Byzantine literature | Wikipedia audio article
byzantine literature as the greek literature of the Middle Ages whether written in the territory of the Byzantine Empire or outside its borders it forms the second period in the history of Greek literature after ancient Greek literature although popular Byzantine literature and early modern Greek literature both began in the 11th century the two are indistinguishable topic characteristics many of the classical Greek genres such as drama and choral lyric poetry had been obsolete by late antiquity and all medieval literature in the Greek language was written in an archiving style which imitated the writers of ancient Greece this practice was perpetuated by a long-established system of Greek education where rhetoric was a leading subject a typical product of this Byzantine education was the Greek church fathers who shared the literary values of their pagan contemporaries consequently the vast Christian literature of the 3rd to 6th centuries established a synthesis of hellenic and christian thought as a result Byzantine literature was largely written in a style of at a Cystic Greek far removed from the popular medieval Greek that was spoken by all classes of Byzantine society in their everyday lives in addition this literary style was also removed from the coin Greek language of the New Testament reaching back to Homer and the writers of ancient Athens in this manner the culture of the Byzantine Empire was marked for over 1000 years by ad I glass II between two different forms of the same language which were used for different purposes however the relations between the high and low forms of Greek changed over the centuries the prestige of the Attic literature remained undiminished until the 7th century AD but in the following 2 centuries when the existence of the Byzantine Empire was threatened city life and education declined and along with them the use of the classicizing language and style the political recovery of the 9th century instigated a literary revival in which a conscious attempt was made to recreate the Hellenic Christian literary culture of late antiquity simple or popular Greek was avoided in literary use and many of the early Saints lives were rewritten in an archiving style by the 12th century the cultural confidence of the Byzantine Greeks led them to develop new literary genres such as romantic fiction in which adventure and love are the main elements satire made occasional use of elements from spoken Greek the period from the Fourth Crusade to the fall of Constantinople saw a vigorous revival of imitative classicizing literature as the Greeks sought to assert their cultural superiority over the militarily more powerful West at the same time there was the beginning of a flourishing literature in an approximation to the vernacular modern Greek however the vernacular literature was limited to poetic romances and popular devotional writing all serious literature continued to make use of the archiving language of learned Greek tradition Byzantine literature has two sources classical Greek and Orthodox Christian tradition each of those sources provided a series of models and references for the Byzantine writer and his readers in occasion both sources were referred to side by side for example when Emperor Alexius Komnenos justified his actions of seizing church property to pay his soldiers by referring to the earlier examples of Pericles in the biblical King David topic Greek the oldest of these three civilizations as the Greek centered not in Athens but in Alexandria and Hellenistic civilization Alexandria through this period as the center of both ad a sizing scholarship and of Greek o Judaic social life looking towards Athens as well as towards Jerusalem this intellectual dualism between the culture of scholars and that of the people permeates the Byzantine period even Hellenistic literature exhibits two distinct tendencies one rationalistic and scholarly the other romantic and popular the former originated in the schools of the Alexandrian Sophists and culminated in the rhetorical romance the latter rooted in the idyllic tendency of theocritus and culminated in the idyllic novel both tendencies persisted in Byzantium but the first as the one officially recognized retained predominance and was not driven from the field until the fall of the empire the reactionary linguistic movement known as addis ism supported and enforced this scholarly tendency addis ism prevailed from the second century BC onward controlling all subsequent Greek culture so that the living form of the Greek language was obscured and only occasionally found expression in private documents and popular literature topic Roman Alexandria the intellectual center is balanced by Rome the center of government it is as a Roman Empire that the Byzantine state first entered history its citizens were known as Romans Roman its capital as new Rome Constantinople its laws were Roman so where it’s government its army and its official class and at first also its language and its private and public life the organization of the state was very similar to that of the Roman Imperial period including its hierarchy and bureaucratic elite topic Christian it was in Alexandria that Grieco oriental Christianity had its birth there the Septuagint translation had been made there that that fusion of Greek philosophy and Jewish religion took place which culminated in filo the flourished the mystic speculative Neoplatonism associated with Plotinus and porphyry at Alexandria the great Greek ecclesiastical writers worked alongside pagan rhetorician ‘z and philosophers several were born here eg Origen Athanasius and his opponent arias also Cyril and Synesius on Egyptian soil monasticism began and thrived after Alexandria Antioch held great prestige where a school of Christian commentators flourished under st.John Chrysostom and where later arose the Christian universal Chronicles in surrounding Syria we find the germs of Greek ecclesiastical poetry while from neighbouring Palestine came Saint John of Damascus one of the Greek fathers topic oriental Greek Christianity had of necessity a pronounced oriental character Ptolemaic Egypt and Seleucid Syria are the real birth places of the Greco oriental Church and Byzantine civilization in general Egypt and Syria with Asia Minor became for the autochthonous Greek civilization a place where hundreds of flourishing cities sprang into existence where energies confined or crippled in the impoverished homeland found reliefs not only did these cities surpass in material wealth the mother country but soon also cultivated the highest goods of the intellect Krum bakr under such circumstances it is not strange that about nine-tenths of all the byzantine authors of the first eight centuries were natives of egypt syria palestine and asia minor topic genres the following account classifies Byzantine literature into five groups the first three include representatives of those kinds of literature which continued the ancient traditions historians and chroniclers encyclopedist and essayists and writers of secular poetry the other to include new literary genres ecclesiastical and theological literature and popular poetry topic historians and analysts the two groups of secular prose literature show clearly the dual character of Byzantine intellectual life in its social religious and linguistic aspects from this point of view historical and annalistic literature supplement each other the former is aristocratic and secular the latter ecclesiastical and monastic the former is classical the latter popular the works of the historians belong to scholarly literature those of the analysts or chroniclers to the literature of the people the former are carefully elaborated the latter give only raw material the former can find themselves to the description of the present and the most recent past and thus