Слово.ру: балтийский акцент (Apr 2019)
Hagiographic genre in the works of Konrad von Wurzburg
Abstract
I analyse three hagiographic poems written by Konrad von Würzburg, a German poet of the XIII century. The poems describe the lives of Saint Alexis, a Man of God, Saint Pantaleon and Pope Sylvester. These saints are worshipped both by the Catholic and the Orthodox churches. Special attention is paid to Konrad von Wurzburg’s concept of ‘genre’, its essential features and the reader’s perception of hagiographic texts. I hold that German medieval writers tended to create spiritual literature in a poetic form. I define the terms, which according to German tradition, characterize hagiography as a genre in the medieval epoch and compared them with the notion used by Konrad von Würzburg. I examine the peculiarities of the text structure, the functions of the prologue and the epilogue and analyse a number of specific features typical of the plot of the above-mentioned hagiographic poems. Conrad von Würsburg’s outstanding merit lies in the establishment of hagiographic canons in German literature.
Keywords