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SECOND PUBLIC EXAMINATION

Honour School of Modern Languages
Honour School of Classics and Modern Languages

GERMAN VI
BEGINNINGS OF WRITING TO 1550:
TEXTS, CONTEXTS AND ISSUES

TRINITY TERM 2022

Wednesday, 1 June

Opening time: 9.30 a.m. (BST)

Mode of completion: Typed

You have eight hours to complete the paper

Candidates must answer THREE questions.

Candidates must NOT make ANY ONE writer or work the principal subject of MORE
THAN ONE answer.

Candidates must NOT answer questions with reference wholly or chiefly to works
which they are offering for Paper IX (Early Texts prescribed for study as examples
of literature), or which form the principal topic of their Special Subject or Extended
Essay. Candidates offering both Paper VI and Paper VII in German must NOT
answer questions with reference wholly or chiefly to writers whom they are offering
in the other paper nor with reference wholly or chiefly to texts which form the
principal topic of an answer in the other paper.

Candidates offering Wolfram’s Parzival in Paper IX are not debarred from writing
on other works by Wolfram in Paper VI.

Candidates may NOT make material prescribed for the Preliminary Examination
the sole or principal subject of ANY of their answers.

Candidates may consult primary and secondary literature, whether online or in

hard copy, including their own notes, collections, lecture notes and tutorial essays.

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 1. ‘Reading is neither a matter of digging below resistant ground nor an equanimous tracing
out of textual surfaces. Rather, it is a co-creation between actors that leaves neither party
unchanged’ (RITA FELSKI). Discuss with reference to ONE OR MORE texts of the
period.

2. ‚Die Varianz der handschriftlichen Überlieferung ist als Ausdruck einer in den Texten
selbst angelegten Offenheit zu deuten‘ (DOROTHEA KLEIN). Discuss with reference to
ONE OR MORE texts of the period.

3. EITHER, (a) ‘Medieval texts develop forms of cultural, not national identity.’ Discuss
with reference to TWO OR MORE texts you have studied of the period.

OR (b) ‘Europe becomes comprehensible only by considering that which lies

beyond.’ Discuss with reference to ONE OR MORE texts you have
studied.

4. EITHER, (a) ‘In medieval literature, blood relationships are more important than any
other bond.’ Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE texts you have
studied.

OR (b) ‚Freundschaft ist die Figur der Einheit bei gleichzeitiger Differenz‘
(BURKHARD HASEBRINK). Discuss ANY ONE Arthurian romance in
the light of this comment.

5. EITHER, (a) ‘Aesthetics rather than ethics are the most important framework for
understanding medieval literature.’ Discuss with reference to ONE OR
MORE texts you have studied.

OR (b) Discuss the ways in which ANY TWO medieval texts handle issues of
EITHER crime and punishment, OR guilt and repentance.

6. ‘Racial thinking, racial practices, and racial phenomena can occur before there was a
vocabulary to name them for what they are’ (GERALDINE HENG). Discuss with reference
to ONE OR MORE texts you have studied.

7. Discuss the ways in which TWO OR MORE texts you have studied explore concepts of
space AND/OR time.

8. ‘In staging interior space in a variety of ways, medieval German literature poses questions
about difference, liminality, and transgression.’ Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE
texts you have studied.

9. ‘Medieval texts tell of a dynasty’s founding even as it approaches terminal decline’

(DAVID WALLACE). Discuss with reference to ONE OR MORE texts you have studied.

10. ‘Medieval literary texts challenge rather than stabilize normative gender and sexuality.’
Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE texts you have studied.

11. Discuss, with reference to ONE OR MORE texts you have studied, the use of EITHER
ecocriticism OR the post-human for an understanding of medieval literature.

12. What role do Old High German texts play in establishing a vernacular literary culture?

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13. ‘The bridal-quest motif is very rarely the dominant structural or thematic feature of a text,
and reading a text solely through the use of this motif can be highly reductive’ (SARAH
BOWDEN). Discuss with reference to ANY TWO texts you have studied.

