Summary Of Hrotsvitha's Play 'Gallicanus'

Hrotsvitha wrote liturgical plays that were never performed on stage and became the first medieval woman to write about female spirituality. The main themes Hrotsvit emphasized her writing on was the virginity of woman. In her plays, “Hrotsvit constructs a world in which women’s chastity and asceticism become sources of power and direct links to God and Christ in which male lust is the fault of men, which is seen as un-Christlike” (Wetmore 18). Gallicanus is a satire that focuses on male lust and the conversion to Christianity. In the Benedictine monastery at Bad Gandersheim in Saxony, the noble women in the convent may have read Gallicanus and her other works aloud. There is little evidence to support or deny this possibility but “if they were performed, the performances marked an auspicious beginning for women’s plays: a woman playwright and produced by women for an all-women audience within the context of a female community” (Case 35). Hrotsvitha is known to be of noble Saxon origin because only the daughters of aristocracy were admitted to Gandersheim. Her six plays imitated the works of the playwright Terence and would …show more content…
The play does not break the fourth wall, so there should not be any interaction between the actors and the audience. An example of this is when Gallicanus is on stage with Constantine discussing the reward for winning in battle. This scene is conversation and should not be seen as anything grand. The audience is being shown the work. The main characters of the play should be in disarray until the point where Gallicanus converts to Christianity. Once Gallicanus converts, everything in the plotline goes smoothly. There should be a sense of uncertainty throughout the play as Gallicanus could lose the battle and never convert to Christ. It creates a hope during the climax of the show where the character decided to give up his tragic flaw and become pure in the faith of