"Ob ich ein ritter waere" : genderentwürfe und genderrelatierte Erzählstrategien im Nibelungenlied

Sammanfattning: This dissertation examines the significance of gender in the Nibelungenlied, paying particular attention to the concept of femininity, and with regard to characterisation, plot and narrative strategy. It reveals a concern with social roles, above all in the transgressions of the norm, in the deviations from ideal prototypes. It is a concern which involves both class roles as well as the socio-culturally-shaped sex roles. With a broad-based research model as starting-point, there is a discussion on the inter- and intra-gender level of the interplay between the protagonists, in speech and action and by means of non-verbal gesture and objects that have associative functions. The methodological approach of the study is text-oriented, and comprises a comprehensive discussion of the relevant literature. It focuses not only on the plot and the network of relationships, but also on narrative structure and the types of intrusions by the authorial narrator. It poses the question of how the aspect of gender influences reception. In particular, it stresses the significance of the use of contrast and parallel, of vocabulary and of the narrative points of view, and shows how fundamental the question of gender is both for the plot and in the assessment of the characters. The study reveals an intention of the text, one which is marked by a critical stance towards the happenings in the epic and a clear attempt to reinterpret the mythological in human terms.