SOURCE: "The Nun's Epic: Hroswitha on Christian Heroism" in Wege der Worte: Festschrift für Wolfgang Fleischhauer, edited by Donald C. Riechel, Böhlau Verlag, 1978, pp. 132-42.

In the following essay, Kratz examines Hroswitha's Latin epic Gesta Ottonis, concluding that it is "among the most successful attempts in the history of Latin literature to adapt the epic genre for the expression of a Christian definition of heroic excellence."

Best known for the comedies which she wrote in order to provide her Benedictine sisters a Christian alternative to the comedies of Terence, Hroswitha of Gandersheim stands as a unique figure in the history not only of Latin drama but of epic as well. Her Gesta Ottonis and Primordia Coenobii Gandeshemensis are the only Latin epics we possess which were composed by a woman.¹ While the latter poem is not without merit, the Gesta Ottonis, to which this essay is...