Digenes Akrites

Digenes Akrites PDF Author: Roderick Beaton
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351944177
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
Called variously the ’Byzantine epic’, the ’epic of Modern Greece’, an ’epic-romance’ and ’romance’, the poem of Digenes Akrites has, since its rediscovery towards the end of the nineteenth century, exerted a tenacious hold on the imagination of scholars from a wide range of disciplines and from many countries of the world, as well as of writers and public figures in Greece. There are many reasons for this, not least among them the prestige accorded to ’national epics’ in the nineteenth century and for some time afterwards. Another reason must surely be the work’s uniqueness: there is nothing quite like Digenes Akrites in either Byzantine or Modern Greek literature. However, this uniqueness is not confined to its problematic place in the literary ’canon’ and literary history. As historical testimony, and in its complex relationship to later oral song and to older myth and story-telling, Digenes Akrites again has no close parallels of comparable length in Byzantine or Modern Greek culture. Whether as a literary text, a historical source, or a manifestation of an oral popular culture, Digenes Akrites remains, more than a century after its rediscovery, persistently enigmatic. This Byzantine ’epic’ or ’romance’ has now become the focus of new research across a range of disciplines since the publication in 1985 of a radically revised edition based on the Escorial text of the poem, by Stylianos Alexiou. The papers in this volume, derived from a conference held in May 1992 at King’s College London, seeks to present and discuss the results of this new research. Digenes Akrites: New Approaches to Byzantine Heroic Poetry is the second in the series published by Variorum for the Centre for Hellenic Studies, King’s College London.

Digenes Akrites

Digenes Akrites PDF Author: Roderick Beaton
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351944177
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
Called variously the ’Byzantine epic’, the ’epic of Modern Greece’, an ’epic-romance’ and ’romance’, the poem of Digenes Akrites has, since its rediscovery towards the end of the nineteenth century, exerted a tenacious hold on the imagination of scholars from a wide range of disciplines and from many countries of the world, as well as of writers and public figures in Greece. There are many reasons for this, not least among them the prestige accorded to ’national epics’ in the nineteenth century and for some time afterwards. Another reason must surely be the work’s uniqueness: there is nothing quite like Digenes Akrites in either Byzantine or Modern Greek literature. However, this uniqueness is not confined to its problematic place in the literary ’canon’ and literary history. As historical testimony, and in its complex relationship to later oral song and to older myth and story-telling, Digenes Akrites again has no close parallels of comparable length in Byzantine or Modern Greek culture. Whether as a literary text, a historical source, or a manifestation of an oral popular culture, Digenes Akrites remains, more than a century after its rediscovery, persistently enigmatic. This Byzantine ’epic’ or ’romance’ has now become the focus of new research across a range of disciplines since the publication in 1985 of a radically revised edition based on the Escorial text of the poem, by Stylianos Alexiou. The papers in this volume, derived from a conference held in May 1992 at King’s College London, seeks to present and discuss the results of this new research. Digenes Akrites: New Approaches to Byzantine Heroic Poetry is the second in the series published by Variorum for the Centre for Hellenic Studies, King’s College London.

Digenis Akritis

Digenis Akritis PDF Author: Elizabeth Jeffreys
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521394727
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 472

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Book Description
Digenis Akritis is Byzantium's only epic poem, telling of the exploits of a heroic warrior of 'double descent' on the frontiers between Byzantine and Arab territory in Asia Minor in the ninth and tenth centuries. It survives in six versions, of which the two oldest, dating from the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, are presented here in an edited version. The manuscripts are preserved in the Grottaferrata monastery near Rome and the Escorial Library in Spain. Behind these two versions lies a twelfth-century poem that can now be glimpsed at but not reconstructed. This edition and translation aims at highlighting the nature of the lost poem, and at providing a guide through the maze of recent discussions about the epic and its background.

Digenis Akritas, the Two-blood Border Lord : the Grottaferrata Version

Digenis Akritas, the Two-blood Border Lord : the Grottaferrata Version PDF Author: Denison B. Hull
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
Among the epic romances of post-Barbarian Europe, such as Roland and El Cid, Digenis Akritas has been the least known in the West. It is the story of a half-breed prince who guarded the Roman Empire of Byzantium on the Euphrates in the tenth century. This new translation recaptures an urbane vanished civilization.

The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Literature

The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Literature PDF Author: Stratis Papaioannou
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199351767
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 785

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Book Description
In twenty-five chapters by leading scholars, this volume propagates a nuanced understanding of Byzantine "literature", highlighting key problems, and presenting basic research tools for an audience of specialists and non-specialists.

The Routledge Handbook of Gender and Sexuality in Byzantium

The Routledge Handbook of Gender and Sexuality in Byzantium PDF Author: Mati Meyer
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040043453
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 549

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Book Description
This Handbook is the first to consider the interrelated subjects of gender and sexuality in the Eastern Roman Empire from an interdisciplinary perspective. Drawing on both modern theories and Byzantine perceptions, and considering multiple periods and religions (Eastern Orthodox, Islamic, and Jewish), it provides evidentiary textual and visual material support for an analysis of the two linked themes. Broadly, the essays demonstrate that gender and sexual constructs in Byzantium were porous. As a result, they expand our knowledge of not only how sex and gender were conceived and performed but also how ideas and practices shaped Byzantine life. The Routledge Handbook of Gender and Sexuality in Byzantium will be an indispensable guide for students and scholars of late antique and Byzantine religion, history, culture, and art, who will find it a useful critical survey of current scholarship and one that shines new light in their areas of research. The focus on issues of gender and sexuality may also be of interest to individuals concerned with Eastern Mediterranean culture, as well as to the broader public. Chapter 21 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

