In this new episode of De Amore: On Love with Brikena Ribaj I discuss the rather quiet, wondering, and anxious character of Gahmuret. Just what is it, other than the call for knightly adventure, that makes Gahmuret stir-crazy and so interested in moving about and exploring new places and people? What is it that informs Gahrmuret's [gender?] anxiety? In this piece I also tip the hat to Boethius and Umberto Eco and his work Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages.
Again, great thanks to Paul for his superb job with the green screen and the visuals.
This episode, along with the others, is also available on iTunes.
You may see me discuss these questions below.
Showing posts with label Middle High German. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Middle High German. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Thursday, December 17, 2009
New Article Available on Journal
My literary theory-informed article on a relatively little known German medieval text called der borte is now published and available on the journal Neophilologus. The title of the article is Economics of Virtue in Dietrich von der Glezze’s der borte: A Wife Errant and a Husband Caught.
You may access the abstract and more information on the article here.
Friday, May 15, 2009
New Videocast: Individual Skill and Destiny in the Middle Ages
In this new episode of De Amore: On Love with Brikena Ribaj I talk about the character of Gregorious in Hartmann von Aue's Gregorius der gute Sünder. The question I raise is how a medieval character's skill set manages to inform the overall individual destiny of said character.
You can view this short episode here.
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graph per www.guildwars-helper.com
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
New Videocast: The Clothing of Courtly Love
In this seventh episode of De Amore: On Love with Brikena Ribaj, I discuss the idea that many medieval characters, male and female, are not inflected for gender. I refer to such works as Parzival and Erec. Our understanding of how gender worked in the Middle Ages might just shed some light on the different forms of gender expressions we encounter in modernity.
You can view the episode here.
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hhttp://farm1.static.flickr.com/80/244976012_d84400c10c.jpg
Monday, May 4, 2009
New Videocast: Moderation in the Middle Ages
In this sixth episode of De Amore: On Love with Brikena Ribaj, I discuss the concept of moderation and what it meant to the people in the Middle Ages based on what the literature of the German Middle Ages teaches us.
This is one of the concepts in which I have the greatest scholarly interests. I find moderation not only relevant from a literary perspective but also significant with regards to modernity.
You can view this new episode here.
Feedback welcome, of course.
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graph per http://www.figurefriendlyclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/windowslivewritertakechargeofportionconrtol-121e8pyramid2.jpg
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Knackered? Miffed? Read This.
Those of you who travel generously to places where the languages you already speak, are spoken, are bound to have encountered certain lexemes or syntactic structures that are unknown to you. That's the beauty of language, after all. Changes are actuated quickly and language always changes. It's one of the things we can basically always trust in: language changes regardless of our input. I quite like the caprice of language. Since it can get unpredictable, it'll always be interesting. If only more things were as interesting as language, but I digress.
If you ask a Bavarian: "Wie ist es Dir?", s/he will get the point and will most likely say: "Gut, gut, selbe[r]?" While 'Wie ist es Dir?' is quite an old saying, actually it's a modern German rendering of a question that Parzival asks his uncle Anfortas in the medieval narrative Parzival, but again, I digress. I suppose, deep down my desire for context always manages to rear its head somehow. But back to the topic.
If you're a Brit visiting the South of the US, let's say Louisiana, you'll notice that people are fixing to do this and that. No, they're not fixing or repairing things, per se. They're simply getting ready to embark on a task.
I illustrate: "Bobbie Sue, I'm fixing to go over to the mechanic and see about the car." One can imagine how the different layers of meaning can inform one another in a number of ways here.
Having said this, do read Roger Cohen's article on The Times. If you're philology-enamored, you will be entertained.
This article was perhaps the best thing I read today. It's the end of the day and I'm quite knackered myself, [hint: if you don't know this means, read the article!]
A bit says:
"A poet friend, Vincent Katz, was over for dinner the other night and asked me with a twinkle in his eye if I was “knackered.” Katz came to poetry via rock ’n roll, and to Oxford via the University of Chicago, and along the way he picked up some English vernacular.
...
