Wolfram von Eschenbach

Wolfram von Eschenbach (1170-1220), German epic poet, who is considered the greatest poet of medieval Germany. He was born in Eschenbach, near Ansbach, Franconia. It is known that he was a knight and, for a time, a minnesinger at the court of Thüringen. Wolfram's reputation rests largely upon his Parzival, an epic of the Holy Grail. Approximately 25,000 lines long, it was completed about 1210. Some literary critics believe it is based on Perceval, ou le conte du graal (1190?; Percival, or the Story of the Grail), by the French poet Chrétien de Troyes, but others hold that the two works are independent. Parzival was the source for the libretto of the opera Parsifal (1882), by Richard Wagner. Wolfram himself figures as a leading character in Wagner's earlier opera Tannhäuser (1845). Wolfram's highly individualistic writings are distinguished by an intense spirituality and by a religious tolerance rarely found in the works of his contemporaries. He was one of the first poets to use symbolism. Other works by Wolfram are the epics Willehalm and Titurel, both incomplete, and Wachter Lieder (Songs of the Watchman), a group of love poems.