Her dramas, which, of all her works, have attracted the most attention, are seven in number. They deal with the moral and mental conflicts which characterized the period of transition from heathendom to Christianity. Some of them exhibit poetic talent of a high order as well as the inspiration and courage of genius. They reveal also a wide acquaintance with the classic authors of Rome and Greece, besides a knowledge of many of the Christian writers. They are, likewise, distinguished by originality of treatment, complete mastery of the material used, as well as by genuine beauty of rhyme and rhythm. In form, all the plays preserve the simple directness of their model, Terence, while, in conception, they embody the noblest ideals of Christian teaching. In marked contrast to her model, who invariably exhibits the frailties and lapses of woman, Hroswitha's plays turn on the resistance of her sex to temptation, and on their steadfast adherence to duty and to vows voluntarily assumed. A recent English writer, W. H. Hudson, in an appreciative estimate of the work of this learned Benedictine nun expresses himself as follows: "It is on the literary side alone that Hroswitha belongs to the classic school. The spirit and essence of her work belong entirely to the Middle Ages; for beneath the rigid garb of a dead language"--she wrote in Latin--"beats the warm heart of a new era. Everything in her plays that is not formal but essential, everything that is original and individual, belongs wholly to the Christianized Germany of the tenth century. Everywhere we can trace the influence of the atmosphere in which she lived; every thought and every motive is colored by the spiritual conditions of her time. The keynote of all her works is the conflict of Christianity with paganism; and it is worthy of remark that in Hroswitha's hands Christianity is throughout represented by the purity and gentleness of woman, while paganism is embodied in what she describes as the vigor of men--_virile robur_."[40] Among her legends the one entitled _The Lapse and Conversion of Theophilus_ has a special interest as being the precursor of the well-known legend of Faust.