Elizabeth of Hungary in the Romances of Wolfram von Eschenbach and Albrecht von Scharfenberg (Accepted)

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
The figure of Sigune in Wolfram von Eschenbach's early thirteenth century romance Parzival is surely a direct reference to Elizabeth of Hungary who was engaged to be married to the oldest son of Hermann I of Thuringia, Wolfram's patron. Hermann's son, also named Hermann, died before the marriage could take place. Elizabeth married Hermann's second son, Ludwig. In the text, the young Sigune is in love with Schionatulander (le jeune de la lande, the youth from the country). Sadly, Schionatulander dies. The story is an exact parallel of the experience of the young Elizabeth at Hermann's court at the Wartburg and she would have been present while Wolfram was composing the work and most certainly knew the author. Moreover, the name Sigune itself might be better interpreted as Hungarian word rather than as French for cousin. This paper examines the evidence for reading Sigune as a character based on Elizabeth of Hungary as present in Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival and his Titurel as well as in der jüngere Titurel by Albrecht von Scharfenberg.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Stephen Mark Carey is an associate professor and chair of German Studies at the University of Minnesota. Professor Carey earned his Ph.D. at Washington University in St. Louis and has published on Medieval European Literature with an emphasis on the 12th and 13th centuries, Historical Linguistics, Second Language Acquisition, Novel Theory, German and Scandinavian Literature and Gender Studies.