Secundille

Abstract Wolfram von Eschenbach’s use of ›shadow characters‹ (a term coined by Elke Brüggen) has been defined as an outstanding feature of his grail epic ›Parzival‹: although they never act nor are described in the narrative foreground, they constitute significant elements in the poetic fabric and even play an important part in the construction of the plot. The paper studies one of these ›shadow characters‹ for the first time: Secundille, the queen of Tribalibot (India). It traces her narrative function in constructing the politically charged kingdom of Prester John as the destination of the ›world-wide‹ expansion of the grail dynasty, and discusses her role in imagining the ›Orient of Marvels‹.