Authors and Texts in Byzantium

Variorum
Alexander Kazhdan
ISBN: 0860783626
price: $122.95   hardcover

Professor Kazhdan's approach to the study of Byzantine texts is to see them as works created by humans, for humans and about humans, not as a system of imitative exercises on ancient or biblical topics and styles. When authors reused of adapted older models, he would ask why they did that and argues that in this opposition of traditional language and new content lies one of the keys to the understanding of Byzantine culture. This approach does not exclude the use of the texts as sources for what happened, and these articles demonstrate just how much can, with care, be extracted or deduced. However, his major aim has been to analyze the historical background, the social ideas and artistic approaches of Byzantine authors, as revealed in what they wrote. These authors include literary figures, and there are important studies on the intellectual culture of the later Empire, but the emphasis is more particularly on the often anonymous writers of saints lives and the 8th-10th centuries. The volume ends with an important section of additional notes and references and a detailed index.
Contents: Foreword; Introduzione, Bizanzio e la sua civiltà; Der Mensch in der byzantinischen Literaturgeschichte; Hagiographical notes (1-20); Post-hoc of two Byzantine miracles; Where, when and by whom was the Greek Barlaam and Ioasaph not written; Kosmas of Jerusalem: a more critical approach; Kosmas of Jerusalem: his political views?; Some questions on the authenticity of Kaminaiates' "Capture of Thessalonica"; Das System der Bilder und Metaphern in den Werken Symeons des "Neuen" Theologen; Bermerkungen zu Niketas Eugenianos; the fate of the intellectual in Byzantium; L'histoire de Cantacuzène en tant qu'oeuvre littéraire; Addenda; Index.