SOURCE: "Aspects of Time in Hartmann's Der arme Heinrich" in Monatshefte, Vol. 80, No. 4, Winter 1988, pp. 430-43.

[In the following excerpt, McDonald argues that Hartmann employs a characteristic time motif in his Der arme Heinrich in order to emphasize the transformation of the hero from his fall from grace to his eventual redemption.]

Time is part of the fabric of the plot in each of the narrative poems of Hartmann von Aue, and chronological sequence enhances our understanding of events. In Erec, Iwein, Gregorius, and Der arme Heinrich (hereafter abbreviated as AH), Hartmann demonstrates a keen awareness of the flow of time, relating the adventures of his protagonists in a linear manner within a time continuum. Despite the obvious differences in the concerns of these works, a consistent philosophy of time emerges. The main characters, bound to time and mortality, endure finite periods of erroneous living in the world, suffering, and expiation. In time—both in the figurative and temporal sense—they undergo spiritual growth and regeneration in their search for self-understanding. To illustrate the learning process, Hartmann calls on the full resources of chronology, exploiting the sinful past, the transformed present, and the promised bliss of eternity. Time is not a negative force but rather an agent for organizing experience. It is also an artistic medium through which a moral lesson is conveyed.

Given the importance Hartmann attaches to time sequences, it is surprising that his treatment of temporality has received little attention. Scholarship on Hartmann's conception of time has not progressed materially in the three decades since the appearance of Cornelia Grisebach's … ["Zeifbegriff und Zeitgestaltung in den Romanen Chrétiens de Troyes und Hartmanns von Aue"]. Chronology has in fact all but disappeared from a critical discussion eager to analyze the narrative structures and social implications of his poetry. The present study aims to close a gap in research by examining AH from the perspective of time. The vantage point chosen provides the groundwork for a reading of the poem, which, while generally confirming the opinio communis, reveals that the pattern of time is an unjustly neglected means of access to interpretation.

Before investigating in depth the aspects of chronology in AH, we should note that its precise time scheme is the most difficult to reconstruct among Hartmann's poems. A subtle reflection of this status is perhaps the amount of time AH takes to unfold, which sets it apart from the other narratives. The poem occupies a middle position between the hurried Arthurian tales and Gregorius, whose plot develops over decades. If we look beyond the divergences in total elapsed time, AH shares temporal features with Hartmann's stories. The narrator of AH states expressly that Heinrich remained at the homestead of a peasant for three years (351), while suffering from leprosy. The period of time is structurally close to that in the other poems, inasmuch as the hero spends a year or more in personal failure or atonement. Since Heinrich's three years are marked by humiliation and suffering rather than in the development of the fault itself, in contrast with the Arthurian romances, AH shows affinity to Gregorius with regard to time.

Even with this explicit reference to time, "driu jâr" (351), the reconstruction of the temporal horizon of AH is by no means easily realized. For the narrator cloaks timekeeping in willful opacity, as I hope to demonstrate. He avoids referring to the duration of Heinrich's period of suffering after his sojourn of three years, for example, and he remains silent on the length of time Heinrich was leprous before taking refuge on the farm. "Three" is therefore both explicit and emblematic, the latter meaning aided by the traditional religious signification attached to the number. The number "three," it is agreed, is key to the interpretation of AH. The triplicity of the narrative pattern is vividly evoked by the changing epithets given Heinrich—herre, arm, guot. If an aesthetics of number is accepted, then Hartmann, in juxtaposing plot, story divisions and a time signal according to a common denominator, confers chronology itself with a religious dimension. The time element becomes a theological statement: by virtue of years spent in overcoming the effects of human flaw, the contrite hero becomes an illustrative paragon for the audience of the poem. As seen in the case of Heinrich and the maiden, time is required for revelation, and all sins, however grave, can be forgiven in due time.

