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Opera omnia (Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana)
Historical assessments of Hrotsvit of Gandersheim are liberally adorned with the word "first." After all, she was the first major medieval woman author, the first German woman writer in print, the first post-classical playwright, as well as the first German to write a literary work on the Faust-theme, and she is sometimes said to have been the first woman historian.
These are landmarks to be sure. Yet Hrotsvit's place in cultural history is even more significant than such an impressive number of firsts might indicate, for she has reemerged to become a living part of European literature, a singular phenomenon for a tenth-century author. She is not only the earliest writer, of either gender, to have a secure place in the German literary canon, but also the only author from her period whose literary works continue to inspire generation after generation of fascinated readers from disparate cultures. Although her writings did not circulate widely in the Middle Ages, they became a sensation from the moment they were discovered in 1493. Her plays and poetic narratives began to attract widespread attention in the twentieth century and are now prominent fixtures in the American college curriculum. Her very name, which she confidently and aptly translated as "the powerful sound from Gandersheim" ("clamor validus Gandeshemensis"), portended her literary success.
Disappointingly few aspects of Hrotsvit's life are known. Apart from comments scattered among the introductions to her poetry, there are no reliable documentary sources for reconstructing her biography. Occasionally, this has provided license for odd, sometimes sexist and even misogynist, suggestions, especially in older scholarship, about her life experiences. Most famously, a nineteenth-century scholar argued that Hrotsvit never actually existed but was a literary hoax perpetrated by Conrad Celtis, Johannes Reuchlin, and other early humanists. Although this dubious charge was taken seriously for many decades, it has been definitively (and repeatedly) debunked. In fact, intensive scholarship over the last two centuries has pieced together a secure, albeit sparse, account of the likely circumstance of her life. Her floruit dates--ca. 935 until ca. 973--have excellent evidence. She identifies herself as a canoness of Abbey of Gandersheim (Saxony, Germany) during the rule of Abbess Gerberga II (940-1001; abbess as of 959), a niece of Emperor Otto I. Hrotsvit also helpfully observes that her abbess is younger than she, thus allowing scholars to place her birth approximately in 935. Several of her works mention well-documented historical events, such as the papal coronation of Emperor Otto I in 962 and the coronation of Otto II, as co-emperor, in 967. Her final work, a brief epic on the history of Abbey of Gandersheim, was completed while Otto I was still alive, thereby indicating that her literary activity, at least as far as the surviving works are concerned, ended before his death in 973.
These are landmarks to be sure. Yet Hrotsvit's place in cultural history is even more significant than such an impressive number of firsts might indicate, for she has reemerged to become a living part of European literature, a singular phenomenon for a tenth-century author. She is not only the earliest writer, of either gender, to have a secure place in the German literary canon, but also the only author from her period whose literary works continue to inspire generation after generation of fascinated readers from disparate cultures. Although her writings did not circulate widely in the Middle Ages, they became a sensation from the moment they were discovered in 1493. Her plays and poetic narratives began to attract widespread attention in the twentieth century and are now prominent fixtures in the American college curriculum. Her very name, which she confidently and aptly translated as "the powerful sound from Gandersheim" ("clamor validus Gandeshemensis"), portended her literary success.
Disappointingly few aspects of Hrotsvit's life are known. Apart from comments scattered among the introductions to her poetry, there are no reliable documentary sources for reconstructing her biography. Occasionally, this has provided license for odd, sometimes sexist and even misogynist, suggestions, especially in older scholarship, about her life experiences. Most famously, a nineteenth-century scholar argued that Hrotsvit never actually existed but was a literary hoax perpetrated by Conrad Celtis, Johannes Reuchlin, and other early humanists. Although this dubious charge was taken seriously for many decades, it has been definitively (and repeatedly) debunked. In fact, intensive scholarship over the last two centuries has pieced together a secure, albeit sparse, account of the likely circumstance of her life. Her floruit dates--ca. 935 until ca. 973--have excellent evidence. She identifies herself as a canoness of Abbey of Gandersheim (Saxony, Germany) during the rule of Abbess Gerberga II (940-1001; abbess as of 959), a niece of Emperor Otto I. Hrotsvit also helpfully observes that her abbess is younger than she, thus allowing scholars to place her birth approximately in 935. Several of her works mention well-documented historical events, such as the papal coronation of Emperor Otto I in 962 and the coronation of Otto II, as co-emperor, in 967. Her final work, a brief epic on the history of Abbey of Gandersheim, was completed while Otto I was still alive, thereby indicating that her literary activity, at least as far as the surviving works are concerned, ended before his death in 973.