have rather the character of contemporary records the latter cover the whole history of the world is known to the Middle Ages the former are therefore the more valuable for political history the latter for the history of civilization topic historians classical literary traditions set the standard for Byzantine historians in their grasp of the aims of history the manner of handling their subjects and in style of composition their works are thoroughly concrete and objective in character without passion and even without enthusiasm ardent patriotism and personal convictions are rarely evident they are diplomatic historians expert in the use of historical sources and in the Polish tact called for by their social position they are not Co set scholars ignorant of the world but men who stood out in public life jurists like procopius Agathis Evagrius michael Itali eighths statesmen like joann cinemas nice ADA’s accommodate us giorgia Speccy Amir’s lana kiss ciao condyles generals and diplomats like mesa forest brian is the younger Georgia crop the lights Georgie is Francis and even crowned heads like Constantine porphyra genitive and a kameena John the sixth canto Kazim and others the Byzantine historians thus represent not only the social but also the intellectual flower of their time resembling in this their Greek predecessors Herodotus Thucydides Xenophon and polybius who became their guides and models sometimes a Byzantine chooses a classic writer to imitate in method and style the majority however took his models several authors a custom which gave rise to a peculiar mosaic style quite characteristic of the Byzantines while often the result of a real community of feeling it effectively prevented development of an individual style had such a preeminent historian as procopius modeled his work after polybius rather than Thucydides Byzantine histories may have followed a natural continuity and style and method with the hellenic era the Hellenistic add assists however had impressed their tastes thoroughly on later centuries celebrating the style of the Athenian Golden Age it is no accident that military characters like Nisa Forest Brian iasts eleventh and twelfth centuries and Joanne cinemas 12th century emulated Xenophon in the precision of their diction or that a philosopher like Nisa forest Gregor as thirteenth century took Plato as his model on the other hand it is doubtless due to chance that writers trained in theology like Leo diaconis and giorgia SPAC Amir’s chose to emulate Homeric turns on the whole it is later historians that the dualism of Byzantine civilization ecclesiastical political matter in classical form becomes most apparent while Byzantine historians were mostly dependent on foreign models and seemed to form a continuous series in which each succeeds the last they do not blend into a uniform whole most of the historians come in either the period embracing the sixth and seventh centuries during the reigns of the East Roman emperors or that extending from the 11th to the 15th century under the Khomeini in the paleo lore G at its zenith under the Macedonian dynasty the 9th and 10th centuries the Byzantine world produced great heroes but no great historians excepting the solitary figure of the Emperor Constantine the seventh poor fridge’ notice the first period is dominated by procopius because of his subject matter and his literary importance typically byzantine his anecca doted appreciates emperor justinian the first as emphatically as his perry quedas Madinah pathya sizes him in literature and history though he follows classical models as is evident in the precision and lucidity of his narrative acquired from Thucydides and in the reliability of his information qualities of special merit in the historian procopius and to a great degree his successor Agathis remained the models of descriptive style as late as the 11th century procopius is the first representative of the ornate Byzantine style and literature and in this is surpassed only by theophil Actos amico days in the seventh century despite their unclassy they approach the ancients in their freedom from ecclesiastical and dogmatic tendencies between the historical writings of the first period and those of the second there is an isolated series of works which in matter and form offer a strong contrast to both the aforesaid groups these are the works under the name of the Emperor Constantine the seventh porphyra genitive 10th century dealing respectively with the administration of the empire its political division and the ceremonies of the Byzantine Court they treat of the internal conditions of the Empire and the 1st and 3rd are distinguished by their use of a popular tongue the first is an important source of ethnological information while the last is an interesting contribution to the history of civilization the second group of historians present a classical eclecticism veiling a none classical partisanship and Theological fanaticism reveling in classical forms the historians of the period of the Khomeini and pale-yellow ji were devoid of the classical spirit while many had stronger more sympathetic personalities than the school of procopius the very vigor of these individuals and their close ties to the imperial government served to hamper their objectivity producing subjective partisan works thus the Alexian the pedantic work of princess anne de caminha glorifies her father Alexius and the imperial reorganization he began the historical work of her husband mesa forest bryony’s describes the internal conflicts that accompanied the rise of the Khomeini in the form of a family chronicle late 11th century John the sixth canto cuisine self-complacent Lee narrates his own achievements 14th century this group exhibits striking antithesis both personal and objective besides cinemas who honestly hated everything Western stand the broad-mindedness ADA’s accomodative 12th century and the conciliatory but dignified giorgia sacra polite 13th century beside the theological polemicist pact Amir’s 13th century stands the man of the world Mesa Forrest Gregory’s 14th century well versed in philosophy in the classics those subjective in matters of internal Byzantine history these and others of this period are trustworthy in their accounts of external events and especially valuable as sources for the first appearance of the Slavs and Turks topic chroniclers unlike the historical works Byzantine chronicles were intended for the general public hence the difference in their origin development and diffusion as well as in their character method and style while the roots of the chronicle have not yet been satisfactorily traced their comparatively late appearance 6th century and total removed from Hellenistic tradition places their origins is fairly recent the chronicle literature is originally foreign to Greek civilization the first of which was composed by an educated Syrians it’s presumable prototype the corne ography of sexta school is africanus points to an oriental christian source unconnected with persons of distinction and out of touch with the great world it follows models bound within its own narrow sphere the ninth century saw the zenith of the Byzantine Chronicle during the nadir of historical literature afterwards it declines abruptly the lesser chroniclers seen as late as the 12th century drop partly from contemporary and partly though rarely from earlier historians in the paleo logy period no chroniclers of note appear not only important sources for the history of Byzantine civilization the Chronicles themselves contributed to the spread of civilization passing Byzantine culture to the arriving slavic magyar and Turkic peoples depicting as they did what lay within the popular consciousness events wonderful and dreadful painted in glaring colors and interpreted in a Christian sense their influence was considerable the method of handling materials as primitive