The following is from a 1911 Encyclopedia, now in the public domain. The language and historical information reflect the times and may not be in accord with more recent standards and information. It is presented here as a resource for research.
The Munich MS., which contains all the works enumerated above except the Chronicle of Gandersheim, was edited by the great Vienna humanist, Conrad Celtes, in 1501. The edition of Celtes was published at Nuremberg, with eight wood-cuts by Albrecht Durer. It was re-edited by H. L. Schurzfleisch and published at Wittenberg in 1707. The comedies have been edited and translated into German by J. Bendixen (Lubeck, 1857), and into French by C. Magnin (Paris, 1845), whose introduction gives a full account of the authoress and her works. See also her Poesies latines, with a translation into French verse by V. Retif de la Bretonne (Paris, 1854). A copious analysis of her plays will be found in Klein, Geschichte des Dramas, iii. 665-754. See also W. Creizenach, Geschichte des neueren Dramas, i. 17 sqq. (Halle, 1893), and A. W. Ward, History of English Dramatic Literature, i. 6 sqq. (Cambridge, 1899). Gustav Freytag wrote a dissertation, De Rosuitha poetria (Breslau, 1839), to qualify himself as an academical teacher, which, as he records (Erinnerungen aus meinem Leben, Leipzig, 1887, p. 1839), showed "how impossible it was to the German, a thousand years since, to compose dramatically"; and at the beginning of Albert Cohn's Shakespeare in Germany (Berlin, 1865) Shakespearean parallels are suggested to certain passages in Hrosvitha's dramas. Her two chronicles in verse were edited by Z. H. Pertz in the Monumenta Germaniae, iv. 306-335 (Hanover, 1841). See also J. P. Migne, Patrologiae curs. compl. (Paris, 1853, vol. 137). The Carmen was included by Leibnitz in his Scrsptores rer. Brunsvic. (Hanover, 1707-1711). For other early editions of these see A. Potthast, Bibliotheca historica medii aevi (supplement, Berlin, 1862-1868); and for an appreciation of them see Wattenbach, Geschichtsquellen, pp. 214-216, and Giesebrecht, Deutsche Kaiserzeit, i. 780, who mentions a German translation by Pfund (1860). There is a complete edition of the works of Hrosvitha by K. A. Barack (Nurnberg, 1858). J. Aschbach (1867) attempted to prove that Celtes had forged the productions which he published under the name of Hrosvitha, but he was refuted by R. Kiipke (Berlin, 1869). Anatole France, La Vie litteraire (3eme serie, Paris, 1891), cited by Creienach, mentions a curious recent experiment, the performance of Hrosvitha's comedies in the Theatre des Marionettes at Paris. (A. W. W.)
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