He is the author of The Beginnings of German Literature (Camden House, 2002), and numerous articles on the medieval lyric and Old High German. CYRIL EDWARDS is a lecturer in German at St Peter's College and Research Fellow of the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, University of Oxford. Cyril Edwards' thoughtful translation vividlyconveys the power of this complex, wide-ranging medieval masterpiece. Parzival has inspired and influenced works as diverse as Wagner's Parsifal and Lohengrin, Franz Kafka's The Castle, Terry Gilliam's film The Fisher King, and Umberto Eco's Baudolino. Centre stage are the Grail Castle and Arthur's Round Table, but the pagan world of the Orient also is also reflected.

It encompasses deeds of chivalry, tournaments and sieges, courtly love, and other erotic undertakings, but also sin and penance, and a deeply moving study in depression. In its depth and complexity of characterisation this work of the early thirteenth century anticipates the modern novel. Parzival is the greatest of the medieval Grail romances. This book is a newtranslation of Parzival, together with the fragments of the Titurel, an elegiac offshoot of Parzival, and the nine love-songs attributed to Wolfram. Vast in its scope, incomparably dense in its imagery, Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival ranks alongside Dante's Divine Comedy as one of the foremost narrative works to emerge from medieval Europe. Wolfram's Parzival continues to inspire and influence, in modern times works as diverse as Wagner's Parsifal and Lohengrin, Franz Kafka's The Castle, Terry Gilliam's film The Fisher King, and Umberto Eco's Baudolino.

Parsifal wolfram von eschenbach