beneath each section lies some older source only slightly modified so that the whole resembles a patchwork of materials rather than the ingenious mosaic of the historians they are a rich store for comparative linguistics as their diction is purely the popular tongue the speaking the poor education of author and audience representative Byzantine chronicles are the three of Joanne’s malala’s Thea feigns confessor and Joanne’s own eras respectively the first is the earliest Christian Byzantine monastic chronicle composed in the Antioch in the sixth century by a Hellenized Syrian and Monophysite theologian originally a City Chronicle it was expanded into a world Chronicle it is a popular historical work full of historical and chronological errors and the first monument of a purely popular Hellenistic civilization the chief source for most of the later chroniclers as well as for a few church historians it is also the earliest popular history translated into old Church Slavonic see early 10th century superior in substance and form and more properly historical is the chronicle of Thea feigns a ninth century monk of Asia Minor and in its turn a model for later chronicles it contains much valuable information from lost sources and its importance for the Western world as due to the fact that by the end of the 9th century it had to be translated into Latin a third guidepost in the history of byzantine chronicles as the 12th century universal chronicle of zone eras it reflects somewhat the atmosphere of the Khomeini Renaissance not only is the narrative better than that of theophane but many passages from ancient writers are worked into the text it was translated not only into Slavic and Latin but into Italian and French as well 16th century pick encyclopedist sand essayists the spirit of antiquarian scholarship awoke in Byzantium earlier than in the West but begun by late theologians not laymen for this reason it always had a scholastic flavor the Byzantine humanistic spirit savored of antiquity in the Middle Ages in equal proportion primarily directed to the systematic collection and sifting of manuscripts a pronounced interest in the literature of Greek antiquity first manifested at Constantinople in the late 9th century with the 12th century begins the period of original works imitating antique models a revival of the Alexandrian essay and rhetorical literature a number of writers showing vigorous originality quite isolated between the two periods stands Michael P Seles 11th century a universal genius who bridges the periods while the humanism of the 9th and 10th centuries retained a theological coloring in a hostile attitude towards the West the 12th to the 14th century saw several writers seeking to break away from orthodox classicism to attain a true humanism becoming the forerunners of the italian renaissance the new spirit first found expression in an academy founded for classical studies at Constantinople in 863 about the same time the broadly trained and energetic Phocis patriarch of the city and the greatest statesman of the Greek Church 822 897 enthusiastically collected forgotten manuscripts revived forgotten works of antiquity and rediscovered lost works his attention was chiefly directed to prose works indicative of his pragmatism Phocis made selections or excerpts from all the works he discovered forming the beginning of his celebrated biblioteca library which while dry and schematic remains the most valuable literary compendium of the Middle Ages containing trustworthy summaries of many ancient works now lost together with good characterizations and analyses such as those of Lucien and Helia Doris this encyclopedic activity was more as Sid with Sleeper sued in the 10th century particularly in the systematic collecting of materials associated with Emperor Constantine the 7th porphyra gentleness scholars also formed great compilations arranged by subject on the basis of older sources among these was a now fragmentary encyclopedia of political science containing extracts from the classical Alexandrian and Roman Byzantine periods these with the collection of ancient epigrams known as the anthology of palutena and the scientific dictionary known as the sudha make the 10th century that of the encyclopedias a typical representative of the period appears in the following century in the person of the greatest encyclopedist of byzantine literature Michael Pease Ellis standing between the Middle Ages and modern times he is a jurist in a man of the world with a mind both receptive and productive unlike though sheis who is more concerned with individual philosophic arguments peace Ellis does not under value the old philosophers and is himself of a philosophic temperament he was the first of his intellectual circle to raise the philosophy of Plato above that of Aristotle and to teach philosophy as a professor surpassing focus in intellect and wit he lacks that scholars dignity and solidity of character a restless brilliance characterized his life in literary activity at first a lawyer then a professor now among now a court official he ended his career the prime minister he was equally a droid and many cited in his literary work in harmony with the polished pliant nature of the courtier as his elegant platonic style of his letters and speeches his extensive correspondence furnishes endless material illustrating his personal and literary character the ennobling influence of his attic models mark his speeches and especially his funerary orations that delivered on the death of his mother shows deep sensibility peace Ellis had more of a poetic temperament than focus as several of his poems show though they owe more to satirical fancy and occasion than to deep poetic feeling though peace Ellis exhibits more formal skilled and creativity his endowments shone forth in a time particularly backward in aesthetic culture the intellectual freedom of the great scholars polyhistor ‘s both ecclesiastical and secular of the following centuries would be inconceivable without the triumph of peace Ellis / Byzantine scholasticism while among his successors such as Mesa Forest blem IDEs and hired akeno’s our natures is corrupt as peace Ellis’s own the majority are marked by their rectitude of intention sincerity of feeling and their beneficent Li broad culture among these great intellects and strong characters of the 12th century several theologians are especially conspicuous for example used to theus of Thessalonica Michael italic Asst and Michael accommodate us in the 13th and 14th centuries several secular scholars like maximus planets theodora’s meadow kites and above all me Sephora’s Gregory’s the three theologians may best be judged by their letters and minor occasional writings eustathius seems to be the most important writing learned commentary on homer and Pindar alongside original works that are candid courageous and controversial intent upon the correction of every evil in one of his works he attacks the corruption and intellectual stagnation of the monastic life of that day in another polemic he assails the hypocrisy and sham holiness of his time in a third he denounces the conceit and arrogance of the Byzantine priests the rhetorician Michel italic is later a bishop attacks the chief weakness of Byzantine literature external imitation this he did on receiving a work by a patriarch which was simply a disorderly collection of fragments from other writers so poorly put together that the sources were immediately recognizable the pupil and friend of eustathius michael accommodate us 12th and 13th centuries Archbishop of Athens and brother of the historian niece ADA’s accommodate us his inaugural address delivered on the Acropolis exhibits both profound classical scholarship and high enthusiasm despite the material and spiritual decay of his times these pitiful conditions moved him to compose an elegy famous because unique on