Wailes, Stephen L. Spirituality and Politics in the Works of Hrotsvit of Gandersheim

German Quarterly, The, Wntr, 2007 by Phyllis R. Brown

Wailes, Stephen L. Spirituality and Politics in the Works of Hrotsvit of Gandersheim. Selinsgrove, PA: Susquehanna University Press, 2006. 290 pp. $60.00 hardcover.

Stephen L. Wailes organizes his discussion of spirituality and politics in Hrotsvit of Gandersheim's works in three parts, "Stories," "Plays," and "Histories," with chapters on each of the works in the order presented by the principal manuscript. His introduction identifies St. Paul, Augustine of Hippo, Alcuin of York, and Alcuin's student Hrabanus Maurus as the authors most influential on Hrotsvit's thinking about spirituality, i.e., "the inner life of the individual," and politics, i.e., "the outer life of the statesman" (24). WaLles argues that St. Paul's teachings about the relationship between the flesh and the spirit--most likely made available to Hrotsvit by the aforementioned influential thinkers--result in Hrotsvit's belief that oppositions between flesh and spirit apply equally in spiritual and political situations. Therefore, everyone, whether pursuing secular or spiritual goals, makes the same choices between living "by man's standards or God's" (27).

The importance of Wailes's argument is particularly prominent in his chapter on the play "Drusiana and Calimachus," in which Wailes sees Hrotsvit asking "deep and difficult questions about the relationship of human thought and action to the justice and loving mercy of God" (148). The sensational plot affords Hrotsvit opportunities to explore Calimachus's sins of the flesh--sexual desire and necrophilia--alongside "Drusiana's spiritual malady of confusion, depression, and despair" and Fortunatus's "sin of envy and rejection of life" (162). Wailes argues that Drusiana's death is not the result of divine intervention; it results naturally from "spiritual and bodily morbidity" (157), from her bewilderment, anxiety, and helplessness "to envision any solution to the problem [of Callimachus's wooing] other than her own death" (156). The fact that her death intensifies the problem, when Callimachus attempts to violate her corpse, rather than solving it, highlights Drusiana's lack of faith and, Walles points out, indicates she has chosen the way of man rather than the way of God. Drusiana contrasts sharply with Constantia in "The Conversion of Gallicanus," who serenely trusts that if she and her father, Constantine, choose the way of God, He will sort out Constantine's conflict between his duty to honor his general Gallicanus's request to marry Constantia and his duty to honor Constantia's vow of chastity. God's direct interventions in the action of "Drusiana and Callimachus" indicate to Wailes that spiritual problems are vastly more important than the sexual ones, and the most insidious of these is Drusiana's tristitia. The sin of the spirit is more serious, but the choice--between choosing the way of man or the way of God--is the same for sins of the flesh and sins of the spirit. Rather than emphasize differences between sin of the flesh and sin of the spirit, Hrotsvit's writings as a whole celebrate God's inscrutable wisdom, power, and love as they apply to all the characters.

Particularly effective in Wailes's book are his discussions of intertextuality--both the relation of Hrotsvit's works to each other and the relation of her works to her sources and other textual influences. The book encourages readers to engage with all of Hrotsvit's writings in the order that likely was determined by Hrotsvit herself and to think about them in the context of major political events and the dominant theology of her times. Perhaps most significant is the evidence Wailes assembles demonstrating that virginity is a less important theme in Hrotsvit's writings than critics have tended to believe. Walles sees Hrotsvit asking her readers to consider what it means "to live as a Christian in the public sphere" (233), as abbesses, spiritual directors, military leaders, princes, wives and daughters of leaders--even as king and emperor. Her writings also raise questions about what it means when the private lives of Christians become part of greater political events. Walles argues that Hrotsvit's placement of the story "Mary" as the first of all her works invites readers to consider Dionysius, Agape and her sisters, and Sapientia and her daughters as "post-figuring ... the epochal transformation of a private into a public life in the history of the Virgin" (233). Wailes concludes that the spirituality of Christians and their actions, whether weak, imperfect, heroic or paradigmatic, are as important as explicitly political actions in Hrotsvit's writings.

Wailes's book briefly summarizes each of the works and provides an excellent introduction for readers new to Hrotsvit's oeuvre or new to the works less often discussed; it also provides Hrotsvit scholars with the impetus and a framework in which to rethink the stories, plays, histories, and Hrotsvit's prefaces and letters.

PHYLLIS R. BROWN

Santa Clara University