Representations of Jews in Late Medieval German Literature
Martin, John David
This item is only available for download by members of the University of Illinois community. Students, faculty, and staff at the U of I may log in with your NetID and password to view the item. If you are trying to access an Illinois-restricted dissertation or thesis, you can request a copy through your library's Inter-Library Loan office or purchase a copy directly from ProQuest.
Permalink
https://hdl.handle.net/2142/86333
Description
Title
Representations of Jews in Late Medieval German Literature
Author(s)
Martin, John David
Issue Date
2002
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Kalinke, Marianne E.
Department of Study
Germanic Languages and Literatures
Discipline
Germanic Languages and Literatures
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Literature, Germanic
Language
eng
Abstract
"The Passion and Easter plays are imminently concerned with the Christian conception of the Jew. From the St. Gall Passion play (1300's) to the Alsfeld Passion play (1500), the Passion plays present Jesus's Jewish enemies alongside his Jewish followers. The Halle Passion play (1490's) emphasizes the Jewishness of Jesus and his disciples. Easter plays, in contrast, attribute to Jews sole guilt for Jesus's Crucifixion and exclusively venal motives. In hagiography (legends of St. Silvester, ""Der Judenknabe,"" Theophilus, St. Basil) Jews are variously depicted as philosophers, sorcerers, filicides, loving fathers, and righteous physicians. These legends are extensively attested in collections, such as Der Heiligen Leben, and in Latin and German versions of the Legenda Aurea. The medieval fable collections, like the hagiographic anthologies, present a diverse image of Jews. While the Avianus and the Anonymous Neveleti collections contain a group of fables whose epimyths presented Jews as venal, they also contain a fable depicting a Jew as an allegorical figure of the faithful soul. This was preserved when Boner's Edelstein supplanted Latin collections in the late 1300's. ""The Parable of the Ring,"" found in the Gesta Romanorum and the Decameron, presents Jews as one group of ""God's children,"" a description also transmitted by Hugo von Trimberg in his Der Renner . In order to account for the representations of Jews in medieval German literature, modern interpretive models require multiple hermeneutic categories."
Use this login method if you
don't
have an
@illinois.edu
email address.
(Oops, I do have one)
IDEALS migrated to a new platform on June 23, 2022. If you created
your account prior to this date, you will have to reset your password
using the forgot-password link below.
