"Undr unkunder diet": Monstrous counsel in Herzog Ernst B

The monstrous and fantastic elements in Herzog Ernst B function as a literary device employed to elucidate the crisis of the tale and chart the hero's progress in overcoming the personal flaws that precipitated the crisis. By evaluating the language and motifs in their own historical context, a surprisingly simple and innately medieval solution to interpretive problems emerges. Contrary to more recent scholarship, a focus on the monstrous as literary device allies the structure of the poem with contemporaneous Arthurian forms and bolsters, albeit with some modification, some traditional critical assumptions concerning the narrative function and design of the tale.