Born: Alsace(?), Holy Roman Empire (now Alsace-Lorraine, France); flourished c. 1210
Died: Place and date unknown
Also known as: Godfrey of Strawbourg
PRINCIPAL POETRY
Tristan und Isolde, c. 1210 (Tristan and Isolde, 1899)
OTHER LITERARY FORMS
The only surviving works attributable to Gottfried von Strassburg (GOT-freed vawn STROS-boorg) are poems. Scholars believe Gottfried composed other poetry besides Tristan and Isolde, but they disagree about which surviving poems can be attributed to him. It is thought, however, that he composed several shorter works in the tradition of the Minnesänger, German lyric poets whose principal subject was love.
ACHIEVEMENTS
Gottfried von Strassburg is known for a single poem, but that work is one of the most significant among surviving poetry of the Middle Ages. Tristan and Isolde has been called the greatest courtly love poem extant. Written in an intricate style filled with irony and allusion, the poem celebrates the virtues of human love and cautions against its perils. What is particularly noteworthy is Gottfried’s ability to graft onto the story of Tristan and Isolde a sophisticated commentary on the influence of love; his observations display a keen psychological insight into the nature of this human drive. Furthermore, his recurring critique of the literature of his own day suggests something about the nature of literary practice at the end of the twelfth century.
BIOGRAPHY
Little is known about Gottfried von Strassburg’s life, although there is no doubt about his authorship of Tristan and Isolde. Contemporary sources mention “Gottfried” as the poem’s author, often referring to him as “Meister” and appending “von Strassburg” to his given name. These scant details, as well as internal evidence from Tristan and Isolde, make it possible to reconstruct a sketch of his career. The date of Gottfried’s birth is unknown, but it is thought that he was probably born in Alsace. The wide array of learning he displays in Tristan and Isolde suggests he was educated in the classics, rhetoric, literature, music, and possibly law and theology. He was probably not a nobleman, but instead was a member of the patrician class of bureaucrats that handled administrative tasks in the city of Strassburg, which in the twelfth century was a growing urban center on the Rhine River. The date of Gottfried’s death is also uncertain, but scholars have been able to determine the date of composition of Tristan and Isolde to be around 1210. Because the poem remained unfinished—all of the thirty surviving manuscript versions break off in the middle of the tale—consensus among scholars is that Gottfried died before he could complete it.
ANALYSIS
Like most medieval poets, Gottfried von Strassburg chose to adapt existing works rather than invent new ones. Whether a poem was composed for oral recitation or reading, it was considered good form for poets to take a story already familiar to their audience as their subject and embellish it, demonstrating their artistry by rhetorical flourish or new thematic interpretations. For example, the “matter of Britain”—largely stories dealing with King Arthur—was retold and reinterpreted frequently. Similarly, the story of Tristan and Isolde had existed in many versions for hundreds of years before Gottfried decided to make it the subject of his long romance. The tale has its origins in Celtic folklore and became part of the medieval romance tradition sometime during the eleventh or twelfth centuries. As is evident in Gottfried’s Tristan and Isolde and other versions of the story, details of Tristan’s life and adventures have parallels in the Arthurian tradition; later writers, especially Sir Thomas Malory in Le Morte d’Arthur (1485), go to great lengths to integrate the story into the Arthurian cycle. The story of Tristan and Isolde is emblematic of the courtly love tradition: A handsome, noble, highly skilled knight falls hopelessly in love with a woman he can never marry, and she often returns his affection. What might in other ages be considered either tragic or immoral becomes, in the hands of skilled medieval poets such as Gottfried, a noble passion that, in extreme cases, is held up as an ideal with religious overtones.
