Iwein is a Middle High German verse romance by the poet Hartmann von Aue, written around 1200.

[9][10] Hartmann's source was the Old French epic Yvain, le Chevalier au Lion by Chrétien de Troyes, which was written 1177–1181.

[12][13] As the themes of the courtly romance were by this time familiar to his German listeners, Hartmann no longer needed lengthy explanatory digressions such as are found in Erec.

The additional material, apart from the inevitable increase involved with translation, represents, in particular, Hartmann's different approach to the relationship of Laudine and Lunete.

The unsuccessful adventure of the Arthurian knight Kalogrenant gives the court of Arthur a legitimate challenge - that of avenging the dishonour.

Iwein, who as a relation of Kalogrenant's is doubly hit by the scandal, rides ahead of a procession of the entire court and heads secretly into the Well-Kingdom.

Once again Lunete solves the paradoxical situation and convinces Laudine that the victor over Askalon would be a worthy successor as husband, Lord of the land and protector of the fountain.

Thereby the plot arrives at a temporary ending - as well as the êre of victory Iwein has, unlooked for, achieved a wife and Lordship.

On the urging of his friend Gawain, who uses the verligen (long-term idleness) of Erec as an example, Iwein leaves Laudine shortly after the wedding, and goes in search of Tournaments and âventiure.

In a dialogue between the narrator and Lady Love it is stated that Iwein and Laudine have swapped their hearts, which will lead to momentous consequences.

Only through the help of the Lady of Narison and her companion, who treat his madness with a fairy-salve, can Iwein return to proper consciousness.

He must recognise that he no longer belongs to courtly society Iwein frees the land of the Lady of Narison from Count Aliers, who has asserted a claim to it.

With the lion's help, he is able to overcome this scheduling conflict by defeating the giant in time to also be able to successfully fight for Lunete.

With the girl, Iwein sets out for Castle Maladventure, where he must fight two giants in order to free three hundred noble ladies who are held captive in a workhouse.

However, he wins her back only after a comic intrigue on the part of Lunete: Laudine swears an oath to aid the Knight of the Lion who watered the stone at the spring in regaining his lady's favour.

Iwein is preserved in 15 complete and 17 fragmentary manuscripts, making it one of the mostly widely read texts of the genre (surpassed only by Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival).

[17] Even though MSS A and B are both relatively early, there are major differences between them, both in the wording of individual lines and in the treatment of the material in Yvain.

Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, likely completed less than a decade after Iwein, includes several direct references to Iwein, but it also borrows the structure of Hartmann's poem as a framework for the latter part of Parzival in view of the unfinished nature of Chrétien's Perceval, Wolfram's source.

[19] The hero of Wirnt von Grafenberg's Wigalois, (c. 1210), has in common with Iwein that he undergoes a crisis of identity, and the poem borrows some 370 lines of verse from Hartmann's work.