Byzantine Poetry

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

In this class we will read broadly in the corpus of Greek poetry from Byzantium, ranging from around AD 330 to AD 1453 — a vibrant and exciting thousand years of postclassical Greek. This long tradition is rich with various forms of verse partly borrowed from the classical tradition (epic, lyric) and partly invented afresh for a new historical context (hymnography, court poetry). We will concentrate on a series of exemplary poems, extending from the late antique poets Synesius and Nonnus (5th cent.), to the revolutionary Orthodox hymnography of Romanos the Melode (6th cent.), the epigrams of the high medieval masters (Theodore the Studite, John Mauropous), epic romance (Digenes Akritas), as well as satirical and defamatory poems from the later Byzantine world, including some vernacular texts. Our goals will be 1) to become acquainted with medieval Greek poetry in its diverse genres; 2) to develop an acquaintance for the unique lexicon and syntax of Byzantine Greek; and 3) to understand the high value of Byzantine poetry, including both its religious and secular arms, within Byzantine society as a whole. We will also read select scholarship on Byzantine poetics and transmission history, in an attempt to develop our critical reading skills. The course, taught in Greek, will be valuable to classicists, medievalists, and students of the Bible and Church history.