Hrotsvit was the first dramatist of Christianity, the first female Saxon poet, the first Germanic author to employ the Faust theme, and one of the first Western writers to compose a Christian epic. The essays in Hrotsvit of Gandersheim examine the historical, cultural, legal, and political contexts of Hrotsvit's works, locating her opus within the tenth-century aristocratic and clerical intellectual milieu.
This collection contextualizes Hrotsvit's works with respect to heroic, sexual, domestic, behavioural, linguistic, theological, and hierarchical aspects of early medieval and patristic literary traditions. It also explores other literary texts that inform Hrotsvit's works and discusses the performance history and theatricality of Hrotsvit's plays.
Hrotsvit's keen awareness of contemporary issues and her determination, within the parameters of monastic-aristocratic ideological constraints, to provide her readers with a rich variety of exemplary female heroes and acts of personal courage, offer twenty-first-century readers a powerful model of responsibility and agency.
Authors
Phyllis R. Brown, Katharina M. Wilson Katharina M., Phyllis Brown, Linda A. McMillin, Katharina Wilson
- Bibliography, etc. Note
- Includes bibliographical references (p. [283]-302) and index
- Control Number Identifier
- CaOOCEL
- Dewey Decimal Classification Number
- 872/.03
- Dewey Decimal Edition Number
- 21
- General Note
- Issued as part of the desLibris books collection
- ISBN
- 9781442675902 0802089623
- LCCN
- PA8340
- LCCN Item number
- H76 2004eb
- Modifying agency
- CaBNVSL
- Original cataloging agency
- CaOONL
- Physical Description | Extent
- 1 electronic text (vii, 313 p.)
- Published in
- Canada
- Publisher or Distributor Number
- CaOOCEL
- Rights
- Access restricted to authorized users and institutions
- System Control Number
- (CaBNVSL)thg00601048 (OCoLC)244768126 (CaOOCEL)418534
- System Details Note
- Mode of access: World Wide Web
- Transcribing agency
- CaOONL
Table of Contents
- Contents 6
- Introduction 12
- Section 1. Constructing a Context 20
- Hrotsvit of Gandersheim and the Problem of Royal Succession in the East Frankish Kingdom 22
- The Index Aequus: Legality and Equity in Hrotsvit’s Basilius 38
- 'Weighed down with a thousand evils’: Images of Muslims in Hrotsvit’s Pelagius 49
- Section 2. Forming Identities 66
- Violence and Virginity in Hrotsvit's Dramas 68
- Kids Say the Darndest Things: Irascible Children in Hrotsvit’s Sapientia 86
- The Construction of the Desiring Subject in Hrotsvit’s Pelagius and Agnes 105
- Pulchrum Signum? Sexuality and the Politics of Religion in the Works of Hrotsvit of Gandersheim Composed between 963 and 973 134
- Section 3. Creating Affinities 154
- Hrotsvit’s Dramas: Is There a Roman in These Texts? 156
- Hrotsvit’s Sapientia as a Foreign Woman 169
- Hrotsvit and the Devil 186
- Hrotsvit’s Latin Drama Gallicanus and the Old English Epic Elene: Intercultural Founding Narratives of a Feminized Church 202
- Section 4. Conducting Performances 220
- Hrotsvit’s Literary Legacy 222
- ‘Bring me a soldier’s garb and a good horse’: Embedded Stage Directions in the Dramas of Hrotsvit of Gandersheim 244
- Dramatic Convergence in Times Square: Hrotsvit’s Sapientia and Collapsable Giraffe’s 3 Virgins 260
- Playing with Hrotsvit: Adventures in Contemporary Performance 274
- Works Cited 292
- Contributors 312
- Index 314
- A 314
- B 314
- C 314
- D 315
- E 315
- F 316
- G 316
- H 316
- I 319
- J 319
- K 319
- L 319
- M 319
- N 320
- O 320
- P 320
- Q 321
- R 321
- S 321
- T 322
- U 322
- V 322
- W 322
- Z 322