the decay of Athens a sort of poetical and antiquarian apostrophe to fallen greatness gregorovius compared the inaugural address with Gregory the Great’s to the Romans and this with the lament of Bishop Hilda bird of Taurus on the demolition of Rome by the Normans 1106 his funeral orations over Eustatius 1195 and his brother niece ADA’s the word e’er in rhetorical still evinced a noble disposition and deep feeling Michael like his brother remained a fanatical opponent of the Latins they had driven him into exile at CEOs whence he addressed many letters to his friends illustrating his character stylistically influenced by eustathius his otherwise classical diction sounded an ecclesiastical note with Theodore meadow kites and mximos plans we come to the universal scholars poly his stores of the time of the Paleo Logie the former displays his humanism in his use of hexameter the latter in his knowledge of the Latin both of which are otherwise unknown in Byzantium and foreboding a broader grasp of antiquity both men show a fine sense of poetry especially of nature poetry metal kites composed meditations on the beauty of the sea planned nudes was the author of a long poetic Idol of genre uncultivated by Byzantine scholars while meadow kites was a thinker and poet planned nudes was chiefly an imitator in compiler meadow kites was more speculative as his collection of philosophical and historical miscellanies show planned nudes was more precise as his preference for mathematics proves contemporary progress in philosophy was at a point where meadow kites could openly attack Aristotle he deals more frankly with political questions such as his comparison of democracy aristocracy and monarchy while his breadth of interest was large Medici disease culture rest solely on a greek basis though plans by his translations from the Latin Cato Ovid Cicero Caesar and bothius vastly enlarged the eastern intellectual horizon this inclination toward the West is most noticeable in Mesa forests Gregor as the great pupil of meadow kites his project for a reform of the calendar ranks him among the modern intellects of his time as will be proven if ever his numerous works in every domain of intellectual activity are brought to light his letters especially promise a rich harvest his method of exposition is based on that of Plato whom he also imitated in his ecclesiastical political discussions eg in his dialogue Fleur NTS or concerning wisdom these disputations with bar ylim dealt with the question of church union in which Gregory’s took the unionist part this brought him bitter hostility and the loss of his teaching living he had been occupied chiefly with the exact sciences whereby he had already earned the hatred of Orthodox Byzantines while the Byzantine essayists and encyclopedist stood wholly under the influence of ancient rhetoric still they embodied in the traditional forms their own characteristic knowledge and thereby landed a new charm topic secular poetry poetry likewise had its prototypes each genre tracing its origins to an ancient progenitor unlike the prose these new genres do not follow from the classical attic period for the Byzantines wrote neither irx nor dramas imitating neither Pindar nor Sophocles imitating the literature of the Alexandrian period they wrote romances panegyrics epigrams satires and didactic and hortatory poetry following the models of hylia doris and achilles tatius as slappy ‘days and Posada piss lucian and longus didactic poetry looks to an earlier prototype by Isocrates ad Demonica the poetic temperament of the Byzantines as the siq into that of the Alexandrian writers only one new type evolved independently by the Byzantines the begging poem the six John Roos are not contemporaneous the epigram in the panegyric developed first 6th and 7th centuries then at long intervals satire next didactic and begging poetry finally the romance only after the 12th century the period of decay do they appear side by side the epigram was the only form of secular poetry that had an independent revival in Byzantine literature and this at the very time when ecclesiastical poetry also reached its highest perfection in the 6th and 7th centuries this age is therefore the most flourishing period of Byzantine scholarly poetry its decline in the 12th century is contemporary with the rise of popular poetry the chief kinds of poetry during the period of the decline 11th to 13th century were satire and parody didactic and hortatory poetry the begging poem and the erotic romance inform this literature is characterized by its extensive use of the popular forms of speech and verse the latter being the political verse Greek he Maxim a noice to Joy called that abominable make-believe of a metre by Charles Peter Mason in William Smith’s Dictionary an iambic verse of 15 syllables still the standard verse of modern Greek popular poetry in content however all this literature continues to bear the imprint of Byzantine erudition topic epigram the epigram suited the Byzantine taste for the ornamental and for intellectual ingenuity it corresponded exactly to the concept of the minor arts that attained high development in the Byzantine period making no lofty demands on the imagination of the author its chief difficulty lay rather in technique in the attainment of the utmost possible pregnancy of phrase two groups may be distinguished among the Byzantine epigram attests one pagan and humanistic the other Christian the former is represented chiefly by Agathis sixth-century and Christopher’s of middling 11th century the latter by the ecclesiastics giorgia species 7th century and theodora’s stood eat a ninth century between the two groups in point of time as well as in character stands Joanne’s geometers 10th century the chief phases in the development of the Byzantine epigram are most evident in the works of these three Agathis who has already been mentioned among the historians as an epigram attaced has the peculiarities of the school of the semi byzantine egyptian honest about ad 400 he wrote in an affected and urgent style in the classical form of the hexameter he abounds however in brilliant ideas and in his skillful imitation of the ancients particularly in his erotic pieces he surpasses most of the epigram attaced of the imperial period agatha is also prepared a collection of epigrams partly his own and partly by other writers some of which afterwards passed into the anthology of palutena and have thus been preserved the abbot Theodorus to detai is in every respect the opposite of agatha is a pious man of deep earnestness with a fine power of observation in nature and life full of sentiment warmth and simplicity of expression free from servile imitation of the ancients though influenced by nanus while touching on the most varied things and situations his epigrams on the life and personnel of his monastery offers special interest for the history of civilization jo-ann’s geometers combines aspects of the previous two during the course of his life he filled both secular and ecclesiastical offices and his poetry had a universal character of a deeply religious temper still he appreciated the greatness of the ancient Greeks alongside epigrams on ancient poets philosophers rhetoric and historians stand others on famous church fathers poets and Saints poetically the epigrams on contemporary and secular topics are superior to those on religious and classic subjects his best works depict historical events and situations he himself experienced and reflect his own spiritual moods Crum Bakker topic panegyrics even the best writers often could not escape composing the official panegyrics on Emperor’s and their achievements typical of this kind of literature are the commemorative poem of Paul is silent e arias on the dedication of the Church of st.Sophia and that of giorgia species on the glory of the prince unfavorable conclusions must not be drawn