- GenresMedieval
368 pages, Hardcover
First published February 12, 2010
About the author
Hrotsvitha
60 books9 followersOn ancient Roman plays, German nun and poet Roswitha (Hrotsvitha) (circa 935-circa 1000) modeled dialogs that represent an early stage in the revival of European drama.
With a name also spelled Hroswitha, Hrotsvit, or Hrosvit, this a 10th-century German secular canoness and dramatist, born into nobility, lived and worked in a community, the abbey of Bad Gandersheim in modern-day Lower Saxony, Germany. She attests her name as Saxon for "strong voice."
After antiquity, some critics consider her, who wrote in Latin, as the first person to compose drama in Latin-influenced western Europe.
Hrotsvit studied under Rikkardis and Gerberg, daughter of Henry the Fowler, king. Otto I the Great, emperor and brother of Gerberg, penned a history, one of poetical subjects of Hrotsvit in her Carmen de Gestis Oddonis Imperatoris , which encompasses the period to the coronation of Otto I in 962.
Gerberg introduced her, noted for her great learning, to Roman writers. Work of Hrotsvit shows familiarity with the Church Fathers and classical poetry, including that of Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and Plautus, and she modellded her own verse on that of Terence. Several of her plays draw on the "Apocryphal gospels." Her works form part of the renaissance of Otto.
With a name also spelled Hroswitha, Hrotsvit, or Hrosvit, this a 10th-century German secular canoness and dramatist, born into nobility, lived and worked in a community, the abbey of Bad Gandersheim in modern-day Lower Saxony, Germany. She attests her name as Saxon for "strong voice."
After antiquity, some critics consider her, who wrote in Latin, as the first person to compose drama in Latin-influenced western Europe.
Hrotsvit studied under Rikkardis and Gerberg, daughter of Henry the Fowler, king. Otto I the Great, emperor and brother of Gerberg, penned a history, one of poetical subjects of Hrotsvit in her Carmen de Gestis Oddonis Imperatoris , which encompasses the period to the coronation of Otto I in 962.
Gerberg introduced her, noted for her great learning, to Roman writers. Work of Hrotsvit shows familiarity with the Church Fathers and classical poetry, including that of Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and Plautus, and she modellded her own verse on that of Terence. Several of her plays draw on the "Apocryphal gospels." Her works form part of the renaissance of Otto.
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January 2, 2021I was surprised and very happy to find an English translation of Hrotsvit's works, never mind for free on Kindle.
Her work is always engaging if sometimes naïve in style. There seems to be a sort of undergraduate enthusiasm in her writing her own Christian substitutes for Terence's plays, although from a historical point of view this was a remarkable and daring cultural achievement. Hrotsvit mostly draws on early Christian literature for her themes. While she does produce some strong women characters, there is a slightly gloomy emphasis on penance and martyrdom which I suppose reflects the sources she had at had to some degree.
Her work is always engaging if sometimes naïve in style. There seems to be a sort of undergraduate enthusiasm in her writing her own Christian substitutes for Terence's plays, although from a historical point of view this was a remarkable and daring cultural achievement. Hrotsvit mostly draws on early Christian literature for her themes. While she does produce some strong women characters, there is a slightly gloomy emphasis on penance and martyrdom which I suppose reflects the sources she had at had to some degree.
July 15, 2018
It’s natural that Hrotsvitha’s plays overshadow her other writings: they are significantly the first dramas in Europe since antiquity, and the first at all written by a woman. But her poems, adroitly written in elegiac couplets and leonine hexameters, were way better! The plays’ dialogue was too wooden, the Christian messages too blunt, and the didactic sections too dull, to make them happy reading. I laughed when a martyr and her daughters gave a slow-witted emperor a condescending lesson about perfect numbers. But it’s a lot of slag for a little gold. Not so with her verse, however, which was smoother, lighter, more felicitous and more delightful! I hope it will get more attention.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews