Four Byzantine Novels: Rhodanthe and Dosikles; Eumathios Makrembolites, Hysmine and Hysminias; Constantine Manasses, Aristandros and Kallithea; Niketas Eugenianos, Drosilla and Charikles

by Theodore Prodromos (Translator)

Constantinople in the mid-twelfth century saw the composition of the first sustained fictional narratives in the European world - novels - since late antiquity. Four members of the Byzantine intelligentsia produced for the entertainment of their colleagues, their aristocratic patrons, and not least themselves, pastiches in verse and prose of the romantic tales of Achilles Tatius and Heliodorus. These novels are perhaps the most attractive, as well as the most unexpected, literary products of the Byzantine millennium. More than one of the four novels translated here was well known in Renaissance Europe, but all have been largely neglected by later generations of readers and scholars as insipid and derivative eroticism. This is regrettable since they antedate by several decades the works of Chrétien de Troyes, the French father of the European novel. This Byzantine phase in the history of the genre, though not part of its central development, deserves exploration. Building on
recent work which has begun to rehabilitate these texts, this book marks the first English translation of all four texts in one volume, placing them and their writers in their literary and historical contexts and opening up their world to all those interested in the novel and in European medieval literature.

LUP gratefully acknowledges the generous support of Dr Costas Kaplanis, alumnus of King's College London, who suggested the idea of the series to Professor Herrin and has underwritten the initial expenses.

Genres: Fiction

504 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2012

About the author

Theodore Prodromos was born around 1100 in Constantinopole in a wealthy family. He was a was a Byzantine writer, well known for his prose and poetry Very little is known about his life. At a young age he was renowed for his writings and he was named a "poeta laureatus" ( a paid court's poet) during the reigns of John II Komnenos (1118–1143). There he wrote many poems and epigrams about court events for the royal familly. In 1140 he got ill and never fully recoverd. After his illness he went to one of the Constantinopole's monasterys where he died around 1158.

The literary activity of Theodore Prodromos was vast. Taking example by Heliodorus of Emesa's Aethiopica, he wrote a novel in verse, "Rodanthe and Dosikles". "The Battle of Cats and Mice" is a parody of the classical Greek tragedies.He also wrote "Iambic and Dactyllic Quatrains on 293 Biblical Verses". "The Iambic quatrains" are in the Vulgar Greek, and the Dactyllic quatrains are in the Homeric Greek. He also wrote two satirical poems, one against a lustful old woman , and the other against an old bearded man . There also survives an astrological poem on the power and meaning of planets "Verses on the Twelve Months". Prodromos also wrote numerous occasional poems and epigrams, often on the occasion of some public event of historical significance, or for the purpose of begging for something; a few religious poems and treatises on the topics of theology, philosophy and grammar; dialogues written in the style of Lucian of Samosata; occasional speeches, epistles and many other writings.

Reviews

[Nathan "N.R." Gaddis]

Moore's review ::
https://www.questia.com/library/journ...


_____________
These four novels ::

Theodore Prodromos' Rhodanthe and Dosikles;
Eumathios Makrembolites' Hysmine and Hysminias;
Constantine Manasses' Aristandros and Kallithea;
Niketas Eugenianos' Drosilla and Charikles

are discussed by Steven Moore in his first volume, page 164ff. However, he did not have Jeffreys' edition available to him. I assume hers might well be the authoritative thing now. For the sake of the record and for further readings, Moore's accounting of his sources (p167n) for the Byzantine novel ::

Beaton's Medieval Greek Romance (1989/1996 rev.)
MacAlister's Dreams and Suicides (1996)
Nilsson's Erotic Pathos, Rhetorical Pleasures (2001)
Roilos' "bizarrely named" Amphoteroglossia (2005).

[Jarod · Rating 3 out of 5]

Claimants to being both the first novels written in Europe since the 3rd century A.D., and to being 4/9ths of all the novels written in Europe before the 13th century (that we have been able to preserve/discover thus far) though, unfortunately, I report that one of them is merely fragmentary. Hysmine and Hysminias is by far the most interesting reconstruction-addition-continuation-whatever for the (haha) "ideal" (haha) romance "genre" and if you do not read it you do technically miss out on something quite special. Though Jeffries is quite the authority on Hellenistic literature and her acts of scholarship are irreplaceable contributions to the Anglosphere, the gifts she presents from the Komnenian Restoration to the future of humanity are in sum an illumination rather than a revelation in comparison with their sources-counterparts-predecessors-whatever and competition from classical antiquity.

[Gian Marco · Rating 5 out of 5]

These novels are hard for newcomers (such as I am), but they are at the same time lively, dense, and enjoyable. It's a bit of antiquity which is mostly unexplored in modern media.

[Lulu]

1138 - 1350s