A Companion to Byzantine Epistolography

A Companion to Byzantine Epistolography

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2020-06-22

Total Pages: 543

ISBN-13: 900442461X

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A Companion to Byzantine Epistolography offers the first comprehensive introduction and scholarly guide to the cultural practice and literary genre of letter-writing in the Byzantine Empire.


Epistolary Poetry in Byzantium and Beyond

Epistolary Poetry in Byzantium and Beyond

Author: Krystina Kubina

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-05-04

Total Pages: 426

ISBN-13: 1000375668

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Letters were an important medium of everyday communication in the ancient Mediterranean. Soon after its emergence, the epistolary form was adopted by educated elites and transformed into a literary genre, which developed distinctive markers and was used, for instance, to give political advice, to convey philosophical ideas, or to establish and foster ties with peers. A particular type of this genre is the letter cast in verse, or epistolary poem, which merges the form and function of the letter with stylistic elements of poetry. In Greek literature, epistolary poetry is first safely attested in the fourth century AD and would enjoy a lasting presence throughout the Byzantine and early modern periods. The present volume introduces the reader to this hitherto unexplored chapter of post-classical Greek literature through an anthology of exemplary epistolary poems in the original Greek with facing English translation. This collection, which covers a broad chronological range from late antique epigrams of the Greek Anthology to the poetry of western humanists, is accompanied by exegetical commentaries on the anthologized texts and by critical essays discussing questions of genre, literary composition, and historical and social contexts of selected epistolary poems. Chapters 3 and 4 of this book are freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/10.4324/9780429288296


A Companion to Byzantine Iconoclasm

A Companion to Byzantine Iconoclasm

Author: Mike Humphreys

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2021-09-27

Total Pages: 648

ISBN-13: 9004462007

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Twelve scholars contextualize and critically examine the key debates about the controversy over icons and their veneration that would fundamentally shape Byzantium and Orthodox Christianity.


A Companion to Byzantine Poetry

A Companion to Byzantine Poetry

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2019-05-06

Total Pages: 590

ISBN-13: 9004392882

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This book offers the first complete survey of the Byzantine poetic production (4th to 15th centuries). It examines the use of poetry in various sociocultural settings in Constantinople and various other centres of the Byzantine empire.


A Companion to the Intellectual Life of the Palaeologan Period

A Companion to the Intellectual Life of the Palaeologan Period

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2022-11-14

Total Pages: 531

ISBN-13: 9004527087

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Focuses on the scholarly interests of the intellectual elites during the last two centuries of Byzantium and the cultural environment in which they flourished, as well as the interaction between secular and church circles in Constantinople, Thessaloniki, Athos and beyond.


The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies

The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies

Author: Elizabeth Jeffreys

Publisher:

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 1053

ISBN-13: 0199252467

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The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies presents discussions by leading experts on all significant aspects of this diverse and fast-growing field. Byzantine Studies deals with the history and culture of the Byzantine Empire, the eastern half of the Late Roman Empire, from the fourth to the fourteenth century. Its centre was the city formerly known as Byzantium, refounded as Constantinople in 324 CE, the present-day Istanbul. Under its emperors, patriarchs, and all-pervasive bureaucracy Byzantium developed a distinctive society: Greek in language, Roman in legal system, and Christian in religion. Byzantium's impact in the European Middle Ages is hard to over-estimate, as a bulwark against invaders, as a meeting-point for trade from Asia and the Mediterranean, as a guardian of the classical literary and artistic heritage, and as a creator of its own magnificent artistic style.


A Companion to Byzantium

A Companion to Byzantium

Author: Liz James

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2010-01-29

Total Pages: 488

ISBN-13: 9781444320022

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Using new methodological and theoretical approaches, A Companionto Byzantium presents an overview of the Byzantine world fromits inception in 330 A.D. to its fall to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. Provides an accessible overview of eleven centuries ofByzantine society Introduces the most recent scholarship that is transforming thefield of Byzantine studies Emphasizes Byzantium's social and cultural history, as well asits material culture Explores traditional topics and themes through freshperspectives


Theodore Metochites

Theodore Metochites

Author: Ioannis Polemis

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2023-12-28

Total Pages: 217

ISBN-13: 0755651405

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The statesman and scholar Theodore Metochites was one of the most important personalities of the fourteenth-century Byzantine Empire. A close advisor to the emperor Andronikos II and restorer of the famous monastery of Chora in Constantinople, Metochites left various writings including orations, poems, essays and commentaries on classical and religious texts, in which he discusses the numerous problems that troubled him and his contemporaries, such as the decline of the state and the tension between public life and that of the philosopher. In this book, Ioannis Polemis provides the first in-depth study of Metochites' oeuvre, revealing the complex way he represented the authorial self to critique the politics and mores of his day, whilst at the same time shielding himself from potential criticism. Polemis details the way Metochites deftly manipulated figures and tropes from classical antiquity and early Christianity to justify his role in public life, which was traditionally shunned by scholars in the pursuit of 'logos'. The book provides unique insights into one of the late Empire's most important figures, as well as more widely deepening our understanding of classical reception in Byzantium and the social, political and intellectual climate of Constantinople in the fourteenth century.


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)

Author: Foteini Spingou

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2022-04-21

Total Pages: 1683

ISBN-13: 1108643906

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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.


Byzantine Commentaries on Ancient Greek Texts, 12th–15th Centuries

Byzantine Commentaries on Ancient Greek Texts, 12th–15th Centuries

Author: Baukje van den Berg

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2022-09-08

Total Pages: 397

ISBN-13: 1009092782

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This is the first volume to explore the commentaries on ancient texts produced and circulating in Byzantium. It adopts a broad chronological perspective (from the twelfth to the fifteenth century) and examines different types of commentaries on ancient poetry and prose within the context of the study and teaching of grammar, rhetoric, philosophy and science. By discussing the exegetical literature of the Byzantines as embedded in the socio-cultural context of the Komnenian and Palaiologan periods, the book analyses the frameworks and networks of knowledge transfer, patronage and identity building that motivated the Byzantine engagement with the ancient intellectual and literary tradition.