Publication details
Znovu o Hrotsvitě z Gandersheimu
| Title in English | Hrotswith of Gandersheim again (in memoriam Evae Stehlíková) |
|---|---|
| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2021 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Acta historica Universitatis Silesianae Opaviensis |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| web | webová stránka časopisu |
| Keywords | Medieval latin Literatur; medieval epics; monasticism; Hrotsvith of Gandersheim; Ottonian Dynasty; Eva Stehlíková |
| Description | A German author and a canoness of the Saxon monastery in Gandersheim Hrotsvitha (932/935 – cca 975) is not only the author of six well-known dramatic compositions: she also composed eight verse legends and two smaller historical epics, Gesta Ottonis and Primordia coenobii Gandeshemensis. The study first briefly acquaints with the current international research on Hrotsvitha’s literary activity, then it focuses on Czech literary medievalism. It is in this area that Eva Stehlíková (1941–2021) did a very meritorious academic, popularization, and translation work; this article is dedicated to her. Czech translations of Hrotsvitha’s dramatic compositions have been written since the 1970s; the study informs about them and comments on them more thoroughly: the attention is focused (following the work of prof. Stehlíková) on the question of whether it is necessary or appropriate to imitate in modern translations one of Hrotsvitha’s specific instrument – the rhyming prose. The study also recalls the lesser-known fact that Hrotsvitha’s dramatic composition Dulcitius was used by the composer Jan Novák as a libretto for his opera of the same name. The second part of the study brings, in its author’s Czech translation, a commented set of texts from both historical epics. These are laudatory passages, so-called laudationes, that celebrate personalities from the Ottonian dynasty, including several prominent female figures. Based on this material, the study tries to characterize Hrotsvitha’s style and recall some instruments of her poetics, such as the use of so-called loci communes (especially the motif of the author’s modesty) or metaphorical typology (Otto the Great as King David, etc.). |