Media conversion and transfiguration of collective memory in the medieval German heroic epic

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24720154
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: European literature (English literature excluded)
• Research Institution: Tokyo Metropolitan University
• Principal Investigator: YAMAMOTO Jun 首都大学東京, 人文科学研究科(研究院), 准教授 (50613098)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: ドイツ中世文学 / 英雄叙事詩 / 記憶 / メディア / 独文学

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study uses a medieval German heroic epic to explore the transfiguration of oral heroic tales, which are a community’s memory transmitted through media, through the contamination of the tradition of written literature. This is also an attempt to explain the cultural history of the relationship between memory and media with the demonstrative research on these literary works. Specifically, this study interprets whether the historicity of the oral heroic tales has been maintained in the written works, and the authorship of anonymous heroic tales that hands down the transindividual memory of a community and cannot be regarded as individual creations. This research explains firstly the actualizing of the old material through contemporary literary methods in the written heroic epic, and secondly the view of the authors of the existing literary traditions.

Free Research Field

ドイツ中世英雄叙事詩