Gottfried von Strassburg produced just one of many versions of the legendary love story of Tristan and Isolde. It stands apart from the bulk of the others by virtue of several factors. First and foremost, arguably, is that this is the version of the tale which inspired and influenced one of the most familiar adaptations of the story. It is Strassburg’s reinterpretation of the narrative that forms the storyline of Richard Wagner’s classic 1865 opera. Even for those who would never dream of stepping into an opera house are intimately familiar with the fundamental alterations of existing versions, however. The legacy of this revolutionary Tristan is one which directly influences cinematic tropes to this day.
Prior to Gottfried getting his hands on the story, the love affair between Tristan and Isolde was only partially focused on the love story itself. Gottfried adapted the legend to fit the form of a type of poetry popular in Germany from the 12th through 14th centuries termed the minnesang. This was a form of epic lyrical verse which was intensely focused upon traditions of courtly love. The problem for Gottfried was the legend of Tristan was one fueled to a great extent by the background and history of chivalric court romance. Romance in this connotation expands to include all the various intrigues of the courtly life and as such, aspects extraneous to the focus upon the romantic love affair required extensive editing. The result is a pared down love story absent the pageantry, wars, and tournaments common to exhibition of Arthurian-style narrative poetry.
And it is within the hard-line rejection of the pageantry and the narrow focusing of the tragic love between the two protagonists that Gottfried’s real influence can be seen nearly every day on some stage, movie screen or television. By limiting the passion to just that which exists between Tristan and Isolde, their story truly does explode tragic passion of a most familiar type. Think to scenes in plays and movies and TV shows where one partner falls in love with the other only to wind up with one of the lovers dying before there can be happy ending. How often has the depiction of this climactic moment where love meets death and the two states of existence seem to meld into one overarching emotional sphere of spiritual connection untouched by the earthly tragedy at hand? How many such scenes have played out in the same way with the living half the couple climbing alongside the departed member leading to an embrace in which it may be difficult to determine which is living and which is dead. And, indeed, in the more melodramatic plots, the living member even joining the lover in death through suicide?
This iconic image is the very emblem of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and, through that tragedy, replicated through multiple retellings of the story. It is the powerhouse image which is invariably staged almost identically in Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story. So iconic is the imagery of the living embracing the dead lover, in fact, that it is almost always instantly associated with Romeo and Juliet. Proving that even Shakespeare was not above plagiarizing a good thing when he recognized it.
