SOURCE: "Hartman's Êrec: Language, Perception, and Transformation," in The Germanic Review, Vol. LVI, No. 3, Summer, 1981, pp. 81-94.

In the following essay, Clark outlines Hartmann's portrayal of Erec's maturation.

For much of Hartmann's Êrec, the protagonist is characterized as a man plagued by one or another form of disorientation; an examination of the narrator's justifications for Êrec's frequent perceptual failures opens up a profitable avenue of approach to the work's thematic structure. Throughout the poem, the narrator repeatedly calls attention to the hero's unfamiliarity with his surroundings (ll.250, 4277, 4623, 5288, 6737, 7808), his non-recognition of opponents (ll.459, 4468ff.), and his general unawareness of impending dangers (ll.3123, 4150ff.). In several instances the narrator appends a disclaimer that attempts to minimize Êrec's failings on the grounds of physical unaccountability; thus, it is Ênîte who notes the three robbers before her husband becomes aware of them, and she does so, on Hartmann's account, merely because...