Tracing the Trails in the Medieval World

Dr. Albrecht Classen is a University Distinguished Professor of German Studies at the University of Arizona focusing mostly on medieval and early modern literature and culture.

Introduction

Epistemological Explorations, Orientations, and Mapping.

Forging Ahead - Trailing and Orientation in Medieval

and Early Modern Literature

1. Beowulf’s Ways to Denmark, to the Monster, Home Again,

and the Path to the Dragon’s Layer

2. Herzog Ernst: A Traveler Explores the Eastern World:

Herzog Ernst and His Efforts to Find Himself Through Travel.

Or: Trails through a Political Jungle and an Exotic World in the East

3. The Lovers in Their Quest for the Right Trail and

the Trail of Love: Marie de France’s Lais

4. Right Paths, Wrong Paths, Circuitous Paths, Dead Ends,

and Religious Epiphany in Hartmann von Aue’s Gregorius.

Crossroads in a Christian Narrative

5. The Passage Toward Happiness: Trailing Through the World

in Search of Love: Gottfried von Straßburg’s Tristan

(together with some comments on Walther von der Vogelweide

and Wolfram von Eschenbach).

Where There is a Trail, There is Love!

6. The Walk Through the Garden of Love in Medieval Literature,

with a Focus on Le Roman de la rose by Guillaume de Lorris.

Dreamful Trailing and Awakening with Surprises

7. Dante and the Infinite Way Down to Hell and Beyond:

Hope or Despair, Just as the Trail Takes Us

8. Petrarch’s Search for His Own Self, Climbing Mont Ventoux

Trails Leading Upwards, not Downwards

9. The Experience of the World in Narrative and Graphic Form

Trailing through a Medieval Depiction of the Entire Earth

Literary Explorations and Medieval Maps (Ebstorf) and Charts

Epilogue