CMEMS: Björn Buschbeck (University of Zürich)
Organized and hosted by the Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (CMEMS).
Björn Buschbeck (University of Zürich) will give a talk titled Narrative Insults in Middle High German Bridal Quest Epics.
Abstract of Buschbeck's Talk:
In the narrative worlds of Middle High German epics, invective speech and other types of insult play a major role in establishing social relations and negotiating hierarchies. For example, both performing an insult and claiming to have been insulted in order to demand retribution appear as strategies of demonstrating power and enforcing social order. In this context, insults can both include and exclude, affirm rules and call them into question, react and provoke repercussions, and, depending on their specific intentions, succeed or fail. In my paper, I will explore these dynamics of insult by close-reading a selection of scenes from different Middle High German bridal quest epics, a genre that due to its agonal plot structure is particularly replete with narrative insults. I will distinguish between three interdependent levels of narrative insults. On a performative and rhetorical level, insults appear as an art of skillfully staging invective. On the level of political and cultural discourse, I will argue, insults make the status quo of the narrated world and its norms visible by punctually transgressing them, often in order to reaffirm them as a whole. Finally, insults have a narrative function of driving the plot forward.
The CMEMS Workshop series meets most Wednesdays during the academic year. See the CMEMS website for the list of .