guoter, lieber wân. Ästhetische Spielarten der Liebe im Minnesang damals und heute

Can the specific network of love, illness and delusion, which the medieval Minnesang plays through in ever new variations, claim today’s relevance? The recently published anthology Unmögliche Liebe by Tristan Marquardt and Jan Wagner sets the medieval love poetry in a current context, which we will pursue in this article from a scientific perspective. Our central thesis is that love madness (Liebeswahn) – as a mainly physical desire – is opposed in the singing to a form of love, which can lead to the highest happiness, if it is experienced in its pure and contemplative form. This ambiguous understanding of love can, in our argument, be understood as a minne ethic, which, as an aesthetic reflection, provides a possible answer to the question of the successful life and elevates the contemplative love to an ideal of a moderate life.