Wann und wo ist nû?

Abstract

Abstract What are the narrative functions of the present tense in medieval narrations? In order to address this question, the paper brings together linguistic observations on tense semantics and a literary analysis of ›Wilhalm von Wenden‹ by Ulrich von Etzenbach. It shows that the present tense can refer to three different kinds of ›now‹, i. e. the ›discourse now‹, the ›story now‹, and the ›recipient’s now‹. In all three contexts, the present tense is not used as a narrative tense but rather indicates a speaker’s voice commenting on the events. This leads to the hypothesis that the development of the ›narrative present‹ (as common in modern novels) is based on two requirements: The decoupling between the ›discourse now‹ and the diegetic world as well as the decoupling between the author and the fictional instance of the narrator.