Hrotsvit

Opera omnia Hrotsvit

Hrotsvit of Gandersheim (ca. 935 to after 968 c.e.) wrote in Latin (ca. 962) a book of legends of the saints, inspired by Prudentius. She emulated Terence with her book of plays (ca. 965) and finished (ca. 968) with a two-part book of verse epics. This body of work, produced in a vigorous burst within a relatively short period, is preserved almost complete in a manuscript (Clm 14485) that also dates from the tenth century. The breaks in the text, deriving from the sequence of strata and from the writers who worked on it, coincide strikingly with breaks in Hrotsvit's creation. This new edition of Opera Omnia gives us the most authentic text possible of "the earliest German woman poet."