Alessandro Pulimanti

The aim of this doctoral thesis is to reflect on the influence that the Romance tradition has had on the work of Peter Handke. One play and three novels were selected as the corpus of the thesis, all of which were analysed from a textual perspective and all of which displayed the influence of the mystical-medieval tradition in a particularly original way. The research will be divided into three macro-sections: the first macro-section will focus on the influence of the Grail-Parzival universe on Handke’s work, while the second will analyse the revival of the Latin hagiographic dimension. Finally, the third macro-topic will address the re-interpretation, through a modern lens, of the Spanish mystical tradition. In view of future studies regarding the influence of the Romance cultural dimension on Handke’s work, this dissertation intends to demonstrate how the chivalric-medieval tradition and the mystical tradition itself become, for the Austrian author, a tool used to re-interpret the present and his own biographical past in light of themes and elements apparently distant from the current times, yet still profoundly connected to them.