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Monsalvat: the Parsifal home page | Sources | Wolfram von
Eschenbach
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Wolfram von Eschenbach
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Right: Wolfram from Die Minnesinger in Bildern der Manessischen Handschrift
olfram von Eschenbach (died c. 1230) is
generally regarded as the greatest of the medieval German narrative
poets. It is thought that he was a member of a Bavarian family of
the lower nobility, that he served for a time at the court of a
Franconian lord and later that of Hermann, Landgrave of Thuringia.
Wolfram left some brilliant lyric poems but is chiefly respected
for his narrative poems, including Parzival, the work that is often
said to have inspired Wagner's Parsifal. Wolfram and his
patron appear as characters in Wagner's
Tannhäuser.
Wolfram's Sources
hrétien's work, together
with additional information that Wolfram claims was provided by one
Kyot of Provence,
formed the basis for Wolfram's book. Kyot might have told stories
that he had heard in Spain, where there were both Moslem and Jewish
philosophers, or the Oc region of southern France, a region strong
in heresy. Wolfram claims that Kyot learnt
about the Grail in Toledo. In Wolfram's
account, both the Grail and the Question are quite different from their
counterparts in Chrétien; but his
Condrie is
recognisably the same character as the Loathly Damsel. Wolfram gives names to some
previously nameless characters, including Titurel, Anfortas, Sigune, Condwiramurs, and
Condrie. He adds
some further details about the latter, including her knowledge of
herbal medicines which she used to bring relief to the stricken
Anfortas
(Parzival, book 11).
Wolfram and Chretien
hese poets were working in a wider and developing
tradition of Grail romances. R.S.Loomis drew attention to six elements
of Wolfram's poem that were not found in Chrétien or the First Continuation (which might not
originally have been a continuation of Chrétien's unfinished poem, but a separate and
independent story about Gawain),
although some of them were found in later works. In his view, these
elements were part of the older Celtic and Old French Grail tradition, possibly known to Wolfram, who was
familiar with French literature. This is revealed by the names of
some of his characters. Many of the names used by Wolfram, such as
Anfortas, Condwiramurs, and
Repanse de Schoye,
suggest an origin in an otherwise unknown Old French text.
Right: Parzival meets the pilgrims on Good Friday in this painting from Ludwig's castle of Neuschwanstein.
Wagner and Wolfram
here are many elements of Wagner's Parsifal
that were without doubt derived, at least in part, from Wolfram's
epic poem. It is not accurate however to say, although it often is
said, that Wagner's drama was "based upon"
Wolfram, or even that (as Jessie L. Weston
put it) Wolfram's poem was "the" source of
Wagner's drama. Wagner was dismissive of the alleged influence of
the medieval poet. He told Cosima that Wolfram's text was
irrelevant; when he first read the epic (at Marienbad in 1845,
after which he did not look at it again until Mathilde Wesendonk sent him a new edition in
1859) he had said to himself that nothing could be done with it,
but a few things stuck in my mind - the Good Friday, the wild appearance of Condrie. That is all it
was
. On another occasion he said of Parzival, I
almost agree with Frederick the Great who, on being presented with
a copy of Wolfram, told the publisher not to bother him with such
stuff!
According to an entry in Cosima Wagner's diary, he was
irritated by a letter from a man in Duisburg, wanting to link a
study of Parsifal to a study of Wolfram's
Parzival... [Richard] says, 'I could just as well have
been influenced by my nurse's bedtime story'
.
Right: A painting by Hermann Hendrich (1854-1931)
mong the elements that Wagner included from Wolfram
were his account of Parzival's boyhood, some of his account of the
brotherhood at Monsalvat, the encounters between Parzival and his
cousin Sigune (who became incorporated
into Wagner's Kundry), the castle containing a very old king and a wounded king, the meeting with the hermit on Good Friday
and as Wagner himself mentioned, the wild
appearance of Condrie. Those he rejected included the
identification of the Grail with a stone, all of the story of Gawain
except for the liberation of the Castle
of Maidens, the healing question and Wolfram's primary theme of
constancy versus inconstancy. Some elements of Wolfram's poem that
were adapted by Wagner are common to many of the medieval Grail
romances, such as the arch structure of the Grail myth: youth
arrives at the Grail Castle where he fails
to ask the healing question; youth grows
from folly to wisdom through experience; youth returns to the
domain of the grail where he heals the
wounded king. This arch became the
underlying form of Wagner's drama, although within it he changed
important details: the question was replaced in the inner action by
understanding through compassion and in the outer action by the
recovery of the spear
.
he progress of the title
character is central both to Wolfram's poem and to Wagner's drama.
In the latter however it is a particular kind of progress: the
gaining of wisdom through compassion for suffering. As in Tristan und Isolde the theme of suffering (a
central idea of Schopenhauer's
philosophy) is present through all three acts of Parsifal.
Whilst on the surface it might appear (as it did to Jessie Weston) that Wagner was following Wolfram
and the Grail romances in general in showing how the title
character was able to bring healing to the wounded king, on closer
examination it is clear that Parsifal does more than this: he brings to
an entire community both healing (although it is a misreading that
he heals a wasted land) and the spiritual
leadership that will enable the knights to go out into the world
again, in order to bring healing to that world. There is irony in
Kundry's words to Parsifal: redeem the world, if that is
your mission
.
t is often stated that Wagner found inspiration for
Parsifal in Wolfram's poem. It was not until I sat in the
garden of the Villa Wesendonck, under the ancient linden tree
looking out over the lake, that I realised that this was partly
true. In that garden on a spring morning in 1857, I believe, Wagner
found his inspiration by identifying Wolfram's sheltered youth
venturing out into the world with another sheltered youth to whom
old age, sickness and death were revealed for the first time on a
day that changed his life.
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