Constructing Poetic Identity: Iberia as a Heterotopia in Oswald von Wolkenstein's Songs

This article considers Iberia in four songs by Oswald von Wolkenstein as a figurative space in which the poet fashions his poetic identity. Oswald's Iberia functions as a Foucauldian heterotopia, a space that can accommodate foreignness and 'exoticism' as well as conventions and the familiarity of court culture. This hybrid space becomes a stage upon which Oswald performs different lyrical personae. As new anecdotes play with facets of Iberia, performative acts reveal facets of Oswald's poetic self. Iberia as heterotopia allows Oswald's kaleidoscopic construction of his poetic identity.