44 WOMAN IN SCIENCE 



them exhibit poetic talent of a high order as well as the 

 inspiration and courage of genius. They reveal also a 

 wide acquaintance with the classic authors of Rome and 

 Greece, besides a knowledge of many of the Christian 

 writers. They are, likewise, distinguished by originality 

 of treatment, complete mastery of the material used, as 

 well as by genuine beauty of rhyme and rhythm. In form, 

 all the plays preserve the simple directness of their model, 

 Terence, while, in conception, they embody the noblest 

 ideals of Christian teaching. In marked contrast to her 

 model, who invariably exhibits the frailties and lapses of 

 woman, Hroswitha 's plays turn on the resistance of her sex 

 to temptation, and on their steadfast adherence to duty 

 and to vows voluntarily assumed. A recent English writer, 

 W. H. Hudson, in an appreciative estimate of the work of 

 this learned Benedictine nun expresses himself as follows : 

 "It is on the literary side alone that Hroswitha belongs 

 to the classic school. The spirit and essence of her work 

 belong entirely to the Middle Ages; for beneath the rigid 

 garb of a dead language" she wrote in Latin "beats the 

 warm heart of a new era. Everything in her plays that 

 is not formal but essential, everything that is original and 

 individual, belongs wholly to the Christianized Germany 

 of the tenth century. Everywhere we can trace the influ- 

 ence of the atmosphere in which she lived; every thought 

 and every motive is colored by the spiritual conditions of 

 her time. The keynote of all her works is the conflict of 

 Christianity with paganism; and it is worthy of remark 

 that in Hroswitha 's hands Christianity is throughout rep- 

 resented by the purity and gentleness of woman, while 

 paganism is embodied in what she describes as the vigor of 

 men virile robur." 1 



1 The English Historical Review, July, 1888. 



Another recent writer affirms without hesitation that "Hroswitha 

 has earned a place apart in the Pantheon of women poets and writers. 

 She alone in those troublous times of the tenth century recalls to 



