Book Description

As in the previous one, the second volume of A History of Byzantine Literature explores the interaction of the literature with the social evolution. Hence, the study of individual authors or groups of authors that share the same literary choices is placed within the historical framework of the time, which defines on the one hand the authorial potentialities and the requirements of the audience on the other. This volume discusses the intense literary production of a period during which the Byzantine intellectuals not only are turned to the traditional biblical source of inspiration, but also reassess and creatively rework on the classical Greek and Roman heritage. By shifting the focus of the study from the prosopography and/or the classification in literary genre to the unity of each author’s work, Alexander Kazhdan analyzes the stylistic and linguistic particularities of the texts, which reflect their response to the social conditions of the period.