as to the character of these poets for such eulogies were composed by not only courtiers like peace ellis and manuel hala bolos 13th century but also by independent characters like eustathius and michael accommodate us it had become traditional and so handed down from imperial rome to Byzantium as a part of ancient rhetoric with all the extravagance of a thoroughly decadent literature f gregorovius it was a sort of necessary concession to despotism popular taste was not in general offended by it topic satires the father of Byzantine satire is Lucien his celebrated dialogues of the Dead furnished the model for two works one of which des Temari on 12th century is marked by more rude humour the other Missouri’s 15th century by keen satire each describes a journey to the underworld in conversations with dead contemporaries in the former their defects are lashed with good-natured raillery in the latter under the masks of dead men living persons and contemporary conditions especially at the Byzantine Court are sharply stigmatized the former is more a literary satire the latter a political pamphlet with keen personal thrusts and without literary value but with all the greater interest for the history of civilization the former is in a genuinely popular tone the latter in vulgar and crude CF tozer in the Journal of Hellenic studies 1881 two point two three three to two hundred seventy Crum Bakr op cit 198 to 211 two popular offshoots of the tamari on the a poco pose and the picket auras are discussed below another group of satires takes the form of dialogues between animals manifestly a development from the Christian popular book known as the physiologist such satires described assemblages of quadrupeds birds and fishes and recite their lampooning remarks upon the clergy the bureaucracy the foreign nations in the Byzantine Empire etc see also an entertaining tale of quadrupeds here belong also the parodies in the form of church poems and in which the clergy themselves took part AG bishop niece ADA’s of Sarah 11th century one example of this sacrilegious literature though not fully understood is the mockery of a beardless man in the form of an obscene liturgy 14th century topic didactic didactic poetry found its model in the toe demonicus ascribed to Isocrates the greatest example of this type of literature in Byzantium isthe Spanier’s 12th century a hortatory poem addressed by an emperor to his nephew a sort of mirror for princes some few offshoots from this are found in the popular literature of Crete in the 15th and 16th centuries handed down under the names of Salah kiss and Deffer anus here also belong the ranting theological exhortations resembling those of the Capetian and chillers wallenstein such for instance are that of Geo Ghilas after the Great Plague of Rhodes 1498 and the oracular prophesies on the end of the Byzantine Empire current under the name of Emperor Leo 886 to 911 Crum Bakr 332 336 343 352 366 topic begging poem a late Byzantine variety of the laudatory poem as the begging poem the poetical lament of hungry authors in the parasites of the court it’s chief representatives are theodora’s promise and the grossly flattering Manuel files the former of whom lived under the Khomeini 12th century the latter under the pale yellow G 13th century for historians such poetical whales of distress as promised addressed to the Emperor our value because they give interesting pictures of street and business life in the capital CF crumb Bakr 324 333 topic romance novel the ancient Greek novel was imitated by four writers of the 12th century used to Theo’s Makram lights Theodor prodromos nikita’s Eugenia knows and Constantine Manassas topic ecclesiastical and Theological literature the first flowering of ecclesiastical literature of Byzantium as Hellenistic and form and oriental in spirit this period falls in the fourth century and is closely associated with the names of the Greek fathers of Alexandria Palestine Jerusalem Cyrene II and Cappadocia their works which cover the whole field of ecclesiastical prose literature dogma exegesis and homiletics became canonical for the whole Byzantine period the last important work is the ecclesiastical history of Evagrius beyond controversial writings against sectarians and the iconoclasts later works consists merely of compilations and commentaries in the form of the so called Cadenet even the fountain of knowledge of John of Damascus 8th century the fundamental manual of Greek theology though systematically worked out by a learned and keen intellect is merely a gigantic collection of materials even the homily clings to a pseudo classical rhetorical foundation and tends more to external breath not to inwardness in depth only three kinds of ecclesiastical literature which were as yet undeveloped in the 4th century exhibit later an independent growth these were the ecclesiastical poetry of the 6th century popular lives of the Saints of the seventh and the mystic writings of the eleventh and twelfth centuries the Catholic Encyclopedia suggests that classical forms were insufficient to express Christian thought to best effect in several collections of early Christian correspondence it is not the rhythmic laws of Greek rhetorical style which govern the composition but those of Semitic and Syriac prose cardinal Petra hypothesizes that the rhythmic poetry of the Byzantines originates in the Jewish Psalms of the Septuagint this rhythmic principle accords with the linguistic character of the later Greek which used a stress accent as it had already been developed in Syriac poetry rather than the classical tonal accent Romano’s the mellitus twas the first great ecclesiastical poet of the Greeks to fully embrace the stress accent as a rhythmic principle a contemporary and countryman of the chronicler Malala is also a reformer of the Greek literary language Romano’s was a Syrian of Jewish descent Christianized at an early age what Malala is as to prose Romano’s as to the Christian poetry of the Greek Middle Ages though he did not go so far as malala’s he released poetry from meters based on quantitative and tonal scansion he brought it into harmony with the latest poetics prevailing in Syria as well as with the evolving character of the Greek language Romano’s soon went to Constantinople where he became a deacon of the highe Sophia and where he is said to have first developed his gift for him writing Romano’s borrowed the form of his poems the material and many of their themes partly from the Bible and partly from the metrical homilies of the Syrian father Ephraim fourth century he wrote hymns on the Passion of the Lord on the betrayal by Judas Peters denial marry before the cross the ascension the ten virgins in the Last Judgement while his Old Testament themes mentioned the history of Joseph and the three young men in the fiery furnace he is said to have composed about a thousand hymns of which only 80 have survived evidently because in the ninth century the so-called canons linguistically and metrically more artistic and form replaced much of his work in the Greek liturgy thence forth his hymns held their own in only a few of the remoter monasteries characteristic of his technique is the great length of his hymns which are regularly composed of from 20 to 30 stanzas trope area of from 12 to 21 verses each very finely wrought and varied in metrical structure and in construction transparent and diverse they do not resemble contemporary Latin hymn so much as the oratorios of the early 20th century also using antiphonal rendering by alternative choirs this also explains the dramatic character of many hymns with their inserted dialogues & korek songs as in Peters denial a little drama of human boastfulness and weakness and the last part of the history of Joseph the psalm of the Apostles and the birth of Jesus other pieces like the hymn on the Last Judgement are purely descriptive in character