14. To what extent is it possible to distinguish between historiography and historical fiction in
texts from this period? Discuss with reference to ANY TWO texts you have studied.

15. ‘Material objects play a central role in adapting narratives from classical antiquity for
medieval audiences.’ Discuss with reference to ANY ONE text you have studied.

16. EITHER, (a) ‚Zumutung und Faszination des frühen Minesangs bestehen in seinen
flexiblen Angeboten jenseits einer maßgeblichen Norm, in der Diversität
seiner Perspektiven und Stimmen‘ (ANNETTE GEROK-REITER).
Discuss.

OR (b) ‚Die Stimme der Frau ist eine von den männlichen Sängern geliehene‘
(BEATE KELLNER). Discuss.

17. EITHER, (a) ‘It marks the end of antiquity and the birth of Europe’ (UNESCO
nomination for the Nibelungenlied). Discuss.

OR (b) ‚Die elementaren Regelungssysteme mündlicher Narration – „dem

Besten die Schönste“ – kollabieren unter den Bedingungen einer genuin
buchepischen Komplexisierung.‘ (PETER STROHSCHNEIDER).
Discuss this view of the Nibelungenlied.

18. EITHER, (a) ‚„manheit” richtet sich auf die habituelle Bereitschaft zum Kampf und
dessen erfolgreichen Vollzug‘ (BURKHARD HASEBRINK). Discuss
ANY ONE Arthurian romance in the light of this comment.

OR (b) ‘Desire rather than love is central to Arthurian narrative.’ Discuss with
reference to ANY TWO texts you have studied.

19. EITHER, (a) ‚Wir wissen für die höfische Literatur nicht genau, ob wir den
Rezipienten besser als „Hörer“ oder als „Leser“ bezeichnen sollen –
beziehungsweise als „Hörer*in“ oder „Leser*in“‘ (LINUS
MÖLLENBRINK). Discuss with reference to ANY ONE Middle High
German Tristan narrative.

OR (b) ‘Psychological depth and interiority are characteristic of courtly

narrative.’ Discuss with reference to ANY ONE Middle High German
Tristan narrative.

20. To what extent can hagiography provide a model for understanding ANY ONE of
Wolfram’s narrative texts?

21. ‘Wolfram’s Titurel is more concerned with reading than with love.’ Discuss.

22. ‘Many maeren encourage us to enjoy rather than condemn transgressive acts.’ Discuss.

23. Discuss the significance of ‘erniuwen’ as an aesthetic principle for ANY ONE thirteenth-
century narrative text.

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24. ‘Writing cultures shaped the recovery from Europe’s greatest demographic disaster, the
1348 plague pandemic’ (DAVID WALLACE). Discuss with reference to ONE OR MORE
texts written after 1348.

25. EITHER, (a) ‘Unprecedented lay interest in an austere mystical piety, centred on
detachment from self and creatures, is evidence of a Church profoundly
and doubtlessly rightly disillusioned with human effort’ (BARBARA
NEWMAN). Discuss ANY ONE mystical text you have studied in the
light of this statement.

OR (b) Discuss the relationship between German mysticism and monastic

culture with reference to ONE OR MORE texts you have studied.

26. ‘The literary culture of south-west Germany in the later Middle Ages was one without an
evident cult of the author.’ Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE texts you have
studied.

27. ‘The field of performance studies has invigorated premodern scholarship by directing
critical attention to live, ephemeral events that unsettle the textual archive’ (INEKE
MURAKAMI). Discuss with reference to ANY ONE text you have studied.

28. ‘Urban spaces in medieval texts are utopian rather than representations of social reality.’
Discuss with reference to ONE OR MORE texts you have studied.

29. In what ways do late medieval authors portray themselves differently from their earlier
counterparts?

30. Discuss the influence of the late medieval urbanisation on the literary sphere in AT
LEAST TWO texts you have studied.

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