The plot outline AH allows for brief recapitulation, for which purpose I borrow T.L. Markey's [summary in "Word as Motif and 'Der arme Heinrich' as Model," Colloquia Germanica, 15 (1982)]:

For no apparent reason, a knight of good family … is afflicted with leprosy, a disease that resulted in social rejection and symbolized the wrath of God, the victim of which was regarded as unclean, unwhole. To be cured, he is informed that he must obtain the blood of a marriageable virgin willing to die for him. The knight retreats from society to the isolated homestead of one of his yeoman farmers … By divine intervention, the farmer's daughter, a marriageable virgin, agrees to die for the knight. The killing is stayed as the knight is miraculously cured, and he marries the girl who saved him.

From this sketch it is evident that Hartmann arranges his story chronologically. The tale unfolds in linear time, and the episodes are linked sequentially. The reader (or listener) is aware of the continuous flow of time even when the characters reflect on events that transpired in the past, for the flow of memory in these retrospective scenes illuminates present action and attitudes. Regret for time past is a necessary condition for the heightened state of existence that self-awareness brings.

Following the scholarly clerical tradition, Hartmann articulates his method in the prologue (1-28). He claims to have found a written source for AH, which he sets forth. The poem is a mixture of the saint's life, fairy tale, courtly romance and story of a penitent. Analogues are everywhere to be seen, sometimes for fragments of the plot, but no exact literary parallel to the story itself has been uncovered. (It is safe to assume that his source, or sources, were not dependent on a scheme of discernible time, as for instance is true of Iwein, which concerns the consequences of punctuality.) The passage directly following the prologue identifies the maere (29) as one concerning a feudal lord living in Swabia (30ff.). With this precise designation Hartmann defines his narrative space, setting the story in a place that can be geographically verified.

The adoption of an aspect of mimetic reality in spatial rendering is coupled with the observance of a continuous time scheme. Event follows event in logical and connected sequence. The story takes place in the unspecified near present. Thus situated in "knightly" time, AH relates a temporal existence that is subject to causality. Undeviating narrative progression is traceable: the noble protagonist falls from grace and, as a consequence of spiritual progress, is delivered. The reader follows the course of action with no difficulty. Instances of shifts from the past to the present (a form of the retrospective narrative) are invariably handled from a consistent viewpoint and do not provoke reader disorientation.

The time line of the poem is dominated by the past tense, the preterite befitting a finished (historical) recreation. Hartmann exploits the full range of tenses, however, using the present, the present with future implication, the present perfect, and the past perfect tenses. The present tense occurs with various functions. First, it is proverbial, frequently with religious overtones: "Man giht, er sî sîn selbes bote … " (26). Second, it is the agency of translation for a Latin hymn with direct relevance to the story: "daz diutet sich alsus, / daz wir in dem tôde sweben … " (94f.). Third, the present is the tense for narrative intrusion and authorial commentary: "als alle sîne gelîchen tuont" (136). Fourth, it is, in passages of dialogue and monologue, the medium for personal reflection and self-analysis: "als alle werlttôren tuont" (396); "dû hâst einen tumben gedanc" (1243). And finally, again in conversation, the present tense appears when the maiden wins the consent of her parents to sacrifice herself for Heinrich (544ff.). In summary, Hartmann switches to the present for immediacy, both of word and deed, embedding each in the framework of the narrative past. Therefore, although the story is past-oriented, the present intrudes to reinforce the validity and contemporary relevance of AH. An example of the interaction of past and present is Heinrich's dialogue with the peasant, in which, entering the field of memory, he takes a despondent backward glance at his failed attitudes and behavior. In their conversation the past and present interweave, actually intersecting at the point where Heinrich begins to accept his punishment. Then the knight uses the present perfect tense, an effective means of conveying the fact that his suffering is not yet complete, but unremitting: "Ich hân disen schämelîchen spot / vil wol gedienet umbe got" (383f.). We observe that the condition of leprosy itself, extending over two thirds of the story, is presented both as a temporal and narrative device.