TRISTAN AND ISOLDE
Relying principally on the version of the legend presented in the work of Thomas of Britain (twelfth century), Gottfried re-creates the story of Tristan in Middle High German, using rhyming couplets as his basic poetic form. His unfinished work extends for approximately twenty thousand lines. A prologue written in quatrains provides a moralizing commentary on human behavior that also serves to recognize Gottfried’s patron, Dieterich, whose name is spelled out in the first letters of a succession of stanzas. Gottfried begins the narrative proper with the story of Tristan’s parents, relates Tristan’s life as an orphan, and describes the exploits that eventually take him to the court where Isolde resides. His lengthy description of the effect of a love potion drunk by Tristan and Isolde on their way to the court of Tristan’s uncle King Mark, where Isolde is to become Mark’s bride, is followed by episodes describing the lovers’ efforts to pursue their passion without discovery, their brief interlude of undisturbed bliss in the Cave of Lovers, and Tristan’s banishment from Mark’s court.
Despite his reliance on previous versions of the Tristan legend for details of his story, the originality of Gottfried’s work is undeniable. Even a cursory reading reveals his familiarity with matters of law, hunting, poetry, and classical literature. Gottfried uses his wide knowledge to invest his poem with gravitas. Furthermore, a significant difference between Gottfried’s account of the Tristan legend and those of Thomas of Britain and other poets is his focus on the interior lives of the characters. Although the poem shares with other romances a certain episodic quality and contains sections of narrative describing the actions of the hero in combat, most of Gottfried’s work concentrates on the feelings of the lovers as they try to understand what is happening to them. Additionally, the poet uses the structure of his work to reinforce his thematic aims: Scenes and characters are carefully balanced so that readers are able to see Gottfried’s commentary on love unfold in all its complexity. The sense of cause and effect generated by the poem gives it affinities to modern fiction.
Thematically the poem can be described as an extended commentary on the conflict between love and duty. Tristan and Isolde share a perfect love, but one that cannot be enjoyed openly, since both have other obligations—Tristan as Mark’s vassal and kinsman, Isolde as Mark’s wife. The poem explores in great detail the nature of passionate, human love, finding it to be filled with conflicts that can drive a devoted lover to the brink of madness. The strange coexistence of pleasure and pain in the love relationship is what intrigues Gottfried most, and throughout the poem, he gives numerous examples of the way love makes Tristan and Isolde alternately blissful or despondent. The contrasting emotions generated by love are paralleled in the poem by a number of other contrasts. For example, Tristan is both a loyal knight and an inveterate liar, while Isolde is a paean of virtue and a continual source of temptation (both for her husband and her lover). Tristan and Isolde celebrates courtly love as superior to the knightly virtues that the hero also possesses. Gottfried emphasizes this distinction by the relative length of his accounts of Tristan’s exploits as a lover and a fighter: The scenes of love are described in detail and often interrupted with more generalized commentary on the nature of love itself, while those in which Tristan demonstrates his skills as a fighter are often glossed over.
Gottfried uses a number of literary devices to call attention to his principal themes. Notable among them is his use of irony. Often what seems to be a good act has unintended consequences. Sometimes Tristan and Isolde are the beneficiaries of these ironic occurrences, at other times they suffer from them. Several critics have suggested that Gottfried is ahead of his time in employing symbolism in his tale, for example in using light and dark imagery to suggest the contrast between the purity of his fated lovers with the sordid behavior of those who would expose them to King Mark. Gottfried makes frequent use of reification, describing human emotions and actions such as love, jealousy, deceit, or surveillance as if they were active agents working on behalf of or against the interests of his protagonists. Most notable among these is his depiction of Love, which is frequently described as a huntsman, a falconer, or a physician. There is a strong implication that Love is capable of conquering men and women and holding them in thrall, much as a medieval lord might control his subjects who have no power to escape his clutches.
