I'd like to TRY to make sense of some of the points we grappled with at the end of Monday night's Parzival discussion We've seen that there are several inconsistencies within characters in Parzival. Dr. Wenthe pointed out that Ither, who is initially treacherous towards Arthur and needlessly violent towards the Waleis, is later mourned by all and remembered fondly. This is one example of an inconsistency that made me question my reading ability. "Wait a minute," I thought, "Ither is a bad guy!" Wolfram combines two extremes within one character and never acknowledges that there might be something unusual about that.
Honestly, speaking of contrast, the first couple of lines intrigued and yet confused me; "If vacillation dwell with the heart the soul will will rue it. Shame and honour clash where the courage of a steadfast man is motley like the magpie" (15). The souls of those who waiver will suffer? A mixed fortune ahead for men of inconsistencies? Ugh, I would love for someone else to try to paraphrase this, because my definitions are muddled!
Throughout Parzival, I spent so much time trying to make sense of Wolfram's prologue and connect it to the rest of the story. But opposites abound and I can't extract a *singular* message. Parzival is both "sorry -- yet glad" (106) when Condwiramurs comes to him in distress. "Woman" is defined with two extremes, loyal and deceitful (70). The single word "woman" serves as one signifier with vacillating meaning. And Chapter 10 begins, "We are approaching strange tales such as can empty us of joy and bring high spirits: they have to do with both" (256).
Part of what I admire about Wolfram is that he's allowing for a wide range of human behavior and emotion -- he builds a complex plot with multidimensional characters. Much like the world as we know it, few things are black *or* white, but many are black *and* white (Feirefiz). Nothing is simple. I thought it was interesting that somebody in class mentioned oneness and singularity as the ultimate goal within the quest -- essentially meaning that characters cannot elevate themselves unless they strive for one single, worthy goal. Having a direct course of intention would be the opposite of vacillation, after all; and yet, I'm still stuck. I thought writing some of these thoughts out would help me draw a conclusion, but no. Perhaps someone will at least be able to add on...
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Yes, I'm commenting on my own post again! I wanted to return to this because I failed to mention that I believe to some extent Wolfram's "vacillation" is in reference to Parzival's doubt in God. In addition to that, the other instances of vacillation throughout the text indicate that humankind lacks a constant or singular condition.
ReplyDeleteMegan says: "Much like the world as we know it, few things [in *Parzival*] are black *or* white, but many are black *and* white (Feirefiz). Nothing is simple."
ReplyDeleteAnd I agree.
Wolfram definitely complicates the one-sided heroic tradition of Arthur as we've known it to this point. But I don't think he necessarily vacillates with regard to his own beliefs/priorities. As I mentioned in Monday's class, I think he's diplomatic in his approach to the Arthur legend, which sets him apart from other writers we've read. Wolfram weighs both sides of every issue, and presents a comparatively unbiased view of events. This is why we have both the negative and positive portraits of Ither--it is an acknowledgment that life is full of gray areas which we must navigate.
This diplomacy--and by that, I not only mean a weighing of both sides but also a respect of difference--seems compromised at the end with the dogmatic Christian message delivered through Feirefiz's baptism. While we all saw this scene coming (Hatto even tells us halfway through), it doesn't seem to jive with Wolfram's character. But I guess diplomacy doesn't mean never taking sides. Instead, it requires fair judgement and an ability to know when it is appropriate to take a side and assert your own beliefs. That said, I'm still bothered by the baptism scene.
I'll just note, re: Megan's comment about religious vacillation, that the word in line 1 that Hatto translates as "vacillation" is "zwîvel," corresponding to modern German Zweifel, usually translated as "doubt" and encoding the two-fold nature of things (the "zwi" component of zwîvel, like the Zwei of Zweifel, meaning "two," with which it is cognate).
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