ROSWITHA THE NUN 



In judging of Roswitha's dramatic work it 

 must be remembered that, in true mediaeval 

 spirit fearing to profane what she venerates, she 

 allows herself but little licence with the legends 

 she dramatises. Nevertheless, as has been said, 

 she from time to time shows, in psychological 

 touches, a capacity for originality quite pheno- 

 menal for her time and for the literature of the 

 cloister. Still her plays express but a very small 

 part of the whole gamut of human emotions and 

 experiences, just as her life was lived in an 

 intellectual world narrow from the point of view 

 of to-day or of the great intellectual age of 

 antiquity. Many causes contributed to this. 

 Intellectually, the Christian world shrank as 

 Paganism was superseded by Christianity, a 

 supersession by no means complete in Roswitha's 

 day. Of course this nascent Christianity was 

 inconsistent with much of the intellectual life of 

 the ancient world, which was either inextricably 

 interwoven with Paganism, or essentially anti- 

 religious. With its task of laying afresh the 

 foundations of education, politics, and morality, 

 it had to take root and become established in a 

 relatively narrow intellectual field, the boundaries 

 of which had gradually to be broken down, 

 sometimes with violence. 



Time, like some lens which clears our vision, 

 makes it an easy task to criticise and condemn a 

 phase of religious life which, having essayed to 

 tranquillise and sweeten existence, was, under 

 altered conditions of civilisation, bound to pass 



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