Die 'Demokratisierung' in der deutschen Literatur der Frühneuzeit. Ein neuer sozialer Spiegel in der Schwankliteratur: der Fall von Georg Wickrams Rollwagenbüchlein (1555)
The "Democratization" in Early Modern German Literature. A New Social Mirror in Jest Narratives: The Case of Georg Wickram's Rollwagenbüchlein (1555)

Summary/Abstract: Many criteria have been used so far to identify the social-historical paradigm shift from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Ages. Technical, philosophical, medical, military, or economic arguments have played a significant role in that matter. The statements of more popular literary texts, by contrast, have so far attracted only relatively little attention, but particularly there we can recognize a very vivid image of the transition to a new world. With the term "democratization" (not quite in the modern sense of the word) we can surprisingly well determine the phenomenon that increasingly in the various types of texts the focus no longer rests on the aristocratic court. Instead, we hear about life in the countryside, in the city, on the road, in the marketplace, or at the legal court, as particularly the genre of jest narratives demonstrates. In light of Georg Wickram's Rollwagenbüchlein and many other comparable works we can determine the emergence of a new perspective because here representatives of very different social groups appear and engage with each other, which does not always happen without some conflicts.

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