,Vexatio dat intellectum': Zur Funktion paradoxer Textstrukturen in Heinrich Wittenwilers ,Ring'

The verse poem The Ring written in around 1410 by Heinrich Wittenwiler is regarded as a highly paradoxical poetical work, because its content combines coarse peasant vulgarity with didactic gravitas. However, this does not by any means exhaust the contradictory nature of the poem. The present study pursues the aim of describing the poem’s most significant paradoxical structures in terms of its intended audience.