Katz read classics at St. John’s College (viewed as a too-beautiful refuge of sporty underachievers by my own Balliol) and he summed up the experience this way: “I began to realize (what I should have known all along) that I was living in a completely different culture. It was just as alien to me as France would have been, or Spain, or Italy, or Germany. There is the illusion that we speak the same language, but we really don’t.”
Read it all here.
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graph per http://www.class.csupomona.edu/colorfulflags/Webpage/Images/wheelconcept.jpg
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
New Videocast: The Gendered Identity of Siegfried in the Nibelungenlied
In this podcast I talk about the character of Siegfried in the German narrative of the Middle Ages Das Nibelungenlied.
Some of the questions I tackle are:
-Just what is the price the exceptional Siegfried has to pay for his uniqueness?
-What does it mean to be homosocial in the Middle Ages?
-Why did Siegfried have a hard time attracting genuine friends when it was after all common for fellow brothers-in-arms to socialize and befriend people of similar skill and background?
An understanding of the Nibelungenlied as well as Literary and Gender Theory is helpful but not a necessity.
You can watch this videocast here.
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graph per google image
Sunday, March 22, 2009
New Podcast: My Published Article
Listen here to the new podcast of the new series On Love: De Amore.
This article is a Gender Theory-informed analysis of a thirteenth-century German text entitled der borte (The Belt). Der borte (1270-1290) was written by the little known, Dietrich von der Glezze and it deals with familial transgressions, perversions of knightly virtues, as well as same-sex physical encounters. This article has been accepted for publication by the journal Neophilologus and will be available online as well as on paper very soon. Here is an audio version of it I recorded a few days ago.
This thirteenth century text, a Middle High German-English translation of which I also intend to publish, is fantastically gripping.
Here is a summary of the plot. In a little nutshell.
A married lady is gazed upon by a stranger knight. He wants her. He has a lot of great things of value. She wants the things. She negotiates with him. She allows him one act of physicality in exchange for four great things of value. They get caught. The lady's husband leaves in shame. She waits for him for two years. He does not return. She goes in search of him disguised as a man.
Her husband sees him/her and his/her things and decides he wants to have some of his/her stuff. The wife says she will only let him have the stuff, provided the two 'knights' lie together as a married couple. The husband agrees to it. It's after all only ONE TIME. And it will be done in secret.
As the husband is about to acquiesce, the wife reveals her true identity and scolds her husband for agreeing to a heretical act of sodomy.
The husband apologizes and they return to their court together.
Courtesy of the little known author Dietrich von der Glezze circa 1270-1290.
A note on music: The music for this podcast comes from my friend's Matt's band Swiss Army Mouth. They're an instrumental rock band from Ohio.
This article is a Gender Theory-informed analysis of a thirteenth-century German text entitled der borte (The Belt). Der borte (1270-1290) was written by the little known, Dietrich von der Glezze and it deals with familial transgressions, perversions of knightly virtues, as well as same-sex physical encounters. This article has been accepted for publication by the journal Neophilologus and will be available online as well as on paper very soon. Here is an audio version of it I recorded a few days ago.
This thirteenth century text, a Middle High German-English translation of which I also intend to publish, is fantastically gripping.
Here is a summary of the plot. In a little nutshell.
A married lady is gazed upon by a stranger knight. He wants her. He has a lot of great things of value. She wants the things. She negotiates with him. She allows him one act of physicality in exchange for four great things of value. They get caught. The lady's husband leaves in shame. She waits for him for two years. He does not return. She goes in search of him disguised as a man.
Her husband sees him/her and his/her things and decides he wants to have some of his/her stuff. The wife says she will only let him have the stuff, provided the two 'knights' lie together as a married couple. The husband agrees to it. It's after all only ONE TIME. And it will be done in secret.
As the husband is about to acquiesce, the wife reveals her true identity and scolds her husband for agreeing to a heretical act of sodomy.
The husband apologizes and they return to their court together.
Courtesy of the little known author Dietrich von der Glezze circa 1270-1290.
A note on music: The music for this podcast comes from my friend's Matt's band Swiss Army Mouth. They're an instrumental rock band from Ohio.
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