The papers assembled in this volume substantiate the concept of Cultural Integration by focussing on semiotic items, called “figures”. They are traced in German (medieval) literature as well as in other vernacular literary traditions and constitute a kind of common cultural heritage across European languages. They retrieve older traditions, some of them even prior to the Middle Ages, and have shown potential for further development up to this day. For every reference to them endows them with new attributions of meaning and communicative significance. All contributors in this volume agree that past and present attributions of meaning reveal an agenda for a common European cultural space, which needs both conservation and continued evolution of concepts and values. It is up to scholarly endeavour and educational effort to bear out responsibility for this mission.