Gottfried also employs allegory, a common medieval device, most notably in his lengthy allegorical description of the Cave of Lovers, the sylvan grotto where the lovers retreat after Mark banishes them both from court. For a brief time, Tristan and Isolde live in this ideal retreat, needing only each other’s company for sustenance. The physical properties of the cave—its ceiling, windows, door, and bedchamber—are equated to the properties of love—constancy, integrity, simplicity, kindness, good breeding, humility, and, above all, honor. In some ways the Cave of Lovers is like the Garden of Eden, where innocence prevails. Such a reading helps justify Gottfried’s evident approval of Tristan and Isolde and his condemnation of the world outside the cave, where everyone is intent on destroying their happiness. This notion is reinforced by his portrayal of Mark’s passion for his wife as purely sensual, while Tristan’s seems to rise above the purely physical level.
Certainly the most important literary device used in the poem, and the one that has generated the most critical controversy, is the love potion. Gottfried makes no attempt to deny the literal power of the potion to imbue Tristan and Isolde with undying passion. Once they drink the potion, they are powerless to escape its effects. A more modern reading of the poem would suggest that the potion is intended as a visible symbol of the emotion it engenders. This reading seems to be borne out by the fact that Gottfried centers his interest on the lovers’ feelings and takes great pains to describe their interior lives. When he does recount their efforts to deceive King Mark or others, he almost always includes some description of the inner drive that motivates their deception.
Finally, Gottfried inserts a number of digressions or “excursions” in which he builds up a special relationship with his readers. On more than one occasion, he mentions that his work is intended for those discerning readers who can understand the curious and complex nature of love—that is, those who would appreciate the courtly love tradition that he celebrates in the poem. In extended comments on the nature of literature, he offers a critique of contemporary writers in which he praises a number of them and demeans his chief rival, Wolfram von Eschenbach, author of the highly popular romance Parzival (c. 1200-1210; English translation, 1894). Gottfried’s recurrent comments are a veiled argument that he should be regarded as a major literary figure, a claim that history has certainly accorded him.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Batts, Michael S. Gottfried von Strassburg. New York: Twayne, 1971. Provides an overview of the Tristan legend, a critical reading of Gottfried’s poem, analysis of his style, and a synopsis of other interpretations of the work.
Bekker, Hugo. Gottfried von Strassburg’s “Tristan”: Journey Through the Realms of Eros. Rochester, N.Y.: Camden House, 1987. Detailed reading of the poem, focusing on the narrator’s asides, interruptions, and excursions, which Bekker argues help focus on one of Gottfried’s main purposes, to illustrate the journey through the various aspects of human love.
Chinca, Mark. Gottfried von Strassburg: “Tristan.” New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Provides a summary of the poem, commentary on its structure and relationship to the Tristan tradition, critical analysis, and details about the original manuscript and scholarly editions.
Hasty, Will, ed. A Companion to Gottfried von Strassburg’s “Tristan.” Rochester, N.Y.: Camden House, 2003. Twelve essays discussing the artistry, themes, and critical reception of the poem; several examine the poem’s relationship to other medieval literary works.
Hatto, A. T. “Introduction.” Gottfried von Strassburg: “Tristan.” Rev. ed. New York: Penguin Books, 1967. Discusses the major themes of the work and problems involved in translating Gottfried’s medieval German into English; this volume includes the best modern English translation of the poem.
Jackson, W. T. H. The Anatomy of Love: The “Tristan” of Gottfried von Strassburg. New York: Columbia University Press, 1971. Extended analysis discussing the intellectual background, poetic structure, and use of language in conveying what Jackson believes is a countercultural view of love for Gottfried’s age.
MacDonald, William C. Arthur and Tristan: On the Intersection of Legends in German Medieval Literature. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen, 1991. Explores parallels between the Tristan story and Arthurian legends in the work of Gottfried and other medieval German writers.
Sneeringer, Kristine. Honor, Love, and Isolde in Gottfried’s “Tristan.” New York: Peter Lang, 2002. Examines the concept of honor as it was understood by Gottfried’s audience; explains how the poet uses structural devices to highlight the transcendent quality of love.
Laurence W. Mazzeno