Dulcitius play sparknotes
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Dulcitius
About the Play
Date
late 10th century
Cast Breakdown
6+ men, 5+ women
Genre
Comedy,
Length
One-Act
Public domain; translated from Latin (http://www.classics.ucsb.edu/classes/clas130-F08/week8/3.DULCITUS.htm)
Summary
Governor Dulcitius of Macedonia seeks out the holy virgins Agape, Chionia, and Irene with intent to rape them. He enters their dwelling, but his evil intent is negated: he becomes the victim of a delusion, under which he mistakes for the objects of his passion the saucepans and frying pans in the kitchen. These he embraces and covers with kisses until his face and clothes are black with soot and dirt. The three virgins look on and laugh; the governor is humiliated by their controlling the situation and undermining his authority and his masculinity. Later, by order of Diocletian, he hands the maidens over to the care of Sisinnius, who is charged with their punishment. Sisinnius in his turn is made the sport of strange delusions, but at length succeeds in getting Agape and Chionia burnt, and Irene shot to death wi
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Who was Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim?
Page One Playwright Emma Horwitz based her play MARY GETS HERS, our first production since 2019, on a 10th-century play by a classic writer who is seldom produced nowadays—so we commissioned playwright (and Hrotsvitha fan) Bailey Williams to tell us all about her!
What is absolutely certain about the playwright Hrosvitha of Gandersheim (an abbey in what is today known as Germany) is that she was a secular canoness (meaning, a member of a religious community who takes vows of obedience and celibacy, but not poverty) who was born around 935 and died sometime between 975-1002. She was almost certainly a noblewoman who moved to the abbey later in life. Hrosvitha (or Hrotsvit or Roswitha, but we’ll stick with the original) is a name she may or may not have given herself meaning “a mighty voice” or “a mighty shout.”
What is also certain about her is that she is one of the first female dramatists, forgotten to history until the 15th century, when she was reanimated by German humanist scholars, and then again by feminists in the 19
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Hrotsvitha
German secular canoness, dramatist, and poet
"Roswitha" redirects here. For other uses, see Roswitha (disambiguation).
Hrotsvitha (c. 935–973) was a secular canoness who wrote drama and Christian poetry under the Ottonian dynasty. She was born in Bad Gandersheim to Saxon nobles and entered Gandersheim Abbey as a canoness.[1] She is considered the first female writer from the Germanosphere, the first female historian, the first person since the Fall of the Roman Empire to write dramas in the Latin West,[2] and the first German female poet.[3]
Hrotsvitha's six short dramas are considered to be her most important works.[3] She is one of the few women who wrote about her life during the early Middle Ages, making her one of the only people to record a history of women in that era from a woman's perspective.[4] She has been called "the most remarkable woman of her time",[5] and an important figure in the history of women.[1]
Little is known about Hrotsvitha's personal life.[1] All
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