The Medieval Greek Romance

The Medieval Greek Romance PDF Author: Roderick Beaton
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134810296
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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Book Description
First published by CUP in 1989, The Medieval Greek Romance provides basic information for the non-specialist about Greek fiction during the period 1071-1453, as well as proposing new solutions to problems that have vexed previous generations of scholars. Roderick Beaton applies sophisticated methods of literary analysis to the material, and the bridges of the artificial gap which has separated `Byzantine'literature, in a form of ancient Greek as both homogenous and of a high level of literary sophistication. Throughout, consideration is given to relations and interconnections with similar literature in western Europe. As most of the texts discussed are not available in English translation, the argument is illustrated by lucid plot summaries and extensive quotation (accompanied by literal English renderings). For this edition, The Medieval Greek Romance has been revised throughout and expanded with the addition of an `Afterword' which assesses and responds to recent work on the subject.

The Byzantine Warrior Hero

The Byzantine Warrior Hero PDF Author: Chrysovalantis Kyriacou
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1793621993
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description
Chrysovalantis Kyriacou examines how memories of the pre-Christian past, Christian militarism, power struggles, and ethnoreligious encounters have left their long-term imprint on Cypriot culture. One of the most impressive examples of this phenomenon is the preservation and transformative adaptation of Byzantine heroic themes, motifs, and symbols in Cypriot folk songs. By combining a variety of written sources and archaeological material in his interdisciplinary examination, the author reconstructs the image of the Byzantine warrior hero in the songs, recovering the mentalities of overshadowed social protagonists and stressing the role of subaltern communities as active agents in the shaping of history.

Sources for Byzantine Art History: Volume 3, The Visual Culture of Later Byzantium (1081–c.1350)

Sources for Byzantine Art History: Volume 3, The Visual Culture of Later Byzantium (1081–c.1350) PDF Author: Foteini Spingou
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108643906
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1683

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Book Description
In this book the beauty and meaning of Byzantine art and its aesthetics are for the first time made accessible through the original sources. More than 150 medieval texts are translated from nine medieval languages into English, with commentaries from over seventy leading scholars. These include theories of art, discussions of patronage and understandings of iconography, practical recipes for artistic supplies, expressions of devotion, and descriptions of cities. The volume reveals the cultural plurality and the interconnectivity of medieval Europe and the Mediterranean from the late eleventh to the early fourteenth centuries. The first part uncovers salient aspects of Byzantine artistic production and its aesthetic reception, while the second puts a spotlight on particular ways of expressing admiration and of interpreting of the visual.

Architecture and Hagiography in the Ottoman Empire

Architecture and Hagiography in the Ottoman Empire PDF Author: Zeynep Yürekli
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317179404
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Based on a thorough examination of buildings, inscriptions, archival documents and hagiographies, this book uncovers the political significance of Bektashi shrines in the Ottoman imperial age. It thus provides a fresh and comprehensive account of the formative process of the Bektashi order, which started out as a network of social groups that took issue with Ottoman imperial policies in the late fifteenth century, was endorsed imperially as part of Bayezid II's (r. 1481-1512) soft power policy, and was kept in check by imperial authorities as the Ottoman approach to the Safavid conflict hardened during the rest of the sixteenth century. This book demonstrates that it was a combination of two collective activities that established the primary parameters of Bektashi culture from the late fifteenth century onwards. One was the writing of Bektashi hagiographies; they linked hitherto distinct social groups (such as wandering dervishes and warriors) with each other through the lives of historical figures who were their patron saints, idols and identity markers (such as the saint Hacı Bektaş and the martyr Seyyid Gazi), while incorporating them into Ottoman history in creative ways. The other one was the architectural remodelling of the saints' shrines. In terms of style, imagery and content, this interrelated literary and architectural output reveals a complicated process of negotiation with the imperial order and its cultural paradigms. Examined in more detail in the book are the shrines of Seyyid Gazi and Hacı Bektaş and associated legends and hagiographies. Though established as independent institutions in medieval Anatolia, they were joined in the emerging Bektashi network under the Ottomans, became its principal centres and underwent radical architectural transformation, mainly under the patronage of raider commanders based in the Balkans. In the process, they thus came to occupy an intermediary socio-political zone between the Ottoman empire and its contestants in the sixteenth century.

Mythology in the Middle Ages

Mythology in the Middle Ages PDF Author: Christopher R. Fee
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313027250
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Book Description
Placing heroes from a wide range of medieval traditions shoulder to shoulder, this title provides the opportunity to examine what is common across medieval mythic, legendary, and folkloric traditions, as well as what seems unique. Myths of gods, legends of battles, and folktales of magic abound in the heroic narratives of the Middle Ages. Mythology in the Middle Ages: Heroic Tales of Monsters, Magic, and Might describes how Medieval heroes were developed from a variety of source materials: Early pagan gods become euhemerized through a Christian lens, and an older epic heroic sensibility was exchanged for a Christian typological and figural representation of saints. Most startlingly, the faces of Christian martyrs were refracted through a heroic lens in the battles between Christian standard-bearers and their opponents, who were at times explicitly described in demonic terms. The book treats readers to a fantastic adventure as author Christopher R. Fee guides them on the trail of some of the greatest heroes of medieval literature. Discussing the meanings of medieval mythology, legend, and folklore through a wide variety of fantastic episodes, themes, and motifs, the journey takes readers across centuries and through the mythic, legendary, and folkloric imaginations of different peoples. Coverage ranges from the Atlantic and Baltic coasts of Europe, south into the Holy Roman Empire, west through the Iberian peninsula, and into North Africa. From there, it is east to Byzantium, Russia, and even the far reaches of Persia.