This book investigates issues of identity and narrativity in late Byzantine romances in a Mediterranean context, covering the chronological span from the capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204 to the 16th century. It includes chapters not only on romances that were written and read in the broader Byzantine world but also on literary texts from regions around the Mediterranean Sea. The volume offers new insights and covers a variety of interrelated subjects concerning the narrative representations of self-identities, gender, and communities, the perception of political and cultural otherness, and the interaction of space and time with identity formation. The chapters focus on texts from the Byzantine, western European, and Ottoman worlds, thus promoting a cross-cultural approach that highlights the role of the Mediterranean as a shared environment that facilitated communications, cultural interaction, and the trading and reconfiguration of identities. The volume will appeal to a wide audience of researchers and students alike, specializing in or simply interested in cultural studies, Byzantine, western medieval, and Ottoman history and literature.

The corpus of Palaiologan romances consists of about a dozen works of imaginative fiction from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries which narrate the trials and tribulations of aristocratic young lovers. This volume brings together leading scholars of Byzantine literature to examine the corpus afresh and aims to be the definitive work on the subject, suitable for scholars and students of all levels. It offers interdisciplinary and transnational approaches which demonstrate the aesthetic and cultural value of these works in their own right and their centrality to the medieval and early modern Greek, European and Mediterranean literary traditions. From a historical perspective, the volume also emphasizes how the romances represent a turning point in the history of Greek letters: they are a repository of both ancient and medieval oral poetic and novelistic traditions and yet are often considered the earliest works of Modern Greek literature.

The late Byzantine period (thirteenth to fifteenth centuries) was marked by both cultural fecundity and political fragmentation, resulting in an astonishingly multifaceted literary output. This book addresses the poetry of the empire’s final quarter-millennium from a broad perspective, bringing together studies on texts originating in places from Crete to Constantinople and from court to school, treating topics from humanist antiquarianism to pious self-help, and written in styles from the vernacular to Homeric language. It thus offers a reference work to a much-neglected but rich textual material that is as varied as it was potent in the sociocultural contexts of its times. Contributors are Theodora Antonopoulou, Marina Bazzani, Julián Bértola, Martin Hinterberger, Krystina Kubina, Marc D. Lauxtermann, Florin Leonte, Ugo Mondini, Brendan Osswald, Giulia M. Paoletti, Cosimo Paravano, Daniil Pleshak, Alberto Ravani, and Federica Scognamiglio.

This volume offers the first fully scholarly translation into English of the Tale of Livistros and Rodamne, a love romance written around the middle of 13th century at the imperial court of Nicaea, at the time when Constantinople was still under Latin dominion. With its approximately 4600 verses, Livistros and Rodamne is the longest and the most artfully composed of the eight surviving Byzantine love romances. It was almost certainly composed to be recited in front of an aristocratic audience by an educated poet experienced in the Greek tradition of erotic fiction, yet at the same time knowledgeable of the Medieval French and Persian romances of love and adventure. The poet has created a very modern narrative filled with attractive episodes, including the only scene of demonic incantation in Byzantine fiction. The language of the romance is of a high poetic quality, challenging the translator at every step. Finally, Livistros and Rodamne is the only Byzantine romance that consistently constructs the Latin world of chivalry as an exotic setting, a type of occidentalism aiming to tame and to incorporate the Frankish Other in the social norms of the Byzantine Self after the Fall of Constantinople to the Latins in 1204.

"This book investigates issues of identity and narrativity in late Byzantine romances in a Mediterranean context, covering the chronological span from the capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204 to the sixteenth century. It includes chapters not only on romances that were written and read in the broader Byzantine world but also on literary texts from regions around the Mediterranean Sea. The volume offers new insights and covers a variety of interrelated subjects concerning the narrative representations of self-identities, gender, and communities, the perception of political and cultural otherness, and the interaction of space and time with identity formation. The chapters focus on texts from the Byzantine, western European, and Ottoman worlds, thus promoting a cross-cultural approach that highlights the role of the Mediterranean as a shared environment that facilitated communications, cultural interaction, and the trading and reconfiguration of identities. The volume will appeal to a wide audience of researchers and students alike specializing or simply interested in cultural studies, Byzantine, western medieval, and Ottoman history and literature"--

