The Works of Hrotsvit of Gandersheim provides for the first time, in a single, affordable volume, skillful English translations of all works attributed to the tenth-century canoness Hrotsvit on pages that face the Latin text based on Walter Berschin’s authoritative 2001 edition. Babcock begins his Introduction with high praise for Hrotsvit: she is “among the most widely read and studied of Medieval Latin writers,” and “[i]n the quantity of her output, the diversity of genres in which she worked, and the intrinsic interest of her compositions, she ranks among the most important Latin writers of any period” (ix). The translations he provides are likely to convince readers that he has not exaggerated.
The introduction goes on to provide an overview of what is known about Hrotsvit, about the Gandersheim religious community of women, and about its association with the Ottonian dynasty and court. He also describes the Munich manuscript, which presents all but one of Hrotsvit’s major works, and discusses important elements of the poems, plays, and prefatory texts in Books 1 and 2 of the three-part Munich manuscript, the compilation of which may have been supervised by Hrotsvit herself. Furthermore, he explains why he chose to include every text that has been attributed to Hrotsvit, some of which other editors have chosen to ignore.
Babcock’s expertise as a linguist and a philologist and his extensive knowledge about the sources Hrotsvit worked with as she wrote her poems and plays will be especially beneficial to readers with limited ability to understand and evaluate Hrotsvit’s Latin. I particularly appreciate his decision to translate all so-called “filler words” silently omitted by other translators on the assumption that they do not contribute to meaning. Babcock, in contrast, includes them because their omission “changes the flavor of her work.” He goes on to write, “The inclusion of all these particles often makes for peculiar English, but it reflects peculiar Latin,” which might communicate something about uses of Latin in her community (xxi). Babcock’s translations allow readers to consider whether seemingly random placement of seemingly unnecessary words might actually convey meaning and provide insight into how Latin was used in communities of religious women. Moreover, Babcock asserts, “Hrotsvit without all the particles no longer sounds like Hrotsvit” (xxii). The following discussion of the “abundance of comparative and superlative degrees of adjectives and adverbs,” not only in Hrotsvit’s writing but also in vulgar Latin and spoken languages more generally, is similarly welcome (xxiii).
A great strength of this new edition resides in the information related to Hrotsvit’s sources. Noting that Hrotsvit refers to the sources for her religious poems with pride, Babcock writes, “by turning her models from dry prose into colorful verse or into dramatic dialogue, she felt she was improving upon them, honoring the saints at the same time that she was demonstrating her own superiority as a writer by competing with learned male writers of the past” (xiii). Notes to individual poems identify editions of Hrotsvit’s sources, making it relatively easy to follow his advice: “Readers who want fully to appreciate her writing, her genius, and her creativity, should read her sources and compare each of her works with its source text, examining what she left out as well as what she included, how she changed the emphasis and focus of the narratives, how she altered the vocabulary and diction, and in particular how she enlarged the roles of the women she wrote about” (xiii). A striking example of what can be learned from consulting Hrotsvit’s sources relates to the Roman playwright Terence, whom Hrotsvit names as the source for her plays. Babcock describes a Terence manuscript that was copied and annotated at the nearby nunnery of Essen around the time that Hrotsvit was writing her plays. The presence in that manuscript of vulgar Old High German words glossing sexual euphemisms and circumlocutions in Terence’s plays leads Babcock to invite his readers to consider not only Hrotsvit’s depictions of “love, nudity, and sex” in the plays but also in some of the sacred stories and to recognize that “there is probably more eroticism in Hrotsvit’s work than the reader of the English alone will appreciate” (xviii).
In his Introduction, Babcock writes very little about Hrotsvit’s two histories, “The Deeds of Otto” and “The Origins of the Gandersheim Convent.” These poems differ from those in Books 1 and 2 because Hrotsvit wrote the first known accounts; authoritative sources were not available. Babcock’s notes to these poems guide readers through potentially confusing names and the complex dynastic history leading up to Otto’s crowning as the first Holy Roman Emperor since Charlemagne in “The Deeds of Otto” and the death of Christina, the third abbess of Gandersheim, in “The Origins of the Gandersheim Convent.” He also provides information about the missing pages in “The Deeds of Otto,” amounting to almost half of the poem according to scholars who have examined the manuscript. But he does not address the question of why these poems conclude as they do or convey the very high opinion of the historical poems expressed by some scholars.
Readers interested in learning possible reasons for these histories ending where they do can consult “David rex fidelis? Otto the Great, the Gesta Ottonis, and the Primordia Coenobii Gandesheimensis” by Jay T. Lees, and chapters on Hrotsvit’s histories in Spirituality and Politics in the Works of Hrotsvit of Gandersheim by Stephen L. Wailes. [1] Lees and Wailes also provide sustained arguments related Babcock’s reference to the likelihood that “The Deeds of Otto” was written in hopes of eliciting patronage for Gandersheim from Otto (693). Perhaps of particular interest is the fact Lees provides, that Otto II resumed support for Gandersheim a month after Otto I’s death, suggesting Hrotsvit’s message was understood. [2]
Readers will also benefit from consulting the section in Hrotsvit of Gandersheim: Rara Avis in Saxonia? that presents discussions of Hrotsvit’s histories in the context of other tenth-century historical writing. [3] Dennis M. Kratz begins his chapter “The Gesta Ottonis in its Contexts” by asserting, “A consideration of Hrotsvit’s Gesta Ottonis in connection with any of the specific works or narrative genres with which it invites comparison serves to reaffirm its stature not only as a major piece of tenth century literature but also as perhaps the most successful of all early medieval Latin historical epic poems” (201). The comparisons that follow highlight Hrotsvit’s skill in making use of “an artistic tension at the heart of medieval epic: that between the values associated with heroic excellence and the standards of Christian ethics” (202). In “Hrotsvit’s Primordia and the Historical Tradition of Monastic Communities,” Thomas Head compares Hrotsvit’s “Origins of the Gandersheim Convent” to other histories of monastic communities, including histories written by women in the late antique and Merovingian periods. Head also discusses two biographies of Hathumoda, the first abbess of Gandersheim, by Agius of Corvey, that likely were sources for Hrotsvit’s poem (143). I draw attention to these scholarly sources because Hrotsvit’s histories have received far less attention than have the poems and plays, especially the plays. Babcock’s translations go a long way toward convincing readers of their merit.
The opportunity to read through all the poems and plays from the start of the Munich manuscript to the end, supplemented by two texts that only survive in other manuscripts, whether focusing on the Latin, the facing translations, or moving back and forth, is sure to invite new thinking about the individual texts as well as about thematic patterns in Hrotsvit’s works.
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Notes:
1. Jay T. Lees, “David Rex Fidelis?: Otto the Great, The Gesta Ottonis, and the Primordia Coenobii Gandeshemensis,” in A Companion to Hrotsvit of Gandersheim (fl. 960): Contextual and Interpretive Approaches, edited by Stephen L. Wailes and Phyllis R. Brown (Brill, 2013) and Stephen L. Wailes,Spirituality and Politics in the Works of Hrotsvit of Gandersheim (Susquehanna University Press, 2006).
2. Lees, “David Rex Fidelis?,” 234.
3. Hrotsvit of Gandersheim: Rara Avis in Saxonia?, edited by Katharina M. Wilson (Marc Publishing, 1987).