Willetrudis. Verses about Susanna
Latin Text with Running Vocabulary and Commentary
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Willetrudis was a nun, perhaps an abbess, who likely lived in twelfth-century England. Her dē Sūsannā is an original and at times defiant retelling of the biblical story of Susanna in hexameter verse. Pushing back against an interpretive tradition that had increasingly come to emphasize Susanna’s physical beauty, Willetrudis centers her narrative on Susanna’s voice and her virtuous resistance. Willetrudis addresses the poem to her sorōrēs, her fellow nuns, which means that with dē Sūsannā, we have something distinctive in the medieval period: a Latin poem written by a woman, about a woman, for women. This edition presents the Latin text of dē Sūsannā along with a running vocabulary and commentary, as well as the first-ever translation of the work into English.
Author(s)
Willetrudis
Editor(s)
Abbe Walker, Charles Drew White, Emmeline Murphy, Grace Richards, Isabel Tolman-Bronski, Lauren Kelley, Merlin Gouesse, Natalie Peterson, Sophie Pong