Instructor: Albrecht Classen
Friday | 9:00 AM - 9:50 AM | In-Person
Fall 2025
Literature carries particular value for our lives because here we encounter a narrative platform for fundamental discussions concerning our ethics, morals, ideals, and values. There are simply non-material situations or conditions in life that demand our full attention, and no science can help us then, such as in the case of love, death, a spiritual experience, or ethical conflicts. This colloquium will serve the purpose of examining this phenomenon in a relaxed but critical academic environment. I want to expose you to a most powerful and deeply influential poet, the Middle High German Gottfried of Strassburg. His Tristan and Isolde (1210) is the most definitive literary treatment of the joys and pains of love, outside of the bonds of marriage, within the courtly context. Issues of loyalty, love, compassion, courtly education, ideals, principles, love potion, the ordeal, love as a utopia, desperation, and longing dominate this romance, which is certainly the most famous romance from the entire Middle Ages.