cover "Widersprüchliche Figuren in tormoderner Erzählliteratur"

Herrschaft und Macht im Widerspruch. Problematische Könige im ›Nibelungenlied‹

Contribution

Elisabeth Lienert

2020

Using the examples of Gunther, Siegfried, Dietrich of Bern and Etzel in the ‘Nibelungenlied’, the lecture examines contradictions between royal rank and actual power to act, between the actions of rulers and the discourse of domination. They point to the genre-typical self-portrayal of the warrior nobility in the heroic epic and to the primacy of material history and the finality of the plot over the constitution of the characters, which in this respect is only ‘subordinately’ contradictory, but also to shifts in the discourse of rulership.

In Lienert, Elisabeth (Hrsg.), Widersprüchliche Figuren in vormoderner Erzählliteratur (BmE Themenheft 6), 105–128. Oldenburg: BIS-Verlag.

DOI: 10.25619/BmE2020395

Back to overview
sustained engagement

“The history of Western philosophy can be understood as a sustained engagement with contradiction.”

Norman Sieroka
Is contradiction eurocentric?

“Is contradiction a eurocentric concept, operational phenomenon, and instrument of power?”

Kerstin Knopf
city

“The city is a laboratory not only of modernity, but also of contradiction.”

Julia Lossau
driver

“Contradictions are an important driver of scientific practice and knowledge.”

Norman Sieroka
coherence in thought

“The imperative of non-contradiction generally produces a coherence in thought that is often at odds with social complexities.”

Yan Suarsana