| dc.description.abstract | The author sketches the intellectuallandscape of twelfth-century Constantinople
with the special reference to the trends in literature and variety of its
genres.
The period, dominated by the Komnenos dynasty, with an increasing economic
prosperity and all its cultural and social consequences, generated a demand
for trained bureaucrats in secular and ecclesiastical spheres and, as far as
writers and literary practitioners are concerned, provided new possibilities of
imperial and aristocratic families' patronage. By the 1120s and 1130s a more
regular provision of higher education was in existence in Constantinople to such
an extent that supply had outstripped demand. It bore a great significance as the
extent to which writers depended on the patronage as their sole means of support
was a new feature of the era. John Tzetzes' career is quoted as an example of this
process and his literary output, covering much that would be classed now not as
a literature but e.g. scholarship, leads to a problem of an understanding of
a literature itself.
The characteristic features of byzantine literature of the period are named,
f.ex. the linguistic usages in fine writing, that followed those of the ancient
grammarians and dictionaries and only on very rare occasions using the vernacular
language that was in current use. The Byzantine literary production of
the time, understood widely, conforms on the whole to the pattern, in which
a deeply Christianized society focuses its most attention on composing and preserving
material produced as aids to correct Christian thought and worship. In
a consequence, secular material formed a very small proportion of the total
writerly output and the existing literary forms aspired to conveyed material abhorent
to many of the literary practitioners.
There are, on the other hand, three particularly important divergences from
what could be perceived as the standard Byzantine pattern. Writing in vernacular,
colloquial Greek appears quite suddenly, usually in snippets, breaking the
linguistic self-censorship that had been in place for centuries. Erotic fiction, created
by Theodore Prodromos, Constantine Manasses. Niketas Eugenianos. Eumathios
Makrembolites and the anonymous author of Digenis Akritis, reappeared
in the form of novels created under the profound influence of the late antique
authors. The third aspect is the copious production of verse for special occasions,
a long Byzantine habit, deriving from the epideictic oratory of the Second Sophistic,
and in the twelfth century widespread in the imperial and aristocratic households.
The last part of the lecture focuses on Manganeios Prodromos, an author
whose poetry of this genre survived, as well as on his social and literary connections
(including a role of sevastokratorissa Eirene and lakovos Monachos). | pl_PL |
