Selection of the works of Hrotsvit, the first-known woman dramatist,
containing legends, dramas, and epics.
Hrotsvit of Gandersheim (c.935 - c.975), almost certainly of noble Saxon
parentage, was a canoness of the Saxon imperial abbey of Gandersheim,
living and working there during its time of greatest material prosperity
and cultural and intellectual pre-eminence. Her importance cannot be
overestimated: she is the first poet of Saxony; the first known
dramatist of Christianity (indeed the first known woman dramatist of any
time); and a woman displaying erudition and wit in an essentially
patriarchal age, a female author in a literary field dominated by men
who insisted on re-evaluating and redrawing the literary depiction of
women. Discovered in the late fifteenth century, her extraordinary
oeuvre, written in medieval Latin, comprises a wide variety of genres:
eight legends, six dramas, and two epics, organised into three books.
The present volume contains a selection of Hrotsvit's works in
Englishtranslation, together with an interpretative essay, critical
introduction, and scholarly apparatus.
Professor KATHARINA WILSONteaches at the University of Georgia.