In today’s On the Square , Kaye DeMetz gives a delightful introduction to a little-known medieval playwright, Hrosvitha of Gandersheim:
Hrosvitha’s heroines laugh even at death. Her central characters almost seem to take pleasure in sacrificing their lives for virtue. Callimachus, Dulcitius, and Sapientia portray women as martyrs for their virginity or their fidelity to the Faith. The heroine of Callimachus, Drusiana, begs for death rather than lose her virginity. God immediately grants her wish. In the end, God resurrects Drusiana, and even the villain Callimachus repents and accepts Christ.
Read the rest here . If you’re looking for some fun weekend reading, you can check out a few of her plays at the Internet Medieval Sourcebook or pick up a collection of her work from Amazon .
According the “popular baby names” feature on the Social Security website, “Hrosvitha is not in the top 1000 names for any year of birth in the last 70 years.” Tragic.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…
