"If there are medieval categories into which the romance fits conveniently, they are yet to be found and formulated. Add to this fact that Gottfried wrote in a style so elegant that it was not to be matched in Germany until the late eighteenth century, that his education is clearly far superior to any contemporary, and one is tempted to ask whether the whole thing is not the product of some nineteenth-century forger. It is in any case one of those unique works of genius that presents itself to the reader as if the period it is set in were just historical costume. It is not narrowly bound by the forms of thought, characterization and representation that hedged in other contemporary works." Forward, page ix

"I do not mean the world of the many who (as I hear) are unable to endure sorrow and wish only to revel...