Exciting Storms: Weather Phenomena as Catalysts of Chivalric Adventures

Abstract

The tempest is a conventional figure in epic tradition. This essay examines the narrative position of weather phenomena in Middle High German courtly romances and their relation to the adventures of the active characters–most of them knights. In particular, storms, as severe meteorological perturbations, seem to excite heroic exploits as they mark the difference between the space of origin and a space of danger. To return to safety, the heroes undergo adventures, but also expose themselves to perilous situations in which they lose their agency. This (in some ways paradoxical) constellation between passivity and activity is processed through various narrative possibilities in which agency alternates between the prescient characters and meteorological ‘entities’. The essay is concerned mainly with the Eneas Romance (Heinrich von Veldeke), the anonymous Herzog Ernst (B), and the Arthurian Romances Parzival (Wolfram von Eschenbach), Iwein (Hartmann von Aue) and DiuCrône (Heinrich von dem Türlin).