Hrotsvit

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Hrotsvit von Gandersheim presents Emperor Otto the Great with her Gesta Oddonis ; in the background Gerberga , abbess of the Gandersheim monastery . Fantasy representation of a woodcut by Albrecht Dürer from the editio princeps of the "Opera Hrotsvite" , Nuremberg 1501.

Hrotsvit von Gandersheim , also called Hrotswith , Hrosvith , Hroswitha , Roswith , in Latin Hrotsvitha Gandeshemensis , modernized Roswitha von Gandersheim , (* around 935 ; † after 973 ) was canon of the Gandersheim monastery (from which today's town of Bad Gandersheim in Lower Saxony arose) .

The Sanctimoniale and author of the early Middle Ages is considered the first German poet ; she wrote spiritual writings and historical poetry. It was through them that the first dramas arose since ancient times .

She expressed her admiration for Emperor Otto I in the Gesta Ottonis ( Gesta Oddonis; 'The Deeds of Otto'), a work written in Latin hexameters on the family history and political work of Otto the Great.

Life

Hardly any evidence has survived about Hrotsvit's life. The main sources are the information in their own Latin works. Probably born around 935 Hrotsvit probably occurred early age into the tightly to the Liudolfinger (Ottos) bound family pen Gandersheim one. Perhaps she came from a noble Saxon family. Her teachers named Rikkardis and Gerberga , daughter of Duke Heinrich of Bavaria and niece of Otto the Great , who was abbess of the monastery from 949 . Her works were created between around 950 and 970. It is believed that she died after 973.

Hrotsvit had a considerable education , which also included the knowledge of some ancient writers. Her works are attributed to the " Ottonian Renaissance ".

Works

The most important manuscript of her works, which contains all texts except the Primordia , is the Codex ( Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München , Clm 14485), a manuscript written by several hands in Gandersheim at the end of the 10th or beginning of the 11th century. It was discovered by the humanist Conrad Celtis in 1491/94 in the Regensburg monastery of St. Emmeram and used as a basis for the editio princeps of the Opera Hrotsvitae, illustrated by Albrecht Dürer and published in Nuremberg in 1501 .

Hrotsvit has divided her work into three books:

The book of legends or carmina (liber primus), written in the 50s and 60s of the 10th century and dedicated to her abbess Gerberga , contains eight legends in Leonine hexameters about:

The drama book or dramatica series (liber secundus), written around 965, wanted to offer a Christian alternative to Terence . In place of slippery love stories, the portrayal of the chastity of pious virgins should appear. It is the six pieces that are less dramas than "dialogue legends":

The third book includes two historical writings in Leonine hexameters : the Gesta Ottonis (Gesta Oddonis), a story of the Ottonians from the years 919 to 965, and the Primordia coenobii Gandeshemensis, a story of the Gandersheim monastery from the years 846 to 919. During the The history of the monastery can be dated to 973, the date of origin of the "Gesta Ottonis" is not certain, as this work has been handed down with three different prefaces: one to Gerberga, one to Otto I and one to his son Otto II. Neither are historical works completely preserved. The motivation for writing both historical works was probably an internal crisis in the Gandersheim monastery, which was founded by Liudolfing, but received less lordly attention than the younger Liudolfing foundations of Quedlinburg and Memleben .

Hrotsvit reported extensively on the uprisings at the beginning of Otto's government and in the early 1950s. But the active role of the members of the Ottonian royal family in these armed conflicts remains largely unmentioned. This applies both to the role of Heinrich , Otto I's brother, and to Liudolf and Konrad in the second phase of the uprisings. Further works by Hrotsvit are lost. It is known that she wrote a vitae of the patron saints of the Gandersheim Monastery, the holy Popes Innocent I and Anastasius I , in verse . Recently a four-line dedication poem by Hrotsvit was found in a Würzburg fragment (University Library, Mpth.f.34).

Impact history

Interpretation in the 15th century

Ever since Conrad Celtis rediscovered her work, Hrotsvit's perception has been dependent on the understanding of history and women of the time. This already began with Celtis himself, who projected his idea of ​​contemporary women's education onto Hrotsvit: Hrotsvit became the embodiment of humanistic educational ideals. Celtis therefore attributed her knowledge of Greek, which has not been proven, but belonged to the humanistic ideal of classical bilingualism, and exaggerated her knowledge of the subjects of the Quadrivium and philosophy . Hrotsvit's religiosity was not emphasized by Celtis, who already stylized Hrotsvit into a literary and national icon in the introduction of his edition.

