Utopische Elemente der mittelalterlichen Reiseliteratur

Abstract

This article investigates utopian elements in accounts of journeys to the East that circulated in the German-speaking areas in the fourteenth century. The travelogues studied are German translations of the reports of Odoric of Pordenone, Marco Polo and John Mandeville. The paper begins by elaborating on a notion of utopia that can serve as a genre-specific analytical tool for tracing characteristics of early modern utopias in medieval travel literature. At the centre of this notion lies a social structure which significantly differs from the social structure known to the western traveller. Further characteristics complement this concept, particularly those concerning the literary form employed in these descriptions of utopian societies. The second part of this article will specifically examine the social conditions in the utopian societies presented in the travelogues studied. In addition it will deal with the aesthetic strategies employed by the texts to create specific places, in which kingdoms and other communities with utopian traits are situated in medieval travel literature.