Melusine, Emblem of the Self: The Female Traveler and the Contours of Acceptable Difference

Abstract

Though the foreign roots of Volksbücher such as Thüring von Ringoltingen's Melusine (1457) have long been recognized, these early modern German prose novels are still characterized as insular and folksy. Taking Melusine as an example, this article uses the framework of mobility to offer a new interpretation that posits the Volksbuch as an outward facing genre that deeply engages with the world and contemporary debates. My analysis of Melusine holds that the seemingly traditional narratives of the titular character's sons are key to understanding Melusine's own alterity. Using the idea of directionality, I show how Melusine's foreignness, power, and proto-colonial activity subtly unbalance notions of a masculine western European center and a feminized eastern periphery. Through the analysis, a picture of a tale emerges that presents how a late medieval Christian society's understandings of Self and Other were explored and questioned.