Hrotsvit of Gandersheim: A Florilegium of Her Works

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.

Author:

Katharina M. Wilson

Publisher:

BOYE6

Publication Date:

March 20, 2000

Number of pages:

136 pages

Language:

English

Binding:

Paperback

ISBN-10:

0859914895

ISBN-13:

9780859914895