though even in them the rhetorical and dogmatic elements seriously impair the artistic effect some like Bobby and Crum Bakker placed him among the greatest hymn writers of all times others like cardinal Petra are more conservative for a final judgment a complete edition of the hymns as needed compared to Latin Church poets such as Ambrose and pretentious his surviving works tend towards a more rhetorical flowery digressive and dogmatic verse he is fond of symbolic pictures and figures of speech antithesis assonance ‘as especially witty Jew d’esprit which contrasts with his characteristic simplicity of diction and construction these embellishments interrupt the smooth flow of his lines and often the sequence of thought in his hymns as clouded by the dragging end of dogmatic questions in the celebrated Christmas hymn the question of the miraculous birth of Jesus has discussed four times with a comfortable amplitude that betrays the theologian thrusting the poet aside the theologian is also too evident in his allusions to the Old Testament when dealing with New Testament incidents Mary at the birth of Jesus compares her destiny to that of Sarah the Magi likened the star that went before the Israelites in the wilderness and so on the frequent citation of passages from the prophets seem more like unimpassioned paraphrases than like inspired poetry in fact Romano’s does not possess the abundant and highly colored imagery of the earliest Greek church poets nor their fine grasp of nature the reader also gathers the impression that the height of the poet’s imagination is not in proportion with the depth of his piety there often appears in him something naive almost homely as when Mary expresses her pleasure in the Magi and calls attention to their utility for the impending flight into Egypt there are passages however in which devout fervour carries the imagination along with it and elevates the poetic tone as in the jubilant invitation to the dance in the Easter song in which thoughts of spring and of the resurrection are harmoniously blended why thus faint-hearted why value your faces lift up your hearts Christ is arisen join in the dances and with us proclaim it the Lord is ascended gleaming and glory he who is born of the giver of light sees then your mourning rejoice in blessedness springtime has come so bloom now ye lilies bloom and be fruitful not bring it to destruction clap we our hands and shout risen as he who helped it the fallen ones to rise again ecclesiastical poetry did not long remain on the high level to which Romano’s had raised it thee him this akathist as’ of unknown authorship of the 7th century a sort of tedium in praise of the mother of God is the last great monument of Greek Church poetry comparable to the hymns of Romano’s which it has even outlived in Fame it has had numerous imitators and as late as the 17th century was translated into Latin the rapid decline of Greek hymnology begins as early as the seventh century the period of andrew of crete religious sentiments in hymns were choked by a classical formalism which stifled all vitality the overvaluation of technique and details destroyed the sense of proportion in the whole this seems to be the only explanation for the so called condones first found in the collection of andrew of crete while a cannon is a combination of a number of hymns or chants generally nine of three or four strophe Zita great cannon of Andrew actually numbers 250 strophe ‘is a single idea is spun out into serpentine arabesques pseudo-classical artificiality found an even more advanced representative in John of Damascus in the opinion of the Byzantines the foremost writer of condones who took as a model gregory of nazianzus even reintroducing the principle of quantity into ecclesiastical poetry religious poetry was in this way reduced to mere trifling for in the eleventh century which witnessed the decline of Greek hymnology and the revival of pagan humanism Michael P Seles began parroting church hymns a practice that took root in popular culture didactic poems took this form without being regarded as blasphemous religious drama did not thrive in the Byzantine era the only example is the suffering of Christ Christus patients Christos P a shun written in the eleventh or twelfth century of its 2,640 verses about one-third are borrowed from ancient dramas chiefly from those of Euripides and Mary the chief character sometimes recites verses from that Medea of Euripides again from the Electra of Sophocles or the Prometheus of Aeschylus the composition is evidently the production of a theologian trained in the classics but without the slightest idea of dramatic art it is made up chiefly of lamentations and reports of messengers even the most effective scenes those which precede the crucifixion are described by messengers almost two thirds of the texts are given to the descent from the cross the lament of Mary and the apparition of Christ CF van Cleef the pseudo Gregorian drama Christo’s pass on in its relation to the text of Euripides in transactions of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences 8 363 to 378 Crum Bakker 312 between ecclesiastical poetry and ecclesiastical Pro stands the theological didactic poem a favorite species of ancient Christian literature one of its best examples is the hexa Merrin of giorgia species a spirited him on the universe in its marvels ie all living creatures taken as a whole it is somewhat conventional only the description of the minor forms of life especially of the animals reveals the skill of the epigram Addyston nature lovers gift of affectionate observation besides sacred poetry hagiography flourished from the 6th to the 11th century this species of literature developed from the old Martyrology and became the favorite form of popular literature it flourished from the 8th to the 11th century and was concerned principally with monastic life unfortunately the rhetorical language was in violent contrast with the simple nature of the contents so that the chief value of this literature is historical more popular in style are the biographers of saints of the 6th and 7th centuries the oldest and most important of them is Cyril of Scythopolis in Palestine whose biographies of saints and monks are distinguished for the reliability of their facts and dates of great interest also for their contributions to the history of culture and of ethics and for their genuinely popular language are the writings of Leon Ches Archbishop of Cyprus 7th century especially his life of the patriarch John surnamed the merciful eleemosynary us of Alexandria CF Heinrich gelser kleiner schriften Leipzig 1907 this life describes for us a man who in spite of his peculiarities honestly tried to realize a pure biblical Christianity of self-sacrificing love and whose life brings before us the customs and ideas of the lower classes of the people of Alexandria the romance of Balaam in yo Asaf also barliman Josaphat was another popular work of Byzantine origin now elevated to Universal literature it is the song of songs of Christian asceticism illustrated by the experience of the Indian Prince USF who is led by the Hermit varlam to abandon the joys of life and as a true Christian to renounce the world the material of the story is originally Indian indeed Buddhistic for the origin of yo SF was Buddha the Greek version originated in the sabes monastery in Palestine about the middle of the 7th century it did not circulate widely until the 11th century when it became known to all Western Europe through the medium of a Latin translation CF FC Conybeare the barliman Josaphat legend in folklore 1896 7 101 sqq the ascetic conception of life was embedded in the byzantine character and was strengthened by the high development of monastic institutions the latter in turn brought forth abroad ascetic literature though it does not further deepen the asceticism of its great