I’m marking this as a DNF because I only read it for Dulcitius (and only because it’s referenced in Rubyfruit Jungle) and I can guarantee that I will never pick up Hrotsvit’s works again. my interest in medieval women authors can’t extend to narratives about good christians, they creep me out too much. I know that many authors wrote within christianity to avoid censorship and condemnation and that this must be doubly true for women but the insipid stupidity is foregrounded in Dulcitius and I found it inescapable. if you are into this sort of thing, I read the Christopher St. John and Katharina Wilson translations back to back and the Wilson one is superior, even though she translates into rhyme. her version is more rhythmic and less patronizing than St. John, who (for example) wrote out Hrotsvit’s name as Roswitha because it was “more pleasing to the eye.”

there is some comedy here, like this exchange between Sissinus and Hirena:

Sissinus: Whatever the shame that may be mine, I will bear it more easily now because I know for certain that you will die. (Wilson)

I think that if I could muscle my way through what is, in reality, a very short corpus, and maybe if I had some more context and patience, I could make something of the sarcasm and bafflement of the other characters in the face of the heroines’ limpid insistence on being tortured to death for no apparent reason. but I’m not the one to do it! there is also this line, which is delivered by the one female character who isn’t a christian, which is perhaps suggestive of a deeper perspective on reality than the masculine outrage and feminine passivity on display throughout:

Wife: What upsets me so, what makes me more sad, is that you were ignorant of all that happened to you. (Wilson)

Wilson cites at least two sources for any readers who are interested in reading essays about the significance of pots and pans in Dulcitius, which I have to stress is about ten pages long and contains pots and pans for one scene. Medieval scholars are fuck-freaks and I appreciate the vibe, even if I’m too easily exasperated by the content. if they ever have a party I want to be invited but I’ll be like the geeky guy in a comedy who thinks his invite got lost in the mail or something. 

Edit: Okay, I just read Hrotsvit's prefaces to her collected plays, and I admit that I am very stupid and there is more going on with her than I gave her credit for. Her careful approach to incorporating pagan works into her theatrical treatment of gender, and her wily justification using christianized logic, suggests that she is as duplicitous as, say, Paracelcus. Still a DNF but it's on me.