Although Greek and Roman authors wrote ethnographic texts describing foreign cultures, ethnography seems to disappear from Byzantine literature after the seventh century C.E.-a perplexing exception ...for a culture so strongly self-identified with the Roman empire. Yet the Byzantines, geographically located at the heart of the upheavals that led from the ancient to the modern world, had abundant and sophisticated knowledge of the cultures with which they struggled and bargained.Ethnography After Antiquityexamines both the instances and omissions of Byzantine ethnography, exploring the political and religious motivations for writing (or not writing) about other peoples. Through the ethnographies embedded in classical histories, military manuals, Constantine VII'sDe administrando imperio, and religious literature, Anthony Kaldellis shows Byzantine authors using accounts of foreign cultures as vehicles to critique their own state or to demonstrate Romano-Christian superiority over Islam. He comes to the startling conclusion that the Byzantines did not view cultural differences through a purely theological prism: their Roman identity, rather than their orthodoxy, was the vital distinction from cultures they considered heretic and barbarian. Filling in the previously unexplained gap between antiquity and the resurgence of ethnography in the late Byzantine period,Ethnography After Antiquityoffers new perspective on how Byzantium positioned itself with and against the dramatically shifting world.
Arguing it Out Cameron, Averil
2016, 20160130, 2016-01-01, 2016-01-30
eBook
The author’s argument starts from a kind of literature that has not so far seemed important enough to be included in this new wave of publications on the literary and intellectual culture of the day. ...The study contends that Byzantium deserves its place in the broader development of Europe, even as it also reaches out to the vast territories of Anatolia and the Caucasus, and to the eastern Mediterranean. The long twelfth century from the seizure of the throne by Alexius I Comnenus in 1081 to the sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204 is a period recognized as one of the most brilliant in Byzantine history in cultural terms, especially in terms of its literary production. The study focuses on the prose dialogues in Greek from this period—of very varying kinds—and on what they can tell us about the society and culture of the era when western Europe was itself developing a new culture of schools, universities, and scholars. Yet it was also one in which Byzantium felt the fateful impact of the Crusades, and which ended with the momentous sack of Constantinople in 1204. Despite revisionist attempts to play down the extent of this disaster, it was a blow from which arguably the Byzantines never fully recovered.
Nonnus of Panopolis in Context III, edited by Filip Doroszewski and Katarzyna Jażdżewska, explores both old and new questions about the poet and his works ‒ the grand mythological epic Dionysiaca and ...the hexameter Paraphrase of St. John's Gospel.
The Clementine novel (written in the 4th century CE and set in the 1st century CE) incorporates a palette of comic features. Using the “Taxonomy of ” and the “Script Theory” developed by Attardo and ...Raskin within the framework of the General Theory of Verbal Humour, this essay examines some of these comic features, focussing on the so called “meta-textual comic” – i.e., the comic effect that uses a manipulation of the plot’s structure to elicit laughter from the reader.
Rhetoric and Rhythm in Byzantium takes a fresh look at rhetorical rhythm and its theory and practice, highlighting the close affinity between rhythm and argument. Based on material from Byzantine and ...Old Church Slavonic homilies and from Byzantine rhetorical commentaries, the book redefines and expands our understanding of both Byzantine and Old Church Slavonic prose rhythm. It positions rhetorical rhythm at the intersection of prose and poetry and explores its role in argumentation and persuasion, suggesting that rhetorical rhythm can carry across linguistic boundaries, and in general aims to demonstrate the stylistic and argumentative importance of rhythm in rhetorical practice. Along the way, it challenges the entrenched separation between content and style and emphasizes the role of rhythm as a tool of invention and a means of creating shared emotional experience.
This volume presents a broad array of contributions on Byzantine literature and culture, in which well-known Byzantinists approach topics of ceremonial, education, historiography, hagiography, ...homiletics, law, philology, philosophy, prosopography, rhetoric and theology. New editions and analyses of texts and documents are included. The essays combine traditional scholarship with newer approaches, thus reflecting the current dynamics of the field.
The 'long' fourteenth century perhaps can be seen as Thessalonica's heyday. Alongside its growing commercial prowess, the city was developing into an important centre of government, where members of ...the Byzantine imperial family of the Palaiologoi ruled independently under full imperial titles, striking coinage and following an increasingly autonomous external policy. It was also developing into a formidable centre for letters, education, and artistic expression, due in part to Palaiologan patronage. This volume sets out the political and commercial landscape of Thessalonica between 1303 and 1430, when the city fell to the Ottoman Turks, before focusing on the literary and hymnographical aspects of the city's cultural history and its legacy. The cosmopolitan nature of urban life in Thessalonica, the polyphony of opinions it experienced and expressed, its multiple links with centres such as Constantinople, Adrianople, Athos, Lemnos and Lesvos, and the diversity and strength of its authorial voices make the study of the city's cultural life a vital part of our understanding of the Byzantine Eastern Mediterranean.
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.
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