Die Sirenen

Eine alte neue (Literatur-)Geschichte

Abstract

While from the modern period onwards clear differentiations and attributions of diary texts are possible, in the pre-modern period some questions remain open to the texts. The comparison between secular medieval narrative literature and autobiographical or biographical vitae of women's mysticism seems superficially simple. Secular narrative literature is fictional, i.e., purely literary, and consequently contains no autobiographical entries or admissions, except for interspersed authorial commentary. Some texts of spiritual, mystical, and visionary literature possess a high degree of systematicity and temporal continuity and are generally to be regarded as non-fictional products of an author. For German studies, the problem is presented as follows: since the reproduction of mystical and prophetic experiences is not directly possible and therefore many things were written down in a modified form, one could conclude from this that there were no evidential experiences behind the texts at all and ergo that they should be regarded as mere writing desk products, i.e. literary-fictional. This prejudice is to be subjected to a fundamental illumination and revision on the basis of selected examples.