Before the publication of the work, Celtis had gathered his like him humanist friends in Nuremberg and asked them to write poems on Hrotsvit, which he placed in front of the first edition. In these poems her German ancestry, her versatility and, again and again, her broad education were emphasized. Willibald Pirckheimer even praised Hrotsvit as the eleventh muse, as Sappho was the tenth. Celtis determined Hrotsvit's image for a long time. The only critical comment on his account came from the highly educated abbess of the Poor Clare Monastery of St. Klara in Nuremberg , Caritas Pirckheimer , who in Hrotsvit provided proof of the God-given equal talent of men and women and their motivation to write, not even in humanistic self-contemplation and patriotism but saw in teaching and educating her community of women.

Johannes Trithemius already drew a picture similar to Celtis , who, although a woman, included her in his work Catalogus illustrium virorum Germaniae (Eng. 'Catalog of famous German men'). The lack of sources on Hrotsvit quickly led to her being nationalized: an English scholar made her the daughter of a king of Northumbria , while other scholars declared her a Byzantine princess because of her knowledge of Greek.

Hrotsvit's Saxon descent led to the classification into several noble families. Since a woman of her quality could not just be a canoness, Hrotsvit was also promoted by equating her with the abbess of the same name, who was abbess of the Gandersheim monastery from 923 to 933.

The poet's perception remained constant in two respects: she was always an extraordinary figure, and always a German author who offered a national alternative to the Latin-Italian world of education. In this role she also served as an example when , in 1655, Duke August the Younger assigned the women's monasteries that still existed after the Reformation to serve as training centers for young girls and women.

Interpretation in the 19th century

In the 19th century, Hrotsvit was cited as an example by supporters of women's education. In 1867 a work by the Viennese historian Joseph Aschbach was published , who declared Hrotsvit to be a forgery by Conrad Celtis: A nun could neither have mastered Latin so correctly nor knew the comedy and eroticism of her dramas. Since Hrotsvit was inconceivable in the 10th century, the work was a forgery that the poet had invented. Despite the circular approach , Aschbach received widespread attention, even if medievalists like Georg Waitz soon refuted Aschbach.

Interpretation in the 20th century

Postage stamp in memory of Roswitha von Gandersheim from 1973

In the 20th century, the women's movement discovered Hrotsvit as a “like-minded sister” and role model for women who work in culture. The city of Gandersheim in particular, which historically had an ambivalent relationship to the pen, also discovered the pen lady as an advertising medium. In 1930 the city organized a radio day for women working in culture, four years earlier the city had made Hrotsvit the focus of a historical pageant. Hrotsvit was reduced to the Gestae Ottonis , the only important thing was their relationship to the Ottonians, who symbolized the splendor of the German past.

Despite her Saxon origins, which had always been emphasized in the past, Hrotsvit was of no use for National Socialist propaganda; her religious themes and piety were just as incompatible with the National Socialist ideal of a German poet as the fact that she wrote in Latin. Since the National Socialists had neither a need for heroizing female figures nor an interest in women's education, Hrotsvit only played a minor role.

After the Second World War , Hrotsvit's interpretations of the 1920s as a national cult figure and role model were taken up again. In 1952 Gandersheim celebrated its 1100th anniversary, including a meeting of female poets dedicated to Hrotsvit, to which Luise Rinser , for example, was invited. In memory of Hrotsvit's work, the Gandersheim Cathedral Festival has been held in front of the Romanesque collegiate church since 1959 . The assumed thousandth year of death, 1973, brought a new, broad perception: Federal President Heinemann visited Gandersheim to present a stamp with the Hrotsvit motif. The city of Bad Gandersheim also awarded the Roswitha Prize, named after Hrotsvit, to women writers for the first time . In 1975 the city awarded the Roswitha-Ring to the best artist from the respective ensemble of the cathedral festival as another honor named after the poet .

A memorial plaque for them was placed in the Walhalla near Regensburg . This makes her one of the original nine and now twelve women in the Walhalla.