The plot is logical, straightforward, and unfolds diachronically. That the serial conception of time is a deeply embedded construct is shown by the relation of temporal directionality to the story proper: its artistic coherence rests on the perception of the protagonist's decline and recovery as a continuous, successive process of personal transformation within an objective time sequence. Simultaneously, however, Hartmann initiates a calculated play with the verifiability of temporal events, manipulating and distorting the dimension of time to the degree that one can speak of a paradox. For, although the tale progresses chronologically from event to event, it systematically withholds explicit and quantifiable indicators of the passage of time. Because of the wealth of temporal references and the seriatim time of the story, the reader has the impression that a discernible time scheme exists. There is actually time consciousness but little temporal specificity—the majority of sequences lack verifiable parameters, detail is scant and points of transition blurred. Blocked off from the necessary temporal details, the reader is compelled to adduce units of time, and the chronology must be worked out on the basis of inference. Hartmann therefore sets up a tension between his lucid plot, his proverbial translucent and unadorned style, and his subjective intervals. It will not do to characterize the temporal structure in AH, as Grisebach attempts, with the single phrase "die Zeit (wird) metaphorisch verwandt." Time is present in the metaphoric sense, but Hartmann's treatment of time is more complex than she suggests. Measurable chronology has a marginal function in the poem, and Hartmann shows a benign, almost irreverent attitude toward it.

AH is, as observed, replete with time indications. Only three of these are wholly articulated, however, and since each refers to the number "three," a play with numerical meaning and the time scheme is strongly suggested. Hartmann maintains continuity and orders time according to three, a numeral silhouetted against the backdrop of otherwise shadowy temporal scaffolding: first, Heinrich's three years of seclusion at the peasant's farm (351); second, the maiden's three days of decision, in which she gives an oral defense of her resolution to sacrifice herself (459ff.); and finally, the relatives' three-day journey to receive Heinrich after his cure (1391). This last is a particularly good example of Hartmann's attitude towards narrative history. While giving a time interval, three days, he simultaneously renders the time span imprecise, and therefore indeterminate, by the addition of the vague qualifier wol: "wol drîe tage." How long was the journey? (Similarly, "si kusten ir tohter munt / etewaz mê dan drîstunt," 1417f.)

The choice of the number "three," invested as it is with deep symbolic and typological meaning, expresses Hartmann's selective attitude toward time. Temporal specificity is more apparent than real and indicates no precise calendrical demarcation. The narrator mentions years of withdrawal from the world to stress that suffering over an extended period of time is necessary to Heinrich's healing; he speaks of days to suggest how concentrated and intense were the maiden's attempts to sway her parents; and he again refers to days to demonstrate the efforts Heinrich's relatives exerted to greet the healed knight. Apparent disclosure of temporal detail turns out to be Biblical triplets and outlines of the passage of time— years and days. This represents a symbolic point of view on chronology, a perspective reliant on holy numbers and allusion. A world in time thus transcends time and becomes both a realm of fiction and of higher truth.

That Hartmann strives for this effect is clear from the knight's words of insight, uttered at the moment when the maiden is ready to sacrifice herself: "Swaz dir got hât beschert, daz lâ allez geschehen. / ich enwil des kindes tôt niht sehen" (1254-56). He continues: "gotes wille müeze an mir geschehen!" (1276). These phrases, showing a unity of will with God's intentions, are in the present tense, active voice, and in the optative. By the very grammar of his presentation, Hartmann thus invests these sentiments with validity not bound to a specific moment in time. An act of compassion in the narrative past, the refusal of sacrifice and the acceptance of his condition, is so structured as to make it prototypically current.

To sum up, Hartmann positions his triadic date-frames in a network of chronological sequence that depends on bifurcation: the time markers both articulate and render enigmatic the determination of time. Temporal indications are therefore hermetic signs and a technique of manipulation that prohibits the objective placing of events in time. One discerns this pattern of nonspecific references first in the adverbs and adverbial phrases, which are prominent carriers of the time scheme in AH.

