Open Access

Thomas Schares

• The 15th century medieval German poet Michel Beheim is a marginal (and in terms of his writing not very well thought of) figure in the realms of German literature. In his poetic oeuvre, a 1070 verses long poem about the Valachian nobleman and ruler Vlad Ţepeş, better known as the original Dracula, can be found. This poem will serve here as an example of late medieval literary achievements, typical for the literature of this century. A close analysis of its style will reveal certain poetological aspects, that are central to its structure of composition, but hitherto have not been closely investigated and revealed. These formal aspects include various instances of formulaic speech, such as double-formulae („men and women”, „the young and the old” etc.), formulaic episode endings („and he did many worse things” etc.), and others. The massed and purposeful application of these instances of formulaic speech leads to the conclusion, that these are part of the poetological framework which the author applied in order to fulfil the needs of a literature which was directed primarily to an auditory performance and served entertainment purposes mainly. The disclosure of these formulaic aspects in 15th century literature and its functional reinterpretation in a context of contemporary performance might help to re-evaluate the German literature of this not very well investigated and estimated century.