Finding the familiar in the foreign: Saracens, monsters, and medieval German literature

This thesis examines the treatment of real and fictitious Eastern cultures in three works of German medieval literature: "Herzog Ernst", Wolfram von Eschenbach's "Parzival", and Otto von Diemeringen's version of "The Travel's of Sir John Mandeville". Using Edward Said's "Orientalism" as a framework for examining these narratives, this paper determines that each text's protagonists use chivalric, religious, and racial aspects of medieval culture as a lens to judge foreign cultures.