The adverbs chosen point to the movement of time. But they leave precise temporal segments unspecified, and therefore make them inaccessible to the reader. For instance, Hartmann uses (with frequency of occurrence in parenthesis) drâte (3), schiere (6), schierest (1), selten (2), vor der zît (1), vor kurzer stunt (1), vür dise stunt (2), zallen stunden (1), zallen zîten (1), zehant (7), ze jungest (2), zestunt (1), and zuo der selben stunde (1). To cite examples of time words in context, Heinrich "shortly" learns that the doctors cannot heal him ("vil schiere," 176); God "immediately" makes Heinrich and the girl whole ("zestunt," 1369); and Heinrich tells the Swabians that, as they know, he was repugnant to all until "quite recently" ("vor kurzer stunt," 1476). In each of these instances the general effect is the transmission of information on time. But the placement of temporal designations alongside equally fuzzy time intervals makes time elusive as a measureable commodity.

Another tactic with similar force is the omission of temporal markers where the narrative calls for them. For example, the time span in which Heinrich's transgressions transpired is unclear; he contracts leprosy at an unspecified time; he suffers for an indeterminate time before going to the farmer's home; he makes trips at uncertain junctures and of ill-defined duration; the date of Heinrich's healing after this stay on the farm is vague; and only these words appear when the community decides on the propriety of his marriage to the maiden: "hie huop sich ein michel strît" (1468). In this last, one encounters the further paradox that an adverb of place, hie, communicates a (vague) unit of time, "then." The result of these consistent deletions of temporal specificity is that the length of time between most events is open to interpretation. Faced with remote or absent signs of duration, the reader must construct his own chronology of the story.

A less obvious but equally important mechanism for blurring time is the particles. Hartmann most frequently employs the temporal marker dô, which is an adverb of time and a subordinating conjunction with the various meanings "then," "at that time," and "when." Dô figures prominently in medieval German poetry, both as an epic formula for introducing single events in chronological sequence and as a syntactical indicator of narrative transition. It has a similar function in medieval saints' lives, which draw on the techniques of Biblical narrative. Characteristic of scriptural usage are the connectors "then," "at about that time," "after a time," "after some days," and "after many days," which Robert Alter has labelled ambiguous, formulaic time indicators [in his The Art of Biblical Narrative (1981)]. Hartmann therefore portrays temporal experience with a rhetorical device firmly grounded in Scripture that leaves time limits devoid of verifiability.

It is evident from the manuscripts that the scribes—or the poet himself—wish to focus attention on dô, where it appears in large initials some fourteen times. Two scribal divisions coincide with prominent narrative segments. Once dô indicates the onset of leprosy (75), which at the same time sets the plot proper into motion. And another time it allows us to penetrate Heinrich's self-awareness. Beset by despondency and self-loathing, he realizes that he is repugnant to his fellow creatures and is unwilling to suffer patiently like Job (133). In both sections, considerations of measurable time have a subsidiary part in relation to the demands of narration. Dô serves to establish that time has passed, that is, it allows for the perception of linear progression. But the word dô at the same time conceals the specific period of time elapsed.

In AH dô becomes a Leitwort, appearing some fifty times as an introductory signal and almost thirty times in other positions. One of these places is the conclusion of the verse, most frequently as a rhyme for vrô and unvrô (for example, 509f.). It therefore mirrors the emotional tenor of the episodes in which it is placed. An example of dô in the initial position (including an appearance in mid-position) is the account of Heinrich's resolution, after the attempted sacrifice of the maiden, to return home:

dô der gnâdelôse gast
sîne maget wider kleite
und den arzât bereite
als er gedinget hâte
dô vuor er alsô drâte
wider heim ze lande,
swie wol er dô erkande
daz er dâ heime vunde
mit gemeinem munde
niuwan laster unde spot:
daz liez er allez an got
(1342-52)

This passage has a stylistic counterpart in and a temporal relationship to the scene almost immediately following, when Christ intercedes to perform the miracle of healing:

dô erkande ir triuwe und ir nôt
cordis speculâtor …
dô erzeicte der heilic Krist
wie liep im triuwe und bärmde ist
und schiet si dô beide
von allem ir leide
und machete in dâ zestunt
reine unde wol gesunt
(1356-70)

The episodes cited, interwoven with and carried by clusters of the word dô, are connected by the fabric of chronology already explored, namely causal efficacy but unspecific borders of time. The reader is asked to accept a narrative logic and momentum, according to which one event follows another in a span inadequately accounted for by the poet. Without knowing when the initial dô in such a pattern sequence occurred in time, it is impossible to ascertain what interval is present between the repeated signals of chronology. Dô therefore contributes materially to the ideology of narrative form in AH, assuming a subversive function as it works at cross-purposes with the verifiable continuity of the storytelling.

