Ekphrasis: Kunstbeschreibungen und virtuelle Räume in der Literatur des Mittelalters. Von Haiko Wandhoff. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2003. Pp. xii + 377; 6 illustrations. EUR 98.

It is a persistent feature of medieval narratives that their authors invoke the visual register liberally. When Siegfried is about to lay eyes on Kriemhild for the first time, the poet of the Nibelungenlied delivers the following description of the hero's body: "Siegfried son of Siegmund stood there handsome as though limned on parchment with all a master's skill (as indeed it was admitted that none was his equal for looks)" (The Nibelungenlied, trans. Arthur Thomas Hatto [London: Penguin, 1965], p. 48 [Ms. B, 286]).The master whose art is celebrated in this stanza is, however, not the visual artist primarily. It is the wordsmith who, by the mere power of language, has his audience conjure up an inner image, drawing on their likely familiarity with manuscript illuminations.

Helmut Puff
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor