Note on the Late Byzantine Romances and Their Editions

Note on the Late Byzantine Romances and Their Editions

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 December 2018

Edited by

Adam J. Goldwyn and

Ingela Nilsson

Show author details

Adam J. Goldwyn: Affiliation:
North Dakota State University
Ingela Nilsson: Affiliation:
Uppsala Universitet, Sweden

Book contents

Get access

Summary

A summary is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.

Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'

Information

Type: Chapter
Information: Reading the Late Byzantine Romance
A Handbook
, pp. xiii - xx

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108163767 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2018

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Livistros and Rhodamne – also Tale of Livistros and Rhodamne (Mid-Thirteenth Century)4

Lambert, J. A. (ed.), Le roman de Libistros et Rhodamné publié d’après les manuscrits de Leyde et de Madrid avec une introduction, des observations grammaticales et un glossaire (Amsterdam 1935) (E).Google Scholar

Agapitos, P. A. (ed.), Ἀφήγησις Λιβίστρου καὶ Pοδάμνης. Kριτική έκδοση τῆς διασκευῆς «ἄλφα» (Athens 2006) (α).Google Scholar

Lendari, T. (ed.), Ἀφήγησις Λιβίστρου καὶ Ροδάμνης (Livistros and Rodamni): The Vatican Version. Critical Edition with Introduction, Commentary, and Index-Glossary (Athens 2007) (V).Google Scholar

Betts, G. (trans.), Three Medieval Greek Romances: Velthandros and Chrysandza, Kallimachos and Chrysorroi, Livistros and Rodamni (New York 1995), 95–192.Google Scholar

Cupane, C., ‘Il romanzo’, in La cultura bizantina, ed. Cavalo, G.. (Rome 2004) 407–53.Google Scholar

Cupane, C., ‘Una passeggiata nei boschi narrativi. Lo statuto della finzione nel “Medioevo romanzo e Orientale”’, JÖB 63 (2013): 61–90.Google Scholar

Cupane, C., ‘In the Realm of Eros: The Late Byzantine Vernacular Romance – Original Texts’, in Fictional Storytelling in the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean and Beyond, ed. Cupane, C. and Krönung, B.. (Leiden and Boston 2016) 95–126.CrossRef Google Scholar

War of Troy (Second Half of Thirteenth Century)5

Papathomopoulos, M. and Jeffreys, E. M. (eds.), Ὁ Πόλεμος τῆς Tρωάδος (The War of Troy). Kριτική ἔκδοση με εἰσαγωγὴ καὶ πίνακες (Athens 1996).Google Scholar

Velthandros and Chysantza (Late Thirteenth Century)6

Kriaras, E. (ed.), Bυζαντινὰ ἱπποτικὰ μυθιστορήματα (Athens 1955), 101–30.Google Scholar

Cupane, C. (ed.), Romanzi cavallereschi bizantini: Callimaco e Crisorroe, Beltandro e Crisanza, Storia di Achille, Florio e Plaziaflore, Storia di Apollonio di Tiro, Favola consolatoria sulla Cattiva e la Buona Sorte (Turin 1995), 227–305 (revised version of Kriaras 1955 with Italian trans.)Google Scholar

Egea, J. M. (ed.), Historia extraordinaria de Beltandro y Crisanza. Estudio preliminar, texto griego, traduccion, notas y comentarios (Granada 1998) (with Spanish trans.).Google Scholar

Betts, G. (trans.), Three Medieval Greek Romances: Velthandros and Chrysandza, Kallimachos and Chrysorroi, Livistros and Rodamni (New York 1995), 5–32.Google Scholar

Kallimachos and Chrysorrhoe (First Half of Fourteenth Century)7

Kriaras, E. (ed.), Bυζαντινὰ ἱπποτικὰ μυθιστορήματα (Athens 1955), 29–83.Google Scholar

Pichard, M. (ed.), Le roman de Callimaque et de Chrysorrhoé (Paris 1956) (with French trans.)Google Scholar

Cupane, C. (ed.), Romanzi cavallereschi bizantini: Callimaco e Crisorroe, Beltandro e Crisanza, Storia di Achille, Florio e Plaziaflore, Storia di Apollonio di Tiro, Favola consolatoria sulla Cattiva e la Buona Sorte (Turin 1995), 47–213 (revised version of Kriaras 1955 with Italian trans.).Google Scholar

Tale of Achilles – also Achilleid (Mid-Fourteenth Century)8

Hesseling, D. C. (ed.), L’Achilleide byzantine publiée avec une introduction, des observations et un index (Amsterdam 1919) (N and L).Google Scholar

Smith, O. L. (ed.), The Oxford Version of the Achilleid (Copenhagen 1990) (O).⁹ Google Scholar

Agapitos, P. A., ‘Ἡ χρονολογικὴ ἀκολουθία τῶν μυθιστορημάτων Kαλλίμαχος, Bέλθανδρος καὶ Λίβιστρος’, in Ἀρχὲς τῆς νεοελληνικῆς λογοτεχνίας. Πρακτικὰ τοῦ δευτέρου διεθνοῦς συνεδρίου Neograeca Medii Aevi (Bενετία 1991), ed. Panagiotakis, N. M., 2 vols. (Venice 1993) vol. ii, 197–234.Google Scholar

Agapitos, P. A., ‘Genre, Structure and Poetics in the Byzantine Vernacular Romances of Loveʼ [SO debate], Symbolae Osloenses 79 (2004): 7–101.CrossRef Google Scholar

Agapitos, P. A., ‘In Rhomaian, Frankish and Persian Lands: Fiction and Fictionality in Byzantium’, in Medieval Narrative Between History and Fiction: From the Centre to the Periphery of Europe, c. 1100–1400, ed. Agapitos, P. A. and Mortensen, L. B.. (Copenhagen 2012) 235–367.Google Scholar

Beaton, R., The Medieval Greek Romance, 2nd edn, revised and expanded. (London and New York 1996).Google Scholar

Cupane, C. (ed.), Romanzi cavallereschi bizantini: Callimaco e Crisorroe, Beltandro e Crisanza, Storia di Achille, Florio e Plaziaflore, Storia di Apollonio di Tiro, Favola consolatoria sulla Cattiva e la Buona Sorte (Turin 1995), 324–442 (revised version of Hesseling 1919 with Italian trans.).Google Scholar

Lavagnini, R., ‘Tales of the Trojan War: Achilles and Paris in Medieval Greek Literature’, in Fictional Storytelling in the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean and Beyond, ed. Cupane, C. and Krönung, B.. (Leiden and Boston 2016). 234–59.Google Scholar

Smith, O. L. (ed.), The Byzantine Achilleid: The Naples Version. Introduction, Critical Edition and Commentary by Ole L. Smith; Edited and Prepared for Publication by P. A. Agapitos and K. Hult (Vienna 1999) 13–74 (N).Google Scholar

Apollonios of Tyre – also The Story of Long-Suffering Apollonios of Tyre (Mid-Fourteenth Century)10

Janssen, A. (ed.), Narratio neogreca Apollonii Tyrii. Diss Nijmegen 1954 (with Latin trans.).Google Scholar

Cupane, C. (ed.), Romanzi cavallereschi bizantini: Callimaco e Crisorroe, Beltandro e Crisanza, Storia di Achille, Florio e Plaziaflore, Storia di Apollonio di Tiro, Favola consolatoria sulla Cattiva e la Buona Sorte (Turin 1995), 567–633 (revised version of Janssen 1954 with Italian trans.)Google Scholar

Kechagioglou, G. (ed.), Απολλώνιος της Τύρου. Υστερομεσαιωνικές και νεότερες ελληνικές μορφές. Κριτική έκδοση με εισαγωγές, σχόλια, πίνακες λέξεων–γλωσσάρια και επίμετρα (Thessaloniki 2004).Google Scholar

Rizzo Nervo, F., ‘Le versioni greche medievali dell’ Apollonio di Tiro’, in Seminario l’Apollonio di Tiro nelle letterature euroasiatiche dal Tardo-antico al Medioevo, ed. Beggiato, F. and Marinetti, S.. (Soveria Mannelli 2002) 151–66.Google Scholar

Florios and Platziaflore (Second Half of Fourteenth Century)11

Hesseling, D. C. (ed.), Le roman de Phlorios et de Platzia Phlore (Amsterdam 1917) (L).Google Scholar

Kriaras, E. (ed.), Bυζαντινὰ ἱπποτικὰ μυθιστορήματα (Athens 1955), 141–96 (V and L).Google Scholar

di Benedetto Zimbone, A. ‘Ancora su Florios e Platziaflore: un esempio di edizione’, in Ενθύµησις Ν.Μ. Παναγιωτάκη, ed. Kaklamanis, S. and Markopoulos-Mavromatis, A.. (Irakleio, 2000) 269–90.Google Scholar

Cupane, C. (ed.), Romanzi cavallereschi bizantini: Callimaco e Crisorroe, Beltandro e Crisanza, Storia di Achille, Florio e Plaziaflore, Storia di Apollonio di Tiro, Favola consolatoria sulla Cattiva e la Buona Sorte (Turin 1995), 464–565 (revised version of Hesseling 1917 with Italian trans.).Google Scholar

