Erzahlform im hofischen Roman: Studien zur Fokalisierung im 'Eneas', im 'Iwein' und im 'Tristan'.(Book Review)

Publication: The Modern Language Review

Publication Date: 01-APR-05

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COPYRIGHT 2005 Modern Humanities Research Association

Erzahlform im hofischen Roman: Studien zur Fokalisierung im 'Eneas', im 'Iwein' und im 'Tristan'. By GERT HUBNER. (Bibliotheca Germanica, 44) Tubingen and Basel: Francke. 2003. x+458 pp. 78 [euro]. ISBN 3-7720-2035-6.

For a book of this length to be devoted to three court romances which have been the centre of scholarly attention for well on two centuries, the author has to justify himself by the novelty of his approach. For Gert Hubner, this is the critical concept of focalization, resting on the three-point relationship between the narrator, the world presented by him, and the characters' experience of that world. As is made clear, Hubner is largely dependent on, but not uncritical of, the work of Gerard Genette.

The first four chapters make up a lengthy, almost entirely theoretical, presentation of problems, terminology, and method, taking up more than a quarter of the whole book. A short introductory chapter discusses Auerbach's well-known treatment of the Calogrenant episode in Chretien's Yvain, using it to illustrate the discrepancy in knowledge between Calogrenant, Yvain, and the narrator. There follows a chap ter devoted to the terms 'point of view', 'perspective', and 'focalization', organized around Genette, almost as if scholarship before him...

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