SOURCE: "Symbol and Reality in Der arme Heinrich" in The Modern Language Review, Vol. LIII, No. 4, October, 1958, pp. 526-36.

Willson is one of the most prolific Hartmann scholars writing in English. In the following excerpt, he insists that Der arme Heinrich attempts "the paradoxical mingling or fusion of the two spheres of the human and the divine without loss of 'substantial' identity by either," through the spiritual power of caritas.

If we discount the occasional misguided attempt to interpret Hartmann's Der arme Heinrich as basically pagan in spirit and outlook, it is true to say that its debt to medieval Christian thought has always been recognized. In recent years interpretation along these lines has advanced considerably. Nevertheless, it is doubtful whether all that Hartmann put into his poem has yet been extracted. To judge from the opinion of his contemporary, Gottfried von Strassburg, Hartmann enjoyed the highest reputation...