(Non-)Verbal Communication and (Un-)Veiled Evidence under the Sign of Fire. ›Temporal Communities‹ in and around Jacob Appet’s ›The Knight beneath the Tub‹

Abstract

In this article, the notion of ›temporal community‹ is used to describe the combination of the motifs ›lying with the truth‹ and ›liberation of the beloved by means of a cry of fire‹ in Jacob Appet’s ›The Knight beneath the Tub‹. By taking an intertextual reference in the later ›Reinfried von Braunschweig‹ as a starting point and by comparing Appet’s short verse narrative with the Old French fabliau ›Le Cuvier‹, it is shown that Appet specifically warns against the false words and gestures of beautiful women, thus drastically intensifying the battle of the sexes in the ›Knight beneath the Tub‹. Finally, the natural scientific comparison of the lovers with a salamander in the fire opens a re-reading of the narrative ›under the sign of fire‹, which proves Jacob Appet to be an erudite and therefore quotable author for the anonymous ›Reinfried‹ poet.