| This dissertation analyzes the Tristan of Gottfried von Strassburg (written ca. 1210) in the light of recent theory concerning the trickster figure as discussed in anthropology, ethnography, mythology, and comparative literature. Tricksters and trickery abound in world literature, yet, with few notable exceptions, scholarly literature has neglected to treat Tristan and others in Gottfried's text as tricksters except in the most cursory of terms. I seek to unite the theory of the trickster with the already flourishing discussion on guile, List, as Tristan's chief means of serving King Marke's court and of deceiving the king in his illicit affair with Isolde, with the goal of examining how trickster theory can contribute to medieval literary studies and vice versa. At the heart of Tristan's trickery is a fundamental ambiguity: it benefits and brings honor to Marke while at the same time it deceives him, eventually with devastating effect. An artist of verbal trickery, Tristan figures as the most prominent trickster, managing with stratagems, riddles, double entendres and simple lies to dupe all who would keep him from Isolde. Yet Tristan is a polymath, excelling at music, poetry, hunting, and knightly pursuits as well as courtly manners. His verbal trickery expresses itself in his preoccupation with foreign language, literature and rhetoric, some of many skills he learned at an early age. Analyzing both Gottfried's prologue and the surprising contention that Tristan's literary education amount to the hero's banishment from freedom, I argue that Gottfried builds a structure of poetological reflection within the text that regards literature, and ultimately itself, as instruments of trickery. As Gottfried's fragment approaches its end, however, Tristan finds himself the victim of his own trickery, as even all the rhetorical prowess he can muster cannot spare him the torment of his own zwiwel, or oscillation, as he confronts his attraction to a new Isolde, Isolde of the White Hands. |
