Introduction to Hrosvitha

Originally Submitted by Tony on Thu, 05/13/2010

Hrotsvitha, also known as Hroswitha, Hrotsvit, Hrosvit, and Roswitha (c. 935 to c. 1002) was a 10th century nun, dramatist and poet. She is the first known playwright after the darkages. Her works can be downloaded here. Below is the introduction to the first English translation of her works. The introduction was written by Cardinal Gasquet,and published in 1923. 

Whatever may be thought of the precise merits of these six short dramas, now translated into English for the first time,* it will be conceded that a collection of plays bearing the date of the 10th century, authenticated as the work of a woman, and a nun, is a remarkable phenomenon, interesting to students of monasticism and of the drama alike.

At one time, it is interesting to note, it was suggested that the author of these dramas was an Englishwoman. In fact, the English scholar, Laurence Humfrey, who first introduced them to notice in this country, endeavoured to prove that Roswitha was no other than St. Hilda of Northumbria. His theory cannot, of course, be maintained ; but the very anxiety shown to identify this talented poetess and dramatist as a native of this country is evidence of the high estimation in which her compositions were held in the 16th century, the time when Laurence Humfrey, an exile from England for his religion, learnt to know them in Germany. It is now an established fact that the plays are the work of a Benedictine nun of Gandersheim, in Saxony, and their merits certainly justify her biographer's exclamation : " Rara avis in Saxonia visa est." 

It used to be assumed that between the 6th and the 1 2th century all dramatic representations ceased, but each of these centuries when patiendy searched has yielded some dramatic texts. The feudal period, reckoned the most barbarous, and Germania, set down then, as later in history, as the least civilized of countries, have produced the most considerable and least imperfect of these texts in the plays of Hrotsuitha, or Roswitha, a nun of the Order of St. Benedict, who spent her religious life in the Convent of Gandersheim.

There is a marked difference between her plays and such dramas as The Mystery of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, which is little more than an amplification of the sequence of the liturgy. We find here an author familiar not only with the Scriptures, the works of the Fathers of the Church, of the agiographers, and of the Christian philosophers, but with Plautus, Terence, Horace, Virgil, and Ovid — an author who, on her own confession, took the theatre of Terence as her model.

The Abbey of Gandersheim, where these plays were written, was founded about the year 850 by Ludolph, Duke of Saxony, at the request of his wife Oda, a Frankish princess. Although these were what men call " the dark ages," the darkness was comparative. The Saxon court at this time was enlightened, and the Abbeys of Saxony, notably that of Corbei, were centres of learning and civilization. Gandersheim was one of the " free abbeys," that is to say its Abbess held it direct from the King. Her rights of overlordship extended for many miles; she had her own law courts, and sent her men-at-arms into the field. In fact, she enjoyed the usual privileges and undertook the usual responsibilities of a feudal baron, and as such had the right to a seat in the Imperial Diet. Coins are extant, struck by the Abbesses of Gandersheim, whose portraits they bear.

During the 10th and 11th centuries these Abbesses were drawn chiefly from the royal house of Saxony, which had been raised to the dignity of the Imperial throne of Germania. Leuckfeld, in his voluminous history of Gandersheim, quotes a contemporary chronicler who praises the royal nuns for keeping all luxury and state out of the life of the community, and for observing the Rule of St. Benedict strictly. " They were forbidden," says the chronicler, " to eat away from the common table at the appointed times, except in case of sickness. They slept together, and came together to celebrate the canonical hours. And they set to work together whenever work had to be done." The Abbess who ruled the community in Roswitha's time was Gerberg, or Gerberga, a niece of the Emperor Otho I. Gerberg was a good classical scholar, and Roswitha tells us, in one of the introductory prefaces with which, fortunately for posterity, her works are freely sprinkled, how much she owed to the tuition of this Abbess, " younger in years than I, but far older in learning."

It is from such sentences as this that we are able to gain a little information about Roswitha's life. Her mention of certain historical events and personages proves that she was born after the year 912 and before the year 940 (the known date of Gerberg's birth). She seems to have entered the religious life at Gandersheim when she was about twenty-three years old. She tells us nothing about her antecedents, but as Gandersheim was an exclusive house we may assume that she was of gentle birth. What education or experience of the world she had had before she became a nun is a matter of guesswork.

Roswitha wrote in Latin, the only language used in the 10th century in the West for literary composition. Conrad Celtes, the well-known humanist, discovered the manuscript, the writing of which cannot be earlier than the 9th, or later than the 10th century, in the library of the Benedictine monastery of St. Emmeran, Ratisbon, in the last days of the 15th century. In the year 1501 it was printed. This first edition has an interesting frontispiece representing the nun poet and dramatist presenting her works to the Emperor Otho II, in the presence of her Abbess Gerberg, who wears the crown of a " Fiirstabtin." This and the other plates illustrat- ing incidents in the plays have been attributed to both Diirer and Cranach, but they are not signed. Another edition, that of Schurzfleisch, in nearly all respects a reprint of the first, was issued in 1707, augmented with biographical and philological notes. The text given in the Latin Patrology (Migne, Tomus 137) is taken from the Schurzfleisch edition. More valuable to the student is Magnin's edition. The French commentator collated the Celtes and Schurzfleisch texts with the original manuscript, which in 1803 had been moved from St. Emmeran to the Munich library, and found one or two readings preferable to those of Celtes. Magnin also restored some stage directions omitted by Celtes, one of which, in the eighth scene of Callimachus, affords, as the English translator notes, valuable evi- dence that the play was acted, or at least intended for representation.