Editions and translations

Larissa Bonfante : The Plays of Hrotswitha of Gandersheim. (Bilingual Edition 2013)
  • Paul von Winterfeld (ed.): Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum separately in editi 34: Hrotsvithae Opera. Hanover 1902 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitized version ).
  • Hrotsvithae opera . Edidit Karl Strecker (Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana). Leipzig: Teubner 1906, 2nd edition 1930.
  • Helene Homeyer : Roswitha von Gandersheim. Works . Paderborn: Schöningh 1936.
  • Hrotsvitha: Dulcitius. Passio sanctarum virginum Agapis, Chioniae et Hirenae [Latin-German]. In: Horst Kusch: Introduction to the Latin Middle Ages. Volume I: Poetry. Darmstadt: WBG 1957, pp. 154-169.
  • Hrotsvitha: Passio sancti Gongolfi martiris [Latin-German]. In: Horst Kusch: Introduction to the Latin Middle Ages. Volume I: Poetry. Darmstadt: WBG 1957, pp. 170–199.
  • Hrotsvitha von Gandersheim: Dulcitius. Abraham. Two dramas. Translation and afterword by Karl Langosch (Reclam UB 7524). Stuttgart: Reclam 1964 (64 pages)
  • Larissa Bonfante : The Plays of Hrotswitha of Gandersheim. Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, Wauconda 1979, ISBN 9780865161788 . (English)
  • Hrotsvit: Opera Omnia . Edidit Walter Berschin (Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana). Munich / Leipzig: Saur 2001, ISBN 3-598-71912-4 .
  • Hrotsvit von Gandersheim; The suffering of holy Gongolf, the martyr. Ed., Trans. u. come over. by Paul Dräger. In: The life of Gangolf. Ed., Trans. u. come over. by Paul Dräger, Trier (Kliomedia) 2011, pp. 36–73, 111–152.

literature

  • Kirsten Arndt, Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz :  HROSWITHA from Gandersheim. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 2, Bautz, Hamm 1990, ISBN 3-88309-032-8 , Sp. 1095-1097.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  • Katrinette Bodarwé: Hrotswit between role model and phantom . In: Martin Hoernes, Hedwig Röckelein (eds.): Gandersheim and Essen - Comparative studies on Saxon women's foundations . Klartext, Essen 2006, ISBN 3-89861-510-3 , pp. 191-212.
  • Eva Cescutti: Hrotsvit and the men. Constructions of masculinity and femininity in the Ottonian environment . Munich 1998, ISBN 3-7705-3278-3 .
  • Reinhard Düchting: Hrotsvit . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages (LexMA). Volume 5, Artemis & Winkler, Munich / Zurich 1991, ISBN 3-7608-8905-0 , column 148 f.
  • Rudolf Köpke: Ottonian studies on German history in the tenth century, Volume 2: Hrotsuit von Gandersheim. ES Mittler & Sohn, 1869, limited preview in the Google book search
  • Kurt Kronenberg: Roswitha von Gandersheim. Life and work . Publishing house CF Hertel, Bad Gandersheim 1962.
  • Tino Licht: Traces of Hrotsvit in Ottonian poetry (along with a new Hrotsvit poem) . In: Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 43 (2008), pp. 347–353 ( urn : nbn: de: bsz: 16-opus-115839 ).
  • Bert Nagel: Hrotsvit from Gandersheim . JB Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Stuttgart 1965.
  • Bert Nagel:  Hrotsvit from Gandersheim. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 9, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1972, ISBN 3-428-00190-7 , pp. 676-678 ( digitized version ).
  • Fidel Rädle , Hrotsvit von Gandersheim . In: The German literature of the Middle Ages. Author's Lexicon 2nd Edition 4 (1983) Sp. 196-210.
  • Nikolaus Staubach : Graecae Gloriae. The reception of Greek as an element of late Carolingian-Early Hottonian court culture . In: Anton von Euw, Peter Schreiner (ed.): Kaiserin Theophanu. Meeting of the East and West at the turn of the first millennium. 2 vol. Cologne 1991, pp. 343–368, on Hrotsvit's reception of Byzantine and ancient Greek literary traditions there: pp. 356–364.
  • Paul Dräger: Adultery with saints - a hitherto not understood example of the Talion principle. In: Kurtrierisches Jahrbuch 51, 2011, pp. 69–150.

Web links

Commons : Hrotsvitha  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Works
Wikisource: Hrotsvitha Gandeshemensis  - Sources and full texts (Latin)
Secondary
personal data
SURNAME Hrotsvit
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hrotsvit; Hrosvith; Hroswitha, Roswitha von Gandersheim
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Author of the early Middle Ages
DATE OF BIRTH around 935
DATE OF DEATH at 973