Vergil und das Epische Erzählen

Abstract

Virgil and Epic Narrative. On the Occasion of Jan-Dirk Müller’s Latest Book Publication. With an Attempt Concerning German Literary History and Latin Middle Ages

The article discusses Jan-Dirk Müller’s concept of ›epic narration‹ with respect to the dominant Virgilian tradition during the Middle Ages. Müller’s ›epic narration‹ is defined as a quasi-autochthonous vernacular mode of medieval, (at least seemingly) archaic narration, strictly distinct from the, so-to-speak, Virgilian world of the litterati, and closely resembling everyday conversation: ›Epic narration‹ is narration in the presence of narrator and audience; it unfolds common narrative knowledge; the narrated past and the presence of narration are closely intertwined; what is told, is simply true; time and space are organized primitively via deictic markers; the themes are, even if Müller somewhat skips that point, martial and belligerent.

The article argues that Virgil’s Aeneid is no counterpart to that mode of ›epic narration‹, but that it participates in this more or less universal concept, albeit as its most sublime refinement. Virgil overcomes primitive ›epic narration‹ artistically by means of an unrivalled poetic perfection. This particular observation on the Aeneid poses severe questions to literary history. Even the vernacular poems offer no ›pure‹ ›epic narration‹, and Virgil’s epic in particular (as well as the Latin tradition in general, including Servius, Statius, Ovid etc) was most likely known to (most of the) vernacular poets. Hence, the idea of vernacular autonomy appears highly problematic. To put it bluntly, is the ›epic narration‹ of medieval literature an autochthonous vernacular mode, or does it, like so many other things, sprout in the long shadow of the Aeneid? Reflecting Müller’s ›epic narration‹ from a Virgilian perspective inevitably provokes a profound revision of medieval literary history.