German Romance I

Der Stricker's 'Daniel' is the first freely invented German Arthurian romance bringing the genre to a new level of originality. Beginning with Hartmann von Aue's 'Erec' (c.1185) and up until 'Daniel' (c.1210-25) German poets had drawn their tales of King Arthur's knights exclusively from the world of the French romance most commonly from the oeuvre of the great romançier Chrétien de Troyes; but in relating his eponymous hero's adventures against giants dwarves and fellow knights der Stricker made a clean break with this tradition claims that he received his story from the French poet Alberich de Besançon being considered a formula only.This volume presents for the first time together both the original Middle High German text of 'Daniel' and a full English rendering of the 8482 verses on facing pages; the text is accompanied by extensive notes bibliography and index.MICHAEL RESLER is Professor of German Studies Boston College Massachusetts.