Medieval intertextuality

In addition to all of this, specific elements of communication occur, which strengthen the impression of the openness of medieval texts even more (Hahn and Ragotzky 1992). It is fundamentally true of these texts that they are very strongly dominated from outside in their subject matter as well as thematically and aesthetically. A very restricted creativity is typical of the medieval author. His originality is a limited category in every respect, moving within a narrow sphere. It is steered by the knowledge of other texts. In order to ascertain the semantic potential of a medieval text fully, it is therefore necessary to have a knowledge of the text or texts that served the text at hand as a guideline and model. In every medieval text one pretext or even several of these are hidden, and in order to be able to assess the semantic achievement of the former correctly, the modern interpreter must trace, as it were, the text within the text and uncover the intertextual references (Morse 1991: 231-248). Here, the present-day reader and researcher enters a field full of incalculable risks, because in general one has to be satisfied here with conjecture, which still applies even if the author names or intimates his source or sources in the text, as for instance in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Davis 1967: 1.1-36). This uncertainty is true almost without reserve for the most common type of text of the Middle English period, the "romance" (Severs 1967). But also in respect to such a renowned work as Beowulf, researchers puzzle over the background texts (Newton 1995).

The text-communication process is, moreover, further laden with indefiniteness because the medieval author and consequently his pragmatic contexts, intentions and prerequisites are normally a dimension with many unknown elements. Most medieval works cite no author whatsoever; many names are associated with uncertainties and lack of clarity (e.g. Cynewulf, Caedmon, Wulfstan, Layamon, William Langland, Robert Henryson, Thomas Malory). There is a certain amount of information concerning just a few (for instance Ælfric, John Gower, Geoffrey Chaucer, John Lydgate, William Dunbar). The same also applies to the class of recipients, who are mostly unknown to us and about whom we must rely on assumptions and reconstructions. The medieval text as a potential for meaning promoting understanding or insight between author and recipient must then, however, remain to a great extent open. And therefore, the important questions of author motivations that lie behind the texts and of the receptive expectations and reactions associated with them can only be answered with great difficulty, even for well-known authors such as Chaucer.

In addition, a further fact must be considered, referred to briefly at the beginning. The medieval texts we read today, especially the literary texts, were not received in this way in the Middle Ages (Tristram 1992). The reader devoted to his/her private, personal inspirations is a phenomenon only of modern times. From what we know about medieval texts, poetic texts especially, they were not read, probably also not read aloud. They were recited to a listening public and were performed in certain cases, be it in free rendition and realization, be it in a form that more or less came close to the text or one of its versions depending on the situation. The vocal quality of this communication process, whose details completely elude the modern reader and thus leave many possibilities of interpretation, might be one reason for the different degrees of stereotyped nature, for the oral-formulaic character, which mark the medieval text in many ways (Zumthor 1987; Richter 1994).