Holding it all together:: Time and space in Wolfram's 'Titurel' (Wolfram!von Eschenbach)

Titurel, Wolfram von Eschenbach's second narrative poem, contains a pre-history of Sigune and Schionatulander, the ill-fated couple who are presented several times in Parzival without a full explanation of how they met their fate. But the expectation that Titurel will provide a straightforward account of the lovers' past is confounded: its transmission is fragmentary and it frustrates attempts to read it as a contiguous linear narrative. This article proposes a new analysis of these 'difficulties' by focusing on the treatment of time and space. It begins by illustrating the importance of the two categories in the Sigune passages of Parzival before examining how their role in creating narrative cohesion is exploited in the later work. Two conclusions about Titurel arc reached. First, the coordinates of the action in time and space are clearest when the lovers are together and happy, more uncertain when they are apart. Second, the references to locations in time and space blur the boundaries between the world of the text, the worlds of other texts, and the real world, with implications for how we read the work and the message it bears.