had failed to ask the question. Now, on Good Friday, he
is directed to his uncle, the hermit Trevrizent, who tells
him about his family and his relationship to the Grail
King Anfortas. In addition, Parzival learns all about the
Grail, about his motner’s death, and the fact that he had
killed a relative, Ither, in his effort to become a knight.
Hesitatingly, Parzival admits that he was the one who
had visited the Grail Castle but had not asked the ques-
tion. After this confession, Trevrizent gives Parzival
a new understanding of the relationship of God and
humans, so that he makes his peace with God through
penance. Nevertheless, he will still wander in search of
the Grail Castle.
Gawan, in the meanwhile, has cleared his family
name, rescued the queens from Schastel Marveille,
and won the hand of Orgeluse. He has one last task
to complete: single combat with Gramofl anz in the
presence of his uncle, King Arms, who arrives with all
his court. Before that can happen, Gawan fi ghts with
Parzival but is spared when they recognize each other.
Parzival rights in place of the wounded Gawan against
Gramofl anz and defeats him. King Artus then arranges
a reconciliation among all the parties involved, and a
joyous nuptial celebration ensues. Parzival leaves the
festivities alone and encounters his heathen half-brother,
Feirefi z, in combat. Just when it appears that Parzival
will be defeated, Feirefi z throws aside his sword and
magnanimously discloses his identity fi rst. Now Par-
zival, with his new awareness of God and having been
tested to the point of death, is ready to be summoned
to the Grail. Cundrie appears, announces that Parzival
has been called, and they leave for Munsalvæsche ac-
companied by Feirefi z. There Parzival asks the question,
Anfortas is healed, and a short time thereafter Parzival
is reunited with Condwiramurs, who arrives at the castle
with their twin sons.
In Wolfram’s Parzival we see two ideal realms, that of
King Artus and that of the Grail. The knights of Artus’s
Round Table represent the highest secular ideal of
chivalry, epitomized in the person of Gawan. The Grail
knights on the other hand have a special relationship
to God. They are chosen for divine purposes. Parzival
belongs to both realms by virtue of his inheritance:
from his father, the skill and desire to excel in knightly
combat; from his mother, his genealogical relationship
to the Grail family and his destiny to succeed Anfortas
as King of the Grail Castle. We see in his story fi rst his
misguided striving to become an exemplary knight,
then his angry confusion when he is humiliated at what
should have been his moment of highest honor. Finally,
he learns to adjust his sights from the goals of his own
ambition and accept the purposes that God has for him.
The twofold structure of the work embodied in the
fi gures of Gawan and Parzival shows both knights suc-
ceeding in their particular tasks of freeing two groups
of people. For one it is a worldly success, for the other,
a transcendent, spiritual achievement.
Wolfram’s other major work, Willehalm, is quite
different from Parzival. Not only is it unfi nished, but it
is also not an Arthurian romance. Its source is the Old
French chanson de geste, La Bataille d’Aliscans, one
of the twenty-four poems in the cycle about Guillaume
d’Orange and his family. This is heroic poetry that revels
in combat and death, Christians against heathens, good
against evil. Wolfram himself takes notice of the differ-
ence when he states: “Whatever I recounted earlier about
fi ghting [.. .] ended in some way other than in death.
This fi ghting will settle for nothing less than death and
loss of joy” (Willehlm 10, 22–26). Yet for Wolfram, love
and courtly attitudes are not lacking. Willehalm deals
with the confl ict between religions and the love that
makes the religious confl ict tragic. It involves immense
slaughter and suffering on both the Christian and the
heathen sides, and the religious differences and the hu-
man experience of the struggle give the work a much
greater depth. Although he has transformed the material
of his source perhaps to an even greater extent than in
Parzival, Wolfram still preserves the essential sequence
of events of his source as far as his story goes. One fi nal
difference: the chanson is written in tirades—stanzas of
a varying number of ten-syllable lines, with each tirade,
or laisse, having the same assonance. Wolfram uses the
rhymed couplets of the courtly romance.
Willehalm begins in the midst of the fi rst great battle
of Aliscans. The heathen emperor Terramer had sum-
moned huge armies and landed not far from Willehalm’s
fortifi ed city of Oransche. Terramer’s purpose is to force
the return of his daughter Arabel to her husband, Tybalt,
and to the religion of her people. Arabel, now called
Gyburg after her baptism, had fallen in love with Wille-
halm when he was a prisoner in heathendom. She had
helped him escape, left Tybalt to fl ee with Willehalm,
and converted to Christianity. Her former husband and
her son have come with the Saracen forces.
In the course of the fi rst battle, Willehalm loses all
his knights, including young Vivianz, who is the out-
standing fi ghter for the Christians. Willehalm himself
is barely able to escape the slaughter by donning the
armor of King Arofel, whom he had slain, and riding
away through the heathen ranks, almost unnoticed. He
spends the night at Oransche with Gyburg, then leaves
early the next morning to seek help from King Louis.
Gyburg is left to defend the fortress with her ladies and
a handful of survivors.
Having arrived in Laon, Willehalm receives an
extremely cold welcome. King Louis and the queen,
Willehalm’s sister, are most reluctant to do anything for
him. Willehalm, in great rage at the insulting treatment
and deeply concerned about Gyburg’s fate, grabs the
queen by her braids and threatens to cut her head off.WOLFRAM VON ESCHENBACH