Letters, Literacy and Literature in Byzantium
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A01=Margaret Mullett
Aristocracy
Author_Margaret Mullett
Byzantine epistolography
Byzantine Letters
Byzantium Novelisation
Category=DSBB
Category=NHB
classical tradition reception
Diplomacy
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eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
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eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
hagiographical studies
historiography analysis
Literacy Practices
literary patronage
Literary Texts
medieval Greek rhetoric
social context of Byzantine literature
Product details
- ISBN 9780754659372
- Weight: 716g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 28 Aug 2007
- Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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These studies look at general problems of reading Byzantine literature, at literacy practices and the literary process, but also at individual texts. The past thirty years have seen a revolution in the way Byzantine literature has been viewed: no longer is it considered a decadent form of classical literature or a turgid precursor of modern Greek literature. There are still prejudices to overcome: that there was no literary public, or that Byzantium had no drama or humour, but Byzantine texts are now read as literature in the social context of literacy and book culture. One genre is treated here more fully: the letter (Derrida said that letters represent all literature). In these studies epistolography is examined from the point of view of genre, of originality, of communication and as evidence for political history. Other genres touched on include the novel, historiography, parainesis, panegyric, and hagiography. The section on literary process includes essays on genre, patronage and rhetoric, and the section on literacy practices deals with both writing and reading. The collection includes one unpublished lecture which acts as introduction, and additional notes and comments.
Professor Margaret Mullett is Director of the Institute of Byzantine Studies, and of the AHRB Centre for Byzantine Cultural History, at the Queen's University Belfast, UK.
