Date/Time
Date(s) - 17 Apr 2014
5:00 PM - 6:45 PM
Location
University of Pennsylvania - Max Kade German Culture & Media Center
Category(ies) No Categories
Unruly Women in Walther von der Vogelweide’s Lyrics?
Andrea Grafetstätter, our visiting professor from Bamberg, will speak on the one and only Walter.
Walther von der Vogelweide (ca. 1170-1230) remains omnipresent in German cultural memory. The canonical medieval singer is certainly familiar on account of the famous miniature of the Heidelberger Lieder¬hand¬schrift. Two or three of his texts continue to be taught in schools, among them the “Reichston,” which puts the iconography of the miniature into words, and the “Linden¬lied.” In the latter, a female voice describes a merry meeting with her beloved in the fields. But this “limetree-song” is hardly the only song in which Walther allows a female voice to speak; rather, a variety of female voices are audible in his poetry. Walther not only stages well-behaved women–secretly fond of the courting man, although publicly they never consent to his courting–he also ventriloquizes unruly women who get the better of the man and get the last word in their dialogues. But does the male poet Walther truly allow an autonomous female voice to speak? And is it possible to distinguish Walther’s staged female voice from an ‘authentic’ female voice? My talk will offer new perspectives on Walther’s female voices by examining their variety in his songs.
Date: Thursday, 17 April, 2014
Time: 5:00 pm
Location: Max Kade German Culture and Media Center, 3401 Walnut St., A Wing, Room 329, (entrance next to Starbucks)