Theodoros Prodromos: Miscellaneous Poems: An Edition and Literary Study

Description

In twelfth-century Byzantium, poetry played a key part in various contexts of textual production and consumption. One of the leading poets of this period was Theodoros Prodromos, whose surviving corpus comprises approximately 17,000 verses. Even though most of his poetry has been presented in modern critical editions, a group of his works has been overlooked by modern philologists and literary scholars alike. The selected corpus―conventionally designated as Miscellaneous Poems―consists of texts on various themes and in a wide range of genres, ranging from cycles of religious and secular epigrams to riddles, ethopoiiai, and works of a self-referential and essayistic nature. This book includes the first critical edition and study of these poems, accompanied by English translations and commentaries. Their study contributes to a more nuanced picture of Prodromos' intellectual profile, expanding his image as the 'poet laureate' of the Komnenian court and providing entirely new insights into his activity in the different settings of Constantinopolitan intellectual life. The book also sheds new light on the complex relationship between patronage and other aspects of literary activity and the circulation of the same text in different performative contexts. Cover Theodoros Prodromos: Miscellaneous Poems Copyright Dedication Acknowledgements Contents List of Figures List of Abbreviations Note to the Reader 1. Introduction 1.1. Status Quaestionis 1.2. Miscellaneous Poems 1.2.1. Some Perils of Authorship 1.2.2. Poems and Epigrams: Functional Ambiguity and Genre Elasticity 1.2.3. Veiled Occasions: Poems 1–6 and the Orphanotropheion of St Paul 2. A Writer on Command and His Strategies 2.1. Theodoros Prodromos and His Professions 2.2. Complaints and the Futility of Letters: Tangled Mosaics of Reality and Fictionality 2.3. The Court, Theatron, and Classroom as ‘Communicating Vessels’ 3. Formal Features: Metre and Prosody 3.1. Accentual Metres 3.1.1. Dodecasyllables 3.1.2. Political Verse 3.2. Dactylic Metres: A Strong Revival in the Twelfth Century 3.2.1. Pentameters 3.2.2. Hexameters: A Quantitative Survey 3.3. Prosody 3.3.1. Attic Correption 3.3.2. Epic Correption 3.3.3. Duplication of Consonants 3.4. Hiatus 4. Manuscript Transmission 4.1. Description of the Manuscripts AUSTRIA BULGARIA FRANCE GERMANY GREAT BRITAIN (UNITED KINGDOM) GREECE HUNGARY ISRAEL ITALY NETHERLANDS ROMANIA RUSSIA SPAIN SWITZERLAND TURKEY VATICAN CITY 4.2. Vaticanus Graecus 305 and Its Prodromean Collection 4.3. Dissemination in the Twelfth Century and Beyond 4.4. The Relationships between the Manuscripts 4.4.1. Manuscript V 5. Previous Editions and Prolegomena 5.1. From Hieronymus Guntius to the Present Edition 5.2. The Present Edition 5.2.1. Accentuation of the Clitics 5.2.2. Punctuation Greek Text and Translation TABULA SIGLORUM ET ABBREVIATIONUM IN APPARATIBUS ADHIBITORUM CODICES EDITORES CETERA Commentary Poems 1–6 1. Invocatory verses to Paul the great Apostle 2. Similar verses to Gregory the Theologian 3. Similar verses to Basil the Great 4. Similar verses to Saint John Chrysostom 5. Similar verses to Gregory of Nyssa 6. Similar verses to Saint Nicholas 7‒8. On Abraham entertaining the Holy Trinity Poem 7 Poem 8 9. For a Reading 10. 11–21. On St Barbara Poem 12 Poem 13 Poem 14 Poem 16 Poem 17 Poem 18 Poem 19 Poem 20 Poem 21 22–23. On the twelve Feasts of our Lord Jesus Christ Poem 22 24. On the Most Holy Mother of God 25. On an icon of the Most Holy Mother of God 26. On St Peter crucified 27–28. Hexameters on the Crucifixion Poem 27 Poem 28 29‒54. On Virtues and Vices 31. Power 34. Justice 36. Fortitude 40. Truth 46. Modesty 47. Arrogance 49. Mercilessness 53. Rhetoric 55–56. On the Image of Life Poem 55 62–66. To a Garden 57–61. On a ring that has a seal engraving of two lovers and two trees that grow out of their breasts and come together into one canopy Poem 62 Poem 63 67. On an icon of the most holy Mother of God 68. Riddle on the cloud 69. Hypothetical verses about a dead body without hands washed up by the sea 70–72. Hypothetical verses about Pausanias who was petrified due to the death of his son Peter Poem 70 Poem 71 73–74. Verses of protest at seeing the disregard of learning Poem 73 Poem 74 75. Verses of protest regarding Providence 76. On Friendship’s departure Bibliography Primary Sources Secondary Sources Index Locorum Index of Works General Index Index of Manuscripts