Passion, Power, & Piety: The Voices of Byzantium

(Cross-listed with CLS 109) Evolution of Byzantine history and literature through the voices of the Byzantines themselves, in their histories, novels, hagiographies, the great heroic epic Digenes Akrites (the Two-Blood Border Lord), the amusing if somewhat ribald Amazing Tale of Quadrupeds, and others, from the 4th century AD to the end of the empire. How Byzantine literature draws from Greek, Roman, Christian, Near Eastern, Islamic, and Judaic influences to construct a new identity, a world view neither "Eastern" nor "Western" but rather a complex fusion.