exponent st.Basil of Caesarea less extensively cultivated but excelling in quality our byzantine mystical writings the true founder of a distinctively byzantine mysticism was maximus the confessor 7th century who deepened the tradition of christian Neoplatonism as found in the pseudo-dionysius with the resources of orthodox crystal adji no other writer in eastern christian tradition surpasses maximus in speculative range and originality later representatives of this mystical tradition were Simeon the new theologian and niece a d’stefano’s in the 11th and Nicolaos kavoussi TLAs in the 14th century the byzantine mystical writers differ from those of western europe chiefly in their attitude to ecclesiastical ceremonies to which they adhered implicitly seeing in it a profound symbol of the spiritual life of the church where Occidental’s see an attempt to displace the inner life with external pump accordingly simeon strictly observed the ceremonial rules of the church regarding them however only as a means to the attainment of ethical perfection his principal work published only in latin is a collection of prose pieces and hymns on communion with god he is akin to the chief German mystics in his tendency towards pantheism of simians equally distinguished pupil me sadist atados we need only say that he cast off his teachers pantheistic tendencies the last great mystic of a seal is Archbishop of Saloniki revived the teaching of Dionysus the pseudo Areopagus but in the plan of his principal work life in Christ exhibits a complete independence of all other worlds and is without a parallel in Byzantine asceticism topic popular poetry the capture of Constantinople and establishment of the Latin kingdoms in the year 1204 displaced or supplanted aristocratic and ecclesiastic controls on literary taste and style in response to new influences from the Latin West Byzantine popular literature moved in different directions whereas literary poetry Springs from the rationalistic classical atmosphere of the Hellenistic period popular poetry or folk song is an outgrowth of the idyllic romantic literature of the same period as the literary works had their prototypes in lucien hylia doris achilles tatius and Nonna’s the popular works imitated apollonius of rhodes callimachus theocritus and musaeus the chief characteristic of folk song throughout the Greek Middle Ages as its lyric note which constantly finds expression in emotional turns in Byzantine literature on the other hand the refinement of erotic poetry was due to the influence of the love poetry of chivalry introduced by Frankish Knights in the 13th century and later the Byzantines imitated and adapted the romantic and legendary materials these westerners brought italian influences led to the revival of the drama that celebration of the achievements of greek heroes in popular literature was the result of the conflicts which the greeks sustained during the Middle Ages with the border nations to the east of the empire popular books relating the deeds of ancient heroes had long-standing and widespread currency throughout the East these two revived heroic poetry though imparted with a deep romantic tinge the result was a complete upheaval of popular ideals and a broadening of the popular horizon as a das’s tendencies were gradually eroded there was consequently a complete reconstruction of the literary types of Byzantium of all the varieties of artistic poetry there survived only the romance though this became more serious in its aims and its province expanded of metrical forms there remained only the political 15 syllable verse from these simple materials there sprang forth an abundance of new poetic types alongside of the narrative romance of heroism and love there sprang up popular love lyrics and even the beginnings of the modern drama the only genuine heroic epic of the Byzantines as the de jenis accretive popular poetic crystallization of the 10th and 11th century conflicts between the Byzantine wardens of the Marches a Krait sack rights and the Saracens in eastern Asia Minor the nucleus of this epic goes back to the 12th or 13th century its final literary form to the 15th though the schoolmen edited the original poems beyond recognition an approximate idea of the original poem may be gathered from the numerous echoes of it extant in popular poetry the existing versions exhibit a blending of several cycles modeled after the Homeric poems its principal subjects are love adventures battles and a patriarchal idyllic enjoyment of life it is a mixture of the Iliad and the Odyssey the majority of the material being drawn from the latter suffused with a Christian atmosphere genuine piety and a strong family feeling combined with an intimate sympathy with nature artistically the work lacks the dramatic quality and diverse characters of the Germanic and classical Greek epics it must be compared with the Slavic and oriental heroic songs among which it properly belongs the love romance of the Greek Middle Ages is the result of the fusion of the sophistical Alexandro byzantine romance and the medieval french popular romance on the basis of a Hellenistic view of life in nature this is proved by its three chief creations composed in the 13th and 14th centuries kalamatas in cursory belt and rose and Crisanta Libby Stroh’s and Rodan while the first in the last of these are markedly influenced by byzantine romance and thought and manner of treatment the second begins to show the aesthetic and ethical influence of the old French romance indeed it’s story often recalls the Tristan legend the style is clearer and more transparent the action more dramatic than in the extant versions of the de genis legend the ethical idea is the romantic idea of knighthood the winning of the loved one by valor and daring not by blind chances in the Byzantine literary romances along with these independent adaptations of French material are direct translations from floor at blanchefleur Pierre at mag alone and others which have passed into the domain of Universal literature to the period of Frankish conquest belongs also the metrical chronicle of the Morea 14th century it was composed by a Frank brought up in Greece though followed the Greeks its object was amid the constantly progressing hellenization of the Western conquerors to remind them of the spirit of their ancestors therefore it is only Greek and language in literary form and spirit it is wholly Frankish the author describes minutely the feudal customs which had been transplanted to the soil of Greece and this perhaps as his chief merit the deliberations of the High Court are given with the greatest accuracy and he is quite familiar with the practice of feudal law Jay Schmitt as early as the 14th century the chronicle was translated into Spanish and in the 15th into French and Italian about the same time and in the same locality the small islands off the coast of Asia Minor appeared the earliest collection of Neo Greek love songs known as the Rodian love songs besides songs of various sorts and origins they contain a complete romance told in the form of a play on numbers a youth being obliged to compose a hundred verses in honor of the maiden whom he worships before she returns his love each verse corresponding to the numbers 1 to 100 between the days of the French influence in the 13th and 14th centuries and those of Italian in the 16th and 17th there was a short romantic and popular revival of the ancient legendary material there was neither much need nor much appreciation for this revival and few of the ancient heroes and their heroic deeds are adequately treated the best of these works as the Alexander romance based on the story of Alexander the Great a revised version of the pseudo Calais themes of the Ptolemaic period which is also the source of the western versions of the Alexander romance the Achilles on the other hand though written in the popular