The original manuscript is divided into three parts. The first contains eight poems or metrical legends of the Saints in which reliable authorities are carefully followed, much skill being shown, however, in the arrangement of the material and in the handling of the " leonine hexameter." The second part consists of the six plays here given in English ; the third, of a long unfinished poem called " Panegyric of the Othos." Celtes changed the order, which is to be regretted, as it is obviously chronological. Roswitha's preface to Part III shows more confidence than the preface to the plays, and very much more than the diffident preface to the poems. One of these poems, " Passio Sancti Pelagii," once enjoyed a very high reputation, and is often quoted by Spanish and Portuguese agiographers. The Bollandists print it entire in the Acta Sanctorum. It has another interest in that Roswitha tells us that she obtained her facts from a witness of the saint's martyrdom.

Although Roswitha claims Terence as her master in the art of play-writing, it cannot be said that she imitates him closely. When Paphnutius was acted in London in 1914 the dramatic critic of The Times was justified from one point of view in asserting that Roswitha's style is " not in the least Terentian." For one thing she is quite in- different to the " unities," and transports us from place to place with bewildering abruptness. Her relation to Terence, as she herself insists, is one of moral contrasts rather than of literary parallels. The " situation " in Terence's comedies almost invariably turns on the frailty of women ; in Roswitha's plays as invariably on their heroic adherence to chastity. Although considerable variety is shown in the treatment of each story, the motive is always the same — to glorify uncompromising fidelity to the vow of virginity. This nun dramatist deals coura- geously, but, it must be added, delicately, when it is remembered that she lived in an age when even the best educated were neither fastidious nor restrained in manners or conversation, with the temptations which her characters overcome. The preface to her plays shows that it was not without some qualms of conscience that she wrote of things " which should not even be named among us." But the purity of her intentions, which was obviously recognized by her religious superiors, should induce the most prudish reader to refrain from charges of im- propriety. With all their shortcomings, Roswitha's works have a claim to an eminent place in medieval literature, and do honour to her sex, to the age in which she lived, and to the vocation which she followed.

ANNA CORA MOWATT (1819-70) The lady who wrote the most celebrated social satire since Royall Tyler's The Contrast was an accomplished actress whose career as a touring star is largely overshadowed by her famous play Fashion.

Born Ann Cora Ogden in Bordeaux France, she was interested in the stage from childhood. She had played the judge in a French version of Othello when she was only five years old; she staged an English version of Voltaire's Alzire at her home in Flatbush when she was only fourteen. A year later, at fifteen, she married a New York lawyer James Mowatt. At sixteen she published a verse "romance" called Pelayo or the Cavern of Covadonga. Having weak lungs and fearing tuberculosis, she took the then recommended sea voyage and along the way saw the great French star Rachel act in Paris. This inspired young Mrs. Mowatt to write a six act play Gulzara, or the Persian Star. She not only staged this at her home in Flatbush when she returned, it was published in 1840 in the New World.

Mr. Mowatt lost his fortune and Cora was obliged to give public readings for money. She was a "natural" talent and soon had rescued the family fortunes. But her ill health made it more practical to continue writing and publishing, which she did, contributing pieces to leading magazines of the day, sometimes submitting several articles under different names to the same publication. Her first novel The Fortune Hunter was very successful. Her second was published after her stage debut in 1845.

She left a fascinating account in her Autobiography of the debut of Fashion at the Park Theatre, March 24, 1845. It ran a remarkable three weeks and was only withdrawn because the theatre had previous bookings for other stars. It opened at Philadelphia's Walnut Street Theatre while the New York production was still on the boards. Heartened by the success of her play, and driven by financial necessities, she made her own debut at the Park Theatre, June 13, 1845 in The Lady of Lyons. She followed this with an arduous tour that took her as far as New Orleans. She did not play Gertrude in her own play Fashion until a later engagement in Philadelphia. The role was never one of her favorites, though she played it from time to time. One of her personal favorites, Rosalind, is pictured on the right.

The first role she wrote for herself was Blanche in Armand, the Child of the People. She wrote Armand for E.L. Davenport who had originated Adam Trueman in the London production of Fashion at the Royal Olympic Theatre in 1850. A comedy-melodrama, Armand remained in her repertory for some time. After premiering at the Park in New York September 27, 1847, it moved to the Royal Olympic where it ran twenty-one consecutive nights. The company remained in London in Fashion which ran two weeks; then on to Dublin and more success.

