Many more times than might have been assumed, literary authors have imagined rebels and followed their paths through life, mostly showing them losing in their efforts to fight for justice, freedom, or independence. All rebel figures have regularly faced serious challenges because they rise up against a hegemonic system the powers-in-being defend with all their might. How far are rebels entitled to go in their efforts to right wrongs, perceived as such or not, at the cost of other people’s suffering, for instance? When do the rebels’ ideals live up to their expectations, when do they turn into their opposite and threaten to collapse into blood-thirsty criminals, as the leading figures of the French Revolution demonstrated brutally. A revolution resorting to absolute violence without any restraints can thus easily transform into a bloody tyranny. At the same time, readers are often invited to empathise with the rebel when his/her cause appears to be right – depending on one’s ideological viewpoint – whereas the authorities prove to be on the wrong side of human values. This implies that it is necessary to think hard about the difference between a rebel and a terrorist. Throughout history, poets have regularly engaged with this highly problematic, often tragic, topic, if not quandary. So, in this paper, the focus rested on the discussion and comparison of two major contributions to this discourse on the rebel, one from the late Middle Ages (Wernher the Gardener) and one from the early nineteenth century (Heinrich von Kleist) to illustrate the considerable differences between two concepts of rebellion and to identify shared narrative elements, after all, that is, the two sides of the same coin, thus bringing to light the important discourse on the literary rebel throughout the centuries. This paper made no attempts to trace any direct connections between both texts; instead, the focus will rest on the shared theme, though the contexts are quite different. To help readers grasp the universal relevance of this topic, the discussion first reflected on some of the most famous rebels and rebellions and then turned to the analysis of the chosen literary examples
uprising in literature; the medieval robber knight; the modern rebel; the terrorist; Wernher the Gardener; Heinrich von Kleist; revolution; challenge of social structures