Ortolá Salas, F. J. and Platzia Flora, Florio y (eds.), Una novela bizantina de época paleóloga (Madrid 1998) (‘mixed’ edition with Spanish trans.).¹² Google Scholar

Tale of Troy – also Byzantine Iliad (Late Fourteenth–Early Fifteenth Centuries)13

Nørgaard, L. and Smith, O. L. (eds.), A Byzantine Iliad: The Text of Par. Suppl. Gr. 926 (Copenhagen 1975).Google Scholar

Alexander and Semiramis (First Half of Fifteenth Century)14

Moennig, U. (ed.), Die Erzählung von Alexander und Semiramis (Berlin and New York 2004) (B and S with German trans. of B).10.1515/9783110204599CrossRef Google Scholar

Old Knight (First Half of Fifteenth Century)

Breillat, P. (ed.), ‘La Table Ronde en Orient. Le poème grec du Vieux Chevalier’, Mélanges d’archéologie et histoire 55 (1938): 308–40.Google Scholar

Rizzo Nervo, F. (ed.), Il Vecchio Cavaliere (Soveria Mannelli 2000).Google Scholar

Martin, R. H. (trans.), ‘Palamides, and Other Knights of the Round Table, in The Tristan Legend: Texts from Northern and Eastern Europe in Modern English Translation, ed. Hill, J.. (Leeds 1977), 30–46.Google Scholar

Goldwyn, A., ‘Arthur in the East: Cross-Cultural Translations of Arthurian Romance in Greek and Hebrew, Including a New Translation of Ὁ Πρέσβυς Ἱππότης (The Old Knight)’, LATCH 5 (2012): 75–105.Google Scholar

Imperios and Margarona (Mid-Fifteenth Century)15

Wagner, W. (ed.), Histoire de Imbérios et Margarona: Imitation grecque du roman français Pierre de Provence et la belle Maguelonne. Publiée pour la première fois d’après un manuscrit de la Bibliothèque Impériale de Vienne (Paris 1874) (V).Google Scholar

Lambros, S. P. (ed.), Collection de romans grecs en langue vulgaire et en vers (Paris 1880), 239–88 (O).Google Scholar

Jeffreys, E. and Jeffreys, M., 1971. ‘Imberios and Margarona: The Manuscripts, Sources and Edition of a Byzantine Verse Romance’, Byzantion 41: 122–60.Google Scholar

Kriaras, E. (ed.), Βυζαντινὰ ἱπποτικὰ μυθιστορήματα (Athens 1955), 215–49 (unrhymed version).¹⁶ Google Scholar

Yiavis, K. (ed.), Imperios and Margarona: The Rhymed Version (Athens, in press).Google Scholar

Teseida – also The Marriage of Theseus and Aemilia (Late Fifteenth Century)17

In addition to this more or less stable core of twelve Palaiologan romances, some other texts that are more loosely connected to the corpus are discussed in the present volume and therefore deserve to be mentioned and listed here. One is the Digenis Akritis (ed. Jeffreys 1998), previously dated to the twelfth century and by Beaton referred to as a ‘proto-romance’, but here treated as narratologically and thematically related to the Palaiologan romances, at least in its version G (dated to the late thirteenth or even fourteenth century). Another is the Alexander Romance, the immensely popular fictional biography that survives in numerous versions and translations from late antiquity onwards.¹⁸ Usually treated very differently in scholarship, the different versions among the varied manuscripts may be said to straddle the learned and vernacular traditions, representing an impressively long span of storytelling. Frequently mentioned in several chapters in the present volume and often referenced in the discussion of the Palaiologan romances more generally are also the four Komnenian novels, which therefore deserve to be listed below. Finally, two allegorical poems are often mentioned in relation to the romances: the anonymous Consolatory Fable about Bad and Good Fortune, probably from the first half of the fourteenth century and written in the vernacular register, and the Verses on chastity by Meliteniotes, composed in learned Greek in the middle of the same century. Our first list may then be complemented with the following.

Follieri, E. (ed.), Il Teseida Neogreco. Libro I. Saggio di edizione (Athens and Rome 1959) (partial edition).Google Scholar

Kaklamanis, S., ‘Ἀπὸ τὸ χειρόγραφο στο ἔντυπο Θησέος και γάμοι τῆς Αἰμίλιας’, Thesaurismata 27 (1997): 147–223.Google Scholar

Olsen, B. (ed.), ‘The Greek Translation of Boccaccio’s Theseid Book 6’, Classica et Mediaevalia 41 (1990): 275–301 (partial edition).Google Scholar

Komnenian Novels (Twelfth Century)19

Conca, F. (ed.), Il romanzo bizantino del xii secolo. Teodoro Prodromo, Niceta Eugeniano, Eustazio Macrembolita