A Jester at the Grail Castle in Wolfram's Parzival?

Taking Flight: Gottfried's "Tristan", Arthurian Literature and Learning to Forget the Round Table

“…But might it not be interpreted more broadly as the mere intensification of a refusal that has possessed Erec from the beginning, that is, as the explication of a revolt against Arthurian symbol patterns which allow one knight to level an accusation of recreantise against a fellow member of the Round Table whenever he allows himself to make concessions to tangential yearnings, speaks a language neither predictable nor cyclical, or simply spends his honeymoon making love in silence? 50 Arbitrary judgment enabled by a carelessness for the power and meaning of words is not just a miracle worker but miracle-producing text. This metamorphosis occurs through his actions in the Joie de la Court-episode.…”

“…49 Hermann Weigand even suggests that the entire ceremony is a one-time event, thrown together to elicit a question from Parzival: "It is clear beyond a doubt, then: the appearance of the Grail in Book v at the end of the procession of virgins does not have the character of a rehearsed ritual." 50 The inhabitants of Munsalvaesche turn the palace into a locus of deceptive words and practices, which distract Parzival from the suffering of Anfortas and thereby prevent the protagonist from 154 asking the right question. 51 Divine language mediated through the Grail is rendered unintelligible through human interference, meaning just as the Grail offers a solution to the slipperiness and uncertainties of language, its potential is hampered by the same people charged with guarding it.…”