Motif Index of German Secular Narratives from the Beginning to 1400: Natiere De Bretagne Book

Early in the 20th century, scholars began identifying and classifying themes, or motifs, of folk literature in general, and since then volumes have been produced applying those classification systems to the folklore of various nations. Here scholars from the Academy provide such service for German secular narratives. The terminus of 1400 was chosen to correlate with the indexes of earlier references, and religious themes were reserved for their own treatment by someone else at some future date. Each of the six volumes in the set will focus on a genre (or part of one) and will summarize texts passage by passage, and identify the motifs it displays by the Thompson classification system. This first volume begins the Matter of Britain—Arthurian stories—with Albrecht, Jungerer, Titural, and Lancelot Two; the second volume continues where it leaves off. All the text is in English. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR