Memory-induced variants Textual Change in Heroic Epics: the `Nibelungenlied'-Manuscripts B and C and the `Wiener' and `Heidelberger Virginal'

Abstract

Textual criticism has not arrived at a thorough understanding of textual variants in the manuscript transmission of the `Nibelungenlied. A considerable number of variants has remained without explanation. The paper therefore suggests and develops a fundamentally different scenario of their emergence, i.e. as a result of reproducing the text from memory. Certain types of variants indicate this process: mishearings of words (mondegreens), misrememberings of phrases and stanzas, misattribution of speech, displacement of textual segments. Since medieval heroic epics are designed for recitation from memory, the `Virginal' is used for comparison. The conclusion is that the C-version of the `Nibelungenlied' is also a text reproduced from memory.