She returned to America when Mr. Mowatt died in 1851 and continued to act until June 3, 1854 when ill health finally forced her retirement. She was married to William F.Ritchie of the Richmond Enquirer June 7, 1854. Later that year, she published her Autobiography.

She continued to write short stories and from 1861 until her death she lived abroad

“I count it, this afternoon, the greatest honor that will ever come to me that I am permitted to stand in this historic hall and say one word for the liberties of my race. I thought to myself how dare I, a weak woman, humble in comparison with these other people. Yesterday I sat in the old Joy street church and you can imagine my emotions as I remembered my great grandfather begged in England the money that helped the Negro cause, that my grandfather on my father's side, signed the papers with Garrison at Philadelphia. I remembered that at Bunker Hill my ancestors on my maternal side poured out their blood. I am a daughter of the Revolution, you do not acknowledge black daughters of the Revolution but we are going to take that right.”

Pauline Hopkins, from The Address at the Citizens' William Lloyd Garrison Centenary Celebration, (December 11, 1905)

Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins (1859-1930), who was born in Portland, Maine, in 1859, is best known for four novels and numerous short stories which she published between 1900 and 1903. Her best-known work, the novel Contending Forces: A Romance Illustrative of Negro Life North and South, was published in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1900 by the Colored Co-operative Publishing Company. Hopkins followed this first novel with three serialized novels - Hagar's Daughter: A Story of Southern Caste Prejudice, Winona: A Tale of Negro Life in the South and Southwest, and Of One Blood; Or, The Hidden Self. All three serials along with several short stories by Hopkins appeared in the Colored American Magazine, a literary journal which became the Colored Co-operative Publishing Company’s primary project. During this time period, Hopkins worked as an editor at the magazine. Through her editorial work, fiction, and a substantial body of nonfiction that addressed black history, racial discrimination, economic justice, and women’s role in society among other topics, she emerged as one of the era’s preeminent public intellectuals.
   
While the bulk of Hopkins’s reputation rests on her output during a four-year period when she was in her forties, she wrote a musical play Slaves’ Escape; or, The Underground Railroad (later revised as Peculiar Sam; or, The Underground Railroad) that was produced in 1879 when she was twenty years old. Into the 1880s, Hopkins performed as a vocalist with her family ensemble, the Hopkins Colored Troubadours. In the 1890s, she undertook work as an orator, even while she supported herself primarily as a stenographer. And she remained active in the women’s club movement and other civic organizations. In 1898, she represented the Woman’s Era Club at the Annual Convention of New England Federation of Woman’s Clubs. And in 1901, Hopkins became a founding member of the Boston Literary and Historical Association.
At the end of the nineteenth century, Hopkins’s association with the founders of the Colored Co-operative Publishing Company provided her with the opportunity to reach a wider audience. She most prominently achieved this through the Colored American Magazine, which became the widest circulating African American literary publication prior to the rise of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s Crisis magazine. From the start, the Colored American Magazine was politically engaged, and as conflicts arose among black intellectuals (often symbolized by, but by no means reducible to, Booker T. Washington’s compromise versus W.E.B. Du Bois’s agitation), the Colored American Magazine was secretly purchased by Washington’s agent Fred Moore. The magazine’s operations were moved away from the radicalism of Boston to New York. Although Hopkins did relocate to New York briefly, Moore’s purchase ended her influence and soon thereafter her career at the magazine. A testament to Hopkins’s popularity was her immediate hiring by the Voice of the Negro, a national monthly which was similar in scope to the Colored American Magazine though it was much more sharply critical of Washington and his associates. Hopkins wrote nonfiction articles for the Atlanta-based Voice of the Negro from 1904 to 1905.
   
Through 1905, Hopkins remained not only active, but visible. She published a pamphlet entitled "A Primer of Facts Pertaining to the Early Greatness of the African Race and the Possibility of Restoration by Its Descendents" under her own Cambridge, Massachusetts, imprint. And she addressed the William Lloyd Garrison Centenary in Boston, marking her prominence in the city’s activist-intellectual community. There are fewer known traces of her career during the remaining 25 years of her life. In 1911, she addressed the Charles Sumner Centenary in Boston which is evidence of her ongoing public profile. And, in 1916, she and Walter Wallace, the founding publisher of the Colored American Magazine, began a new venture, the New Era Magazine. The magazine’s only two issues featured a two-part short story by Hopkins as well as two biographical sketches under her byline that closely resemble her nonfiction from the Colored American Magazine. Her invitation to the Sumner event, the subsequent inclusion of her remarks in a pamphlet commemorating the event, and her ongoing association with Wallace suggest that Hopkins remained active in the decades following the end of her career at the Colored American Magazine. While fewer details are known about this period in her career, these gaps in her biography should not be presumed to indicate her inactivity. Rather, these gaps point to the need for additional research.
   
In August 1930, Pauline Hopkins died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, from burns sustained during a fire at her home.