The versions of Wolframs 'Parzival' in correlation to the textual genesis of the poem and its French source. An edition in synoptic form

• Applicants: Professorin Dr. Sonja Glauch; Professor Dr. Jens-Dieter Haustein
• Subject Area: German Medieval Studies (Medieval German Literature)
• Term: from 2011 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 198455641

The Arthurian romance 'Parzival', composed by Wolfram von Eschenbach, is one of the most important works of courtly literature originating in the early 13th century. Modern research on the text, however, still draws on the edition established by Karl Lachmann in 1833. In its day a masterpiece of textual criticism, Lachmanns edition can no longer meet present scholarly requirements, since it considers merely a fraction of the currently known witnesses, and thus only insufficiently documents the variance of the medieval text. Striving to provide the scholarly community with a new basis for their research, the 'Parzival'-project is preparing a complete edition that comprises all versions (Fassungen) and that will be available in both print and digital form.The project of the new 'Parzival'-edition incorporates three modules that build upon each other:(1) Transcriptions of all witnesses and their web-based presentation of text: This labour-intensive phase shall be executed by four transcriptionists, who will be able to complete the transcription of the full text within the time period for which funding was requested.(2) A synoptic edition of the four versions: By the end of the requested funding period, more than four-fifths of the entire text will be available. The preparation of the remaining synopses will be the task for a future project with a reduced number of researchers.(3) Consolidation of the synoptic edition into a single reference text based on all versions of the text: To meet the requirements of such an endeavour, different work models are currently beeing tested and discussed amongst adept researchers.Following a project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (2008-2011) and an international cooperation project (Germany-Switzerland, 2011-2014), another collaboration application to the SNF and the German Research Council (DFG) shall now be submitted. The collaboration shall focus on the textual genesis and its French original. References between the tradition of Wolfram's 'Parzival' and that of Chrétien's 'Roman de Perceval ou le Conte du Graal' including its continuations will be investigated and depicted (i.e. in a post-doctoral project) as part of the edition.The project is based on interdiscplinary and international networks (e.g. in the fields of Romance Studies, Digital Humanities, Phylogenetic Analysis - 'New Stemmatology', automatic handwriting recognition).

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Switzerland
• Participating Person: Professor Dr. Michael Stolz