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Jung developed his ideas not just from analysing his patients’ dreams but also (and perhaps even primarily) from a close reading of texts that held a special fascination for him. Paul Bishop, Professor of German at the University of Glasgow, has spent over 30 years studying such texts. His latest project is a study in four volumes, each devoted to a masterpiece of German literature. The first volume looks at Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival (c. 1210), the classic German version of the Grail legend.
Bishop brings a radically new Jungian perspective to a text with which Jung closely identified. He shows a comprehensive grasp not only of Jung's writings (in German and English; published and unpublished), but also of the extensive literature surrounding the Grail myth from Neoplatonists to Rudolf Steiner, from Hegel to Žižek. His objectives are to demonstrate both what a Jungian approach can add to current literary views about this classic of medieval German literature and (more pertinently here) what familiarity with this key literary text can contribute to an understanding of the evolution and nature of Jung's ideas about transformation and individuation.
Chrétien de Troyes, who wrote in Old French, is responsible for the first Arthurian romance (Érec et Énide, 1170). His Perceval (1180s) is the first version of the story of the Grail (as a flat dish, such as for serving fish). It was left unfinished at his death, but other writers quickly provided their own continuations. Meanwhile, within a generation, writing in Middle High German, Wolfram produced his own far more complex and intriguing version (c. 1200-1210). He adds a prelude about Parzival's father, develops the contrast between the hero and Gauvain/Gawan, identifies the Grail as a stone, and underlines the deeper implications of the hero's experience.
Parzival is a verse epic of just under 25,000 lines in rhyming couplets. It traces Parzival's progress from a natural reality (the forest of Soltane), through a chi