verse and not without taste is wholly devoid of antique local color and has rather a romance of French chivalry than a history of Achilles lastly of two compositions on the Trojan War one is wholly crude and barbarous the other though better is a literal translation of the old French poem of Benoit de Saint more to these products of the 14th century may be added to of the 16th both describing a descent into the lower world evidently popular offshoots of the tamari on and Missouri’s already mentioned to the former corresponds the apoco pose a satire of the dead on the living to the latter the picketers a metrical peace decidedly lengthy but rather unpoetic while the former has many poetical passages eg the procession of the dead and betrays the influence of Italian literature in fact Italian literature impressed its popular character on the Greek popular poetry of the 16th and 17th centuries as French literature had done in the 13th and 14th topic cretan popular poetry as a rich popular poetry sprang up during the last-mentioned period on the islands off the coast of Asia Minor so now a similar literature developed on the island of Crete it’s most important creations are the romantic epic erotic redose and the drama’s era file and the sacrifice of Abraham with a few minor pictures of customs and manners these works fall chronologically outside the limits of Byzantine literature nevertheless as a necessary complement and continuation of the preceding period they should be discussed here the errata credos has a long romantic poem of chivalry lyric and characters in didactic and purpose the work of its NCOs cornero’s a Hellenized venetian of the 16th century it abounds in themes and ideas drawn from the folk poetry of the time in the story of erotic rito-san Arethusa the poet glorifies love and friendship chivalry courage constancy and self-sacrifice although foreign influences do not obtrude themselves and the poem as a whole has a national Greek flavor it reveals the various cultural elements byzantine romance and oriental without giving however the character of a composite the lyrical love tragedy era file is more of a mosaic being a combination of two Italian tragedies with the addition of lyrical Intermezzo x’ from torquato tasso jerusalem delivered and choral songs from his amenda nevertheless the materials are handled with independence and more harmoniously arranged than in the original the father who has killed his daughter’s lover as slain not by his daughter’s hand but by the ladies of his palace thus giving a less offensive impression owing to the lyric undertone of the work some parts of it have survived in popular tradition until the present time the mystery play of the sacrifice of Abraham is a little psychological masterpiece apparently an independent work the familiar and trite biblical incidents are reset in the patriarchal environment of Greek family life the poet emphasizes the mental struggles of Sarah the resignation of Abraham to the divine will the anxious forebodings of Isaac and the affectionate sympathy of the servants in other words a psychological analysis of the characters the mainspring of the action as Sarah’s foreknowledge of what is to happen evidently the invention of the poet to display the power of mature love the diction is distinguished by high poetic beauty and by a thorough mastery of versification other products of Cretan literature are a few adaptations of Italian past roles a few erotic and idyllic poems like the so called seduction tale an echo of the Rodian love songs and the lovely but ultra sentimental pastoral Idol of the beautiful shepherdess topic the legacy of Byzantine literature the roman supremacy in governmental life did not disappear the subjection of the church to the power of the state led to a governmental ecclesiastes ISM causing friction with Roman Catholic Church which had remained relatively independent Greek eventually overtook Latin as the official language of the government though Novelli of Justinian the first being the last Latin monument as early as the seventh century Greek language had made great progress and by the 11th Greek was supreme though it never supplanted the numerous other languages of the empire the Eastern Roman Empire divided European civilization into two parts one romance and Germanic the other Greek and Slavic these cultures differed ethnographically linguistically ecclesiastically and historically Imperial Russia the Balkans and Ottoman Empire were the direct heirs of Byzantine civilization the first two particularly in ecclesiastical political and cultural respects through the translation and adaptation of sacred historical and popular literature the third in respect to civil government indirectly the Empire protected Western Europe for centuries from war fighting off various invaders and migratory populations Byzantium was also a treasury of ancient Greek literature during the Middle Ages until the capture of the constantinople the West was acquainted only with Roman literature Greek antiquity was first carried to Italy by the treasures brought by fugitive Greek humanists many of whom were delegates at the Council of Florence from 1431 to 1449 Byzantine culture had a direct influence upon southern and Central Europe in church music and church poetry though this was only in the very early period until the seventh century Byzantine culture had a definite impact upon the Near East especially upon the Persians and the Arabs topic see also Byzantine philosophy Byzantine science corpus script Oram historia Byzantine ax epistle ography Greek scholars in the Renaissance medieval Greek topic references topic further reading there is no comprehensive history of Byzantine literature written in English although the oxford dictionary of Byzantium provides excellent coverage of individual authors and topics the chapters of Horrocks that cover the medieval period are useful for the language question the history of cosden covers only the early period be even in Locke’s terment are useful on low and high vers respectively the study of Byzantine literature as a self-sufficient discipline originated in the german-speaking world and the most important general surveys are written in this language that can hunger remained the standard works on theological and secular literature respectively although Krum Bakker and more apt chick are still valuable Rosenquist as a recent and useful introduction to the subject are Beadon the medieval Greek romance Cambridge 1989 ISBN oh five – 1 3 3 3 3 5 o hg back Kirchen theologian richer I’m Byzantine ition Reich equals handbook dirt class session altered in Swiss n shaft 12 2 1 Munich 1977 ISBN 3 to 400 601 4 1 6 x g Horrocks greek a history of the language and its speakers London 1997 ISBN oh-58 2 307 o9o h hunger die hawks break leash profane literature der Byzantine er equals Han victor classes an altered UM’s Wissenschaft 12 5 Munich 1978 2 volumes ISBN three 406 a one four two seven five ISBN three four oh six oh one four two eight three AP cosden a history of byzantine literature 650 to 850 Athens 1999 ISBN nine 603 7101 o5k Klem Bakr gu sheesh Tudor Byzantine ition literature Munich 1897 MD Locke Sturman Byzantine poetry from sides to geometers Vienna 2003 ISBN three 700 won 3-1 500x gee merav chick Byzantine Oh turcica Berlin 1958 two volumes a deceptive title in fact the most important history of Byzantine secular literature before hunger Panagiotis royal O’s amphoteric lasya a poetics of the 12th century medieval Greek novel Cambridge Mass 2005 je Rosenquist die Byzantine ish literature vom six jahrhundert bazoom fall Constantinople’s 1453 Berlin 2007 ISBN 978 three one one oh one eight eight seven eight three topic external links attribution this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain herbermann charles ed 1913 byzantine literature Catholic Encyclopedia New York Robert Appleton
