The Transnational and the Transcultural in Medieval German Literature Spatial Identity and Pre-Modern Concepts of Nationhood in the Works of Wolfram von Eschenbach, Gottfried von Straßburg, Rudolf von Ems, and Konrad von Würzburg
Albrecht Classen
This paper will examine the notion of transnational and transcultural in a selection premodern German texts, raising fundamental question what concept ‘nation’ might have been past probing how cultural identity was determined contrast with other people or social groups. Such an investigation come just at right time today when traditional categories nation are becoming fluid once again lose much their usual conceptual rigidity, although there many forces across Europe that fight energetically against loss national identities. Hence, we required to raise ancient-old constitutes our within context (religion, language, political community, history, ethics, morality, aesthetics, etc.). We not need discuss (‘national’) pre-modern world because true politically nations modern sense emerged only by sixteenth seventeenth century, especially age Absolutism. But this does release us from investigate carefully ‘transcultural’ would mean larger linguistic entities clearly separating various countries each other, already Middle Ages. After all, takes directly critical issue needs be situated specific historical framework is constantly subject changes, yet survives deep roots regional local setting.
Mediävistik