Wolfram von Eschenbach

Wolfram von Eschenbach was a Bavarian knight and poet, active in the decades around 1200 and among the major writers of medieval German literature. Almost everything known about him comes from his own works, in which he claims, perhaps ironically, that he could not read. His Parzival retells the story of the Grail knight with humor, psychological depth and a broad humanity that extends to Muslims and outsiders. He also left the unfinished epic Willehalm, about wars between Christians and Saracens, the fragmentary Titurel and a handful of dawn songs. Richard Wagner drew on Parzival for his opera Parsifal.