur dies, but the baby is delivered and survives.

He is named Tristan because of the sorrowful circumstances of his birth. Tristan grows up in Parmenie, passed off as the son of Riwalin’s marshal Rual li Fointeant, becoming the perfect courtier. While on board a merchant ship docked in Parmenie, Tristan is abducted by the Norwegian crew.

At sea, a tempest strikes; the crew conclude they are being punished by God for abducting Tristan, so they set him ashore in a country that turns out to be Cornwall. Tristan encounters a hunting party, whom he astonishes with his skill, and he accompanies them to Marke’s court, where his many accomplishments make him popular, especially with Marke. Eventually, after years of searching, Rual comes to Cornwall and finds Tristan, who is now revealed as Marke’s nephew. Tristan is knighted. Cornwall is being forced to pay tribute to the King of Ireland, Gurmun, collected by his brother, the monstrous Morold.