SOURCE: Classen, Albrecht. “The Role of Women in the Stricker's Courtly Romance Daniel von dem blühenden Tal.” In Women as Protagonists and Poets in the German Middle Ages: An Anthology of Feminist Approaches to Middle High German Literature, edited by Albrecht Classen, pp. 87-103. Göppingen, Germany: Kümmerle Verlag, 1991.

In the following essay, Classen argues that Daniel of the Blossoming Valley contains several “modern” features when compared with other examples of medieval romance—particularly in its depiction of women—and marks a historical decline in male-dominated chivalric literature.

It is not very long ago that most German literary texts from the middle of the 13th century onwards were either categorized as epigonal or as secondary in quality.¹ Once the classical period had come to an end, in which Hartmann von Aue, Gottfried von Straßburg and Wolfram von Eschenbach had flourished, a long period of mere...