The result of these manipulations of chronology, especially of the miraculous entrance of Christ ("dô erzeicte der heilic Krist"), is the face of a world frozen in timelessness, at once inside and outside time. Time is inadequate in the face of heaven. Since Christ can enter time at will, the force of divine intervention in AH is to call into question the pertinence of man's experience in time and the attempt to chart it. Of what significance is the calculation of time or temporal precision, Hartmann seems to ask, if time itself is malleable and brought to virtual stasis by the design of providence? In obviating the distinction between the eternal and the temporal, Hartmann offers direct access to the way in which he posits reality in the poem. He sketches, exploiting the form and essence of religious narrative to the fullest, a timeless realm informed by the idea of eternity.

Just prior to the episode on Christ's healing power, another particle appears which operates contrapuntally with dô, nû: "Nû hete sich diu guote maget / sô gar verweinet und verklaget … (1353f.). Nû, in the meanings "now" and "now that," also functions as a recurrent time indication; I count almost fifty appearances. It occurs most frequently in the line-initial position and marks off sections of the story. Like dô, nû serves as an introductory signal with a type of structural-technical function, and although it is a word-motif reiterated for the purpose of narrative progression, it, too, lacks temporal specificity. One may regard dƣ̂ and nû as a syntactical and chronological pair applied as an interconnective device: "then" and "now."

Two passages illustrate the correlation of dô and nû. The first concerns Heinrich's self-accusation, conveyed in dialogue form with the peasant. Expressing his sorrow, the knight dates the time spent in self-deception and presumption with the temporal marker dô ("dô nam ich sîn [God] vil kleine war," 393ff.). He contrasts this sinful past with nû, his current miserable existence ("nû versmâhe ich den boesen," 412ff.). Specific theological motivation resides behind the pair: dô indicates the remembered time of the sin of self, and nû is the present, a period of constant suffering. Heinrich's sorrow for the past and the penitential-like analysis in the scene with the peasant signal his budding self-knowledge.

Outlined by the temporal points "then" and "now," Heinrich's dawning insight becomes full contrition and acceptance of God's will at the place of intended sacrifice. The narrator conveys the change in the hero's attitude through verses interpenetrated with indications of time:

nû sach er si an unde sich
und gewan einen niuwen muot:
in dûhte dô daz niht guot
des er ê gedâht hâte
und verkêrte vil drâte
sîn altez gemüete
in eine niuwe güete
(1234-40)

Dô is set in relation to nû, but now the latter is contrasted with a further time reference, ê ("formerly," "before," "previously"). The elaborate word play here witnessed is prefigured in an earlier description of the leprous knight's reception by humanity:

dô man die swaeren gotes zuht
gesach an sînem lîbe,
man unde wîbe
wart er dô widerzaeme.
nû sehet wie genaeme
er ê der werlte waere,
und wart nû als unmaere
daz in niemen gerne sach
(120-27)

The three, ê, dô and nû, operate reciprocally, creating a syntactic framework and a verbal symmetry as much spiritual as it is temporal. The relationship of the three is iconographic, reflecting as it does the temporal anchor to which AH clings, the number "three."