This book offers the first complete overview of Byzantine poetry from the 4th to the 15th century. By bringing together 22 scholars, it explores the development of poetic trends and the interaction between poetry and society throughout the Byzantine millennium; it addresses a wide range of issues concerning the writing and reading of poetry (such as style, language, metrics, function, and circulation); and it surveys a large number of texts by looking closely at their place within the social and cultural milieus of their authors. Overall, the volume aims to enhance our understanding of Byzantine poetry and shed light on its important place in Byzantine literary culture. Contributors are Eirini Afentoulidou, Gianfranco Agosti, Roderick Beaton, Floris Bernard, Carolina Cupane, Kristoffel Demoen, Ivan Drpic, Jürgen Fuchsbauer, Antonia Giannouli, Martin Hinterberger, Wolfram Hörandner, Elizabeth Jeffreys, Michael Jeffreys, Marc Lauxtermann, Ingela Nilsson, Emilie van Opstall, Andreas Rhoby, Kurt Smolak, Foteini Spingou, Maria Tomadaki, Ioannis Vassis, Nikos Zagklas.

The first comprehensive introduction in English to books, readers and reading in Byzantium and the wider medieval world surrounding it.

The two-volume study Byzantine Poetry from Pisides to Geometres. Texts and Contexts, constitutes a survey of Byzantine poems written between ca. 600 and 1000, with particular emphasis on the historical contexts that generated these texts. It is a study of literary genres set against the background of historical developments that changed Byzantine culture fundamentally. In this first volume the author deals with contextual and textual problems of Byzantine poetry (chapters 1-3) and treats various kinds of the Byzantine epigram (chapters 4-9). The book concludes with 10 appendices that present the material evidence: manuscripts and verse inscriptions. \nThe book is of interest to historians, art historians and philologists; as all the texts are translated, it can also be read by scholars with little or no knowledge of Byzantine Greek.

This book offers a study into the perceptions of ancient and medieval Iran in the Byzantine Empire, as well as the effects of Persian culture upon Byzantine intellectualism, society, and culture. Byzantine Ideas of Persia, 650-1461 focuses on the place of ancient Persia in Byzantine cultural memory, both in the "religious" and the "secular" sense. By analysing a wide range of historical sources – from church literature to belles-lettres – this book provides an examination of the place of ancient Persia in Byzantine cultural memory, as well as the place and function of Persian motifs in the Byzantine mentality. Additionally, the author uses these sources to analyse thoroughly the knowledge Byzantines had about contemporary Iranian culture, the presence of ethnic Iranians and the circulation and usage of the Persian language in Byzantium. Finally, this book discusses the importance and influence of Iranian science on Byzantine scholars. This book will appeal to scholars and students interested in Byzantine and Iranian History, particularly in reference to the cross-cultural and social influence of the two societies during the Middle Ages.

It is only in recent years that Byzantine poetry - a long-neglected aspect of Byzantine literature - has attracted the attention of philologists, literary and cultural historians. This holds true especially for the poetry written in middle and late Byzantium. Though many collections of poems are available in modern critical editions, a considerable amount of texts still remains completely unedited or accessible only in outdated and unreliable editions. Moreover, many works of this period have never been studied thoroughly with regard to their cultural impact on society. Issues of authorship and patronage, function, literary motives, generic qualities, and manuscripts still await further study. This volume aims to take a step to fill this gap. Although it includes studies on poetry from the early tenth to the fifteenth centuries, the main focus is placed on the Komnenian and Palaeologan times. It presents editions of completely unknown texts, such as a twelfth-century cycle of epigrams on John Klimax. It includes studies on various types of poetry, including didactic, occasional, and even poetry written for liturgical purposes. By analysing these works and placing them within their literary and socio-cultural context, we can draw conclusions about the cultural tastes of the Byzantines and acquire a more nuanced picture of middle and late Byzantine poetry.