›wan du daz weist und des wilt nicht gelouben han‹. The Coast in the ›Reise des hl. Brandan‹ as a Space for Hybridity

Abstract

The coast in the ›Reise des hl. Brandan‹ can be seen as a spatial metaphor for the post-colonial concept of the ›Third Space‹. In this virtual contact zone of cultural hybridity, the contrary positions of two ›cultures‹ collide – on the one side the (own) scriptural tradition of the clergy (Brendan), on the other a (different) ›culture‹ of eyewitness testimony (neutral angels) – without being synthesized; nor is there any lasting correction or even eradication of the inferior position by the supposedly superior one. The theological dispute between Brendan and the angels over the question of whether they had seen God face to face before the fall into hell is the catalyst for the unsettling of dogmatic certainties on the clerical side, triggered by the tradition-shattering assertions of those once ›blind‹ and now disfigured angels, who emerge from the dispute just as little victorious as the Irish monk.