Tristan Study Guide consists of approx. 50 pages of summaries and analysis on Tristan by Gottfried von Strassburg. Browse the literature study guide below:
In his forward, C. Stephen Jaeger describes the ways in which Gottfried's Tristan and Isolde defies modern, and even medieval, conceptions of chivalric ideals. Describing first the idea that the age of chivalry was an age of faith, Jaeger points to Gottfried's description of Isolde's ordeal. In that episode, Isolde is asked to carry a hot iron, so that if she is innocent of the crime of adultery against the king with Tristan, she will not be burned. Because she composes a vow to swear that is not technically false but does not technically answer the question she was asked, Gottfried calls God "as pliant as a windblown sleeve." He also points to Gottfried's drawing a parallel to the Catholic Eucharist, or Holy Communion, in which the love of Tristan and Isolde is said to give life to pe... (
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Forward, Introduction and Prologue Rivalin and Blancheflor Rual Li Foitenant and The Abduction The Hunt and The Young Musician Recognition and Reunion Tristan's Investiture and Gottfried's Literary Excursus Return and Revenge Morold Tantris The Wooing Expedition and The Dragon The Splinter and The Proof The Love Potion, The Avowal and Bragnane Gandin, Marjodoc, Plot and Counterplot, and Melot The Assignation by the Brook, The Ordeal, Petitcreiu, and Banishment The Cave of Lovers, Discovery, The Parting, and Isolde of the White Hands
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