The passage cited above on Heinrich's conversion (1234ff.) is so typical that it can serve as a resumé of the dimension of time in the poem. Vague temporal designations (ê, dô, nû) link time segments and suggest orderly chronological progression, but are calculated so as to make moments in time mystifying. Each represents contrastive stages, or blocks, of time: "formerly," "then" / "when" and "now." Crucial, both from the narrative and theological perspective, is the opposition of the "foregoing" and the "ensuing." Judging the audience's narrower knowledge of elapsed time to be tangential, the poet and his narrator focus on states of existence that are exemplary, and thus eternal. Eternity is explicitly introduced at the conclusion of the story in verses set off by still another obscure chronological segment:

nâch süezem lanclîbe
dô besâzen si [Heinrich and the maiden] gelîche
daz êwige rîche
(1514-16)

AH is timeless at its core, as the portrayal of temporal experience with vague time references suggests. Time is everywhere in the story, and thus we expect Hartmann to account for it adequately. Instead we learn that time is a literary device, concurrently linear and horizontal, offering a view of eternity. Still, with due allowance for the theological implications of the story, it would be incorrect to identify Hartmann's dominant concern as the changeless and achronological state after life on earth.

Grisebach therefore overstates the case when arguing that the time indications converge predominantly in the "Gegensatz von Zeit und Ewigkeit." The fragility of human existence interests the poet greatly; likewise, his spiritual perception of history is undeniable. But allusions to the temporal character of man's experience, for example, the narrator's remarks on the instability of the world (97-100), should not obscure the fact that Hartmann effects a reconciliation between time and eternity in the practical example of the protagonists. He locates the meaning of time in moral action, prescribed and aided by heaven.

Both Heinrich and the maiden are forced to come to terms with the world, to deal with its laws and forces. Their successful struggle to realize their essential nature speaks strongly against a thorough depreciation of secular time and space. If anything, the moral example offered by the knight and the girl demonstrates that, in spite of the mutability of earthly things, there is human capacity for insight and understanding. For lives such as these, led in conformity with divine will, the reward is eternity. Time for Heinrich and the maiden is the revealer, not the destroyer.

Still to be explored is the effect of Hartmann's use of narrative expansion and contraction on the dimension of time in AH. The story proceeds at a variable rate, or rhythm, according to which certain episodes appear in sketchy, skeletal form, while others enjoy an inflated depiction. Narration is compressed and distended, with the result that the importance of an event has an ill-defined connection to textual proportions and the passage of time. For instance, the long, overland journey to Salerno is condensed, occupying only six verses (1049-54), whereas the encounter between the maiden and her parents is dilated, two nights' confrontation consuming over 400 verses (459-902). One of the scenes punctuated by the unequal distribution of tempo and textual significance is central to the story line: Heinrich's moral transformation is described in some twenty lines of text (1221-40), thus making it one of the shortest episodes in the poem. Throughout, the forward movement of the plot is interrupted at certain junctures—characteristically during dialogues and monologues, where time is almost suspended. The theoretical justification for this free play with chronology and the time sense of the reader emerges only gradually. By juxtaposing static moments with compressed, rapidly recounted ones, the poet is able to underscore the relativity and ultimate inscrutability of units of measurement.

To illustrate the nature of these dilations and contractions, the speeding up and slowing down of dynamic rhythm, we may cite two examples. The first is the full journey sequence to Salerno:

Sus vuor engegen Salerne
vroelich und gerne
diu maget mit ir herren,
waz möhte ir nû gewerren
wan daz der wec sô verre was
daz si sô lange genas?
dô er si vol brâhte
hin …
(1049-56)

These condensed verses presuppose a lengthy passage of time, certainly of weeks, but there is no way of telling how long the trip actually took. The narrator accelerates the movement of the action, eliminating topographie and temporal details and allowing the lines to serve as a bridge from one episode to another. Over this bridge time traverses a silent route. The narrative interest lies with the girl's readiness for sacrifice, which is a thematic and moral concern. In organizing AH along thematic lines, Hartmann anticipates a technique seen later in Sir Thomas Malory.…

The dialogue between the maiden and her parents (490-854), through which she successfully persuades them to allow the sacrifice, is the counterpart to the journey to Salerno. The father and mother use a specific time indicator to indicate how long the extended discussion lasted:

ez ist hiute der dritte tac
daz si uns allez ane lac
daz wir ir sîn gunden
(981-83)

The reader immediately perceives a depiction of time set in contrast to the rest of the poem. The narrator amplifies the scenes with spirited arguments and counter-arguments in the present tense and charts actions and reactions. He thereby illuminates the motives of the characters. Action is deliberately delayed and circumstances are reported concretely, in moment-by-moment sequence.…

What is one to make of the fact that the narrator alters his method of reporting the passage of time, as entire conversations, which profit of judicial oratory, appear verbatim? One conclusion is the elevation of the maiden above the status of a minor character. Time bends to the girl, virtually standing still for her. From the attention that she attracts and the attitude towards temporality that she activates in the story, it is certain that the revealed truth about her actions and emotions engages the poet. She is not precisely equal to Heinrich in narrative importance, but each endures ordeals and each is "healed" by a God who controls human affairs (1367-70). Second, the narrator's exhaustive rendering of scenes with the maiden is both a means of limning the characters according to strategic positions and a retarding element. The narrative pace grows leisurely, and time becomes subservient to the exchange of opinion itself, which anatomizes the themes of renunciation of the world and salvation through human sacrifice. To what extent, Hartmann seems to ask, do her motivations—which arise in a brief but lavishly detailed time span—derive from private goals? Third, the two narrative devices observed actually coalesce in a consistent attitude toward chronology. There is logical coherence, whether the narrator abbreviates or amplifies episodes, or whether he accelerates years or distends days and hours. For all human events are subject to the ceaseless and irreversible flow of time. The depiction of such progression, as AH demonstrates, need neither be mechanical nor slave to uniform literary proportions. Time is a flexible medium, manipulable as an agent of narrative concentration and religious insight.

Scholarship on AH has not been able to account for the aberrations of symmetry. The discursive passages, the fluctuating rhythms bringing a conscious lengthening and shortening of time in their wake, and the inconsonance of the narrative significance of episodes with their verse count appeared at first sight random and meaningless. Recent research on time concepts in medieval poetry brings to light the method Hartmann employs, which places AH in a line observable already in saints' lives and carried forth in the Cid (ca. 1140) and Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde (1380-86). The distinctive attitude toward time observed here is labelled "psychological" and "dramatic chronology.#x0022;

The technique is one of focus. Time is used, in a pattern of gradation and climax, to create emotional effects and to heighten audience expectation. Common to poems drawing on this branch of chronology are compressed or distended intervals of action, time suspension or delay, and the number "three" as a structural signifier. Consequently, it is impossible to read such works on a strictly chronological level. The oscillation between focused and unfocused time, between static and dynamic scenes, between continuity and discontinuity has of course direct bearing on the reader's ability to discriminate—his sense of time betrays him. This is not crucial, however. Following the conceptual apparatus sketched, queries on the duration of time are essentially unimportant, inasmuch as they do not elicit responses indicating proportion and hence the significance of individual episodes.

Applying these findings for the first time to AH, one can state that Hartmann is concerned with putting events in temporal sequence, but his time scheme aims for more than an ordering of events. He neither states the circumstances of time with equal compression (when time is specified), nor does he attempt to give uniform concentration to episodes. The measurement of time is secondary, because the poet is primarily interested in a thematic treatment permitting exposure of attitudes and placing the accent on the moral implications of word and deed.

In dialogues the brevity of time elapsed is directly proportional to narrative intensity, which suggests that Hartmann deliberately correlates a short time span with close scrutiny of action and reaction, motivation, cause and effect.… This concentration on psychological effects permits Hartmann to explore and dramatize the consequences of vivid passions. Unexpectedly, perhaps, his examination of the maiden's attitudes against the backdrop of temporal manipulation proves to be a technique of refutation. For once her clever argumentation and the emotional state generating it are laid bare, the ground is removed from under her. She is not allowed to pass at will to eternity. Perhaps the very fact that her decision for sacrifice occurs in a concentrated period of time is a sign of faulty vision. She is required in any event to live—like Heinrich—in a world that holds out the promise of the final dissolution of time, even as it opposes passive waiting for death or eagerness for it.