The Ambiguity of Otherness in Adaptations of the Nibelungen Myth: Das Nibelungenlied and Fritz Lang's Die Nibelungen by Neale G. Bickert B.A., University of Victoria, 2008 A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS in the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies Neale G. Bickert, 2012 University of Victoria All rights reserved. This thesis may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without the permission of the author. ii Supervisory Committee The Ambiguity of Otherness in Adaptations of the Nibelungen Myth: Das Nibelungenlied and Fritz Lang's Die Nibelungen by Neale G. Bickert B.A., University of Victoria, 2008 Supervisory Committee Dr. Elena Pnevmonidou (Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies) Supervisor Dr. Matthew Pollard (Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies) Departmental Member iii Supervisory Committee Dr. Elena Pnevmonidou (Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies) Supervisor Dr. Matthew Pollard (Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies) Departmental Member Abstract Over eight hundred years ago anonymous poets set the orally transmitted Nibelungen myth to parchment. This action started a trend of adapting the myth for contemporary audiences, a trend that has lasted since the High Middle Ages. Since then, the Nibelungen myth has become a sustaining element of the self-mythologization of German national identity. The problem, however, with adapting the Nibelungen myth for the purpose of creating a German identity, be it in the medieval epic, the Nibelungenlied, or Fritz Lang's 1924 film, Die Nibelungen, is that this model of identification is flawed – flawed because it consists of systematic binary divisions positing self-other dichotomies. What becomes evident is that in the adaptations of Nibelungen myth, the representations of alterity are contradictory and ambiguous, provoking the question: why is the Nibelungen myth an effective source from which one can project a national identity? iv Table of Contents Supervisory Committee ...................................................................................................... ii Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iii Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... iv List of Tables ...................................................................................................................... v Acknowledgments.............................................................................................................. vi Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1: Das Nibelungenlied ......................................................................................... 18 Foreign versus Familiar: Spatial, Temporal, and Gender Tensions .............................. 18 1.1: Temporal Aspects and Tensions ............................................................................ 18 1.2: Spatial Tensions ..................................................................................................... 28 1.3: The Alterity of Gender ........................................................................................... 32 1.4: Other "Others" ....................................................................................................... 53 1.5: Summary ................................................................................................................ 70 Chapter 2: Fritz Lang's Die Nibelungen (1924) ................................................................ 72 2.1: Geography, Nature, and Architecture .................................................................... 77 2.2: Orientalizing the Other .......................................................................................... 85 2.3: Colonization/Domestication and Courtship ........................................................... 90 2.4: Traditional and Transitioning Gender Roles ......................................................... 94 2.5: The Medium of Film ............................................................................................ 101 2.6: Summary .............................................................................................................. 102 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 104 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 109 v List of Tables Table 1 .............................................................................................................................. 33 Table 2 .............................................................................................................................. 57 vi Acknowledgments I would like to thank first and foremost Dr. Elena Pnevmonidou for her support and assistance in preparation of this thesis. Her ability to connect the dots in imaginative and innovative ways is definitely reflected in the way I have approached these adaptations of Nibelungen myth. I would also like to thank Dr. Matthew Pollard for his insight and knowledge of Fritz Lang's works, including Die Nibelungen. Finally, I would like to thank the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies, both faculty and fellow students, for their support and encouragement. Introduction Over eight hundred years ago anonymous poets set an orally transmitted epic tale to parchment. The Nibelungenlied describes the death of the dragon-slaying hero, Siegfried, the revenge of his death by his wife Kriemhild, and the downfall of the entire Burgundian clan – Kriemhild's own kin. There has been much speculation over where, by whom and when the story was transcribed.1 However, we can make the educated estimation based on the surviving manuscripts that the texts originated in the vicinity of Lake Constance in the period around 1200 (Schulze, Nibelungenlied 34). But Nibelungen mythology is not limited to the German-speaking area; in fact, it has its roots in Nordic mythology as well, as evident in the Eddalieder and Thiðrekssaga (Martin 44-45). Whereas the Nordic tradition is comprised of individual elements appearing in multiple manuscripts,2 the way in which the various branches of Nibelungen mythology are woven together into a cohesive whole makes the Nibelungenlied unique when compared to the non-Germanic strains of the myth. Moreover, in a period when the majority of German courtly literature was adapted from non-German written sources on the subjects of either King Arthur and his knights or the Trojan War,3 the Nibelungenlied innovatively draws on orally transmitted indigenous material (Schulze, Nibelungenlied 19-20). Based on the sheer number of manuscripts containing the epic, it is presumed that the Nibelungenlied 1 These questions of authorship, location, and date of inception of the Nibelungenlied are addressed thoroughly by Nibelungen scholars such as Joachim Heinzle, in Das Nibelungenlied, Usrula Schulze in Das Nibelungenlied, and Hermann Reichert in Nibelungenlied und Nibelungensage among others. 2 For a concise overview of the Nordic Nibelungen tradition see Otfrid Ehrismann Nibelungenlied:Epoche – Werk – Wirkung (51-53) and Bernhard Martin Nibelungen-Metamorphosen: Die Geschichte eines Mythos (40-67). 3 Examples of texts stemming from non-German sources can be seen in the Arthurian/Grail works Erec and Iwein by Hartmann von Aue, Gottfried von Straßbourg's Tristan, and Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival as well as Heinrich von Veldeke's Eneasroman, which thematizes Greek and Roman antiquity. 2 enjoyed immense popularity following its inception. In fact, among surviving German manuscripts from the period, the Nibelungenlied is second only to Wolfram von Eschenbach's Arthurian works Parzival and Willehalm in quantity produced (Ehrismann 69). Furthermore, the Nibelungenlied's appearance in more than one version4 during the period around 1200 testifies to the versatility of the myth to reflect the varying viewpoints of contemporary poets. There have been many attempts to delineate the origins of the Nibelungen myth,5 with the focus on finding, or reconstructing, what is considered the Holy Grail of Nibelungen research: the original Nibelungen text.6 The motivation behind such efforts ultimately has been to explain what the scholarship calls "Brüche" – that is the gaps or inconsistencies in the narrative as a whole. One strategy to deal with the discrepancies in the narrative is to de-contextualize characters and/or plot lines by focusing on individual Aventiure or by focusing on structural elements.7 I agree that some of these gaps can be attributed to the various sources of myth which make up the Nibelungenlied; however, I do not believe that this is the sole basis of textual contradiction, nor do I believe that the 4 The Nibelungenlied is categorized into two versions, demarcated by their last verses. A/B version: daz ist der Nibelunge nôt or C version: daz ist der Nibelunge liet. 5 For an in-depth analysis of the various stages of the Nibelungen myth, see Andreas Heusler Nibelungensage und Nibelungenlied, Otfrid Ehrismann Nibelungenlied: Epoche - Werk - Wirkung, Bernhard Martin Nibelungen-Metamorphosen: Die Geschichte eines Mythos. 6 Otfrid Ehrismann details