Der Pleier - Works

Works

Der Pleier is best known for his longest work, Garel von dem blühenden Tal, consisting of 21,310 lines in short rhyming couplets. The story follows King Arthur's young knight Garel on his adventures through the territory Ekunaver of Kanadic, who has declared war on Arthur. Garel defeats hostile knights and rescues friendly ones, and amasses a vast army as he moves. He frees Queen Laudamie of Anferre from the evil Vulganus and marries her, and uses his army to conquer Ekunaver before Arthur even arrives. A truce is settled, and the romance concludes with a festival celebrating the reconciliation. The poem was written as a reaction to a previous work, Daniel von dem blühenden Tal by Der Stricker. Apparently disliking the brutality of the warrior ideal exemplified by Der Stricker's tale and antagonist, Der Pleier specifically designed his hero as a virtuous, chivalrous knight appealing to the courtly ethos of the time.

Tandareis und Flordibel, which consists of 18,339 short lines chiefly in rhymed couplets, tells the story of the love between the young Tandareis and the foreign princess Flordibel, which stands in defiance of Arthur's wishes. When Arthur discovers their illicit love, he attacks them until Gawain establishes a truce which ends the fighting and sends Tandareis on a quest to prove himself as a real knight. Meleranz, consisting of 12,834 lines in short rhyming couplets, concerns the adventures of the titular squire as he attempts to find his way back to his lady love, Tydomie of Kameric.

Der Pleier adapted much of his material from older poems, but there is no corroborating evidence for his claims of direct French sources. His romances borrow from the older German Arthurian authors Wolfram von Eschenbach, Gottfried von Strassburg, and Hartmann von Aue, as well as lesser-known ones such as Der Stricker and Wirnt von Grafenburg. Most of his characters appear in earlier works, especially the genealogies in Wolfram von Eshenbach's Parzival and Titurel, which he greatly expands and adapts. Der Pleier's stories appealed to audiences familiar with the older works, and revived flagging interest in the Arthurian legend in German literature in his time. Their popularity is attested by the murals in Runkelstein Castle, created around 1400, which depict scenes from Garel.