Globalism in Medieval Literature? Pre-Modern Perspectives in Poetic Projections: Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival, Konrad Fleck’s Flore und Blancheflor, and Reinfried von Braunschweig

Abstract

This paper examines globalism in the pre-modern world as reflected in literary texts. In contrast to globalization, globalism indicates an opening of perspectives toward distant parts of the world and embracing to some extent the foreign people and their cultures as, relatively speaking, equals, more or less approaching the concept of transculturality. Whereas the European Middle Ages have commonly been identified as xenophobic, determined by fear, and parochial, many literary documents reflect a rather open-minded perspective and undermine such stereotypical judgments. Undoubtedly, of course, the paradigm of Christianity ruled strongly, but within the field of literary imagination, we can discover numerous examples of European protagonists openly, fairly, respectfully, and even lovingly interacting with people in the East and elsewhere. We might face here nothing but fictional projections, but those were obviously widely enjoyed by the contemporary audiences and so must have had a considerable impact on the readers/listeners. The examples chosen for this analysis are Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival, Konrad Fleck’s Flore und Blanscheflur, and the anonymous Reinfried von Braunschweig.