Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index


  • Record Number: 9991
  • Author(s)/Creator(s): Palmer , Craig.
  • Contributor(s):
  • Title: A Question of Manhood: Overcoming the Paternal Homoerotic in Gottfried's "Tristan"
  • Source: Monatshefte 88, 1 (Spring 1996): Pages 17 - 30.
  • Description:
  • Article Type: Journal Article
  • Subject (See Also): Fathers in Literature Gottfried von Strassburg, Poet- Tristan Homoeroticism Homosexuality in Literature Literature- Verse Mark, King (Literary Figure) Masculinity in Literature Morold (Literary Figure) Psychoanalytic Theory Tristan (Literary Figure)
  • Award Note:
  • Geographic Area: Germany
  • Century: 13
  • Primary Evidence:
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  • Table:
  • Abstract: In 1979 Rüdiger Krohn suggested for the first time that King Marke can be viewed as a homosexual character in the early part of his relationship with Tristan. This article builds upon Krohn's thesis to show in the Morold-scene how Tristan's transition from adolescence to adulthood is acted out as a struggle for authority on the thematic level, but as a negation of homoerotic bonds to father-figures on the psycho-symbolic level. The paternal homoerotic is represented by the desire of the father-figures, Marke and Morold, to keep Tristan in a subordinate position to them, either by seduction or force. Marke, the good father, is portrayed as a weak ruler who lost any claim to paternal authority, while Morold, Marke's evil double, offers Tristan the choices of dependence or castration. When Tristan decapitates Morold, he symbolically separates the super-ego (the head) from the tyrannical physical presence of the father-figure (the body). [Reproduced by permission of the University of Wisconsin Press.]
  • Related Resources:
  • Author's Affiliation: Washington University
  • Conference Info: - , -
  • Year of Publication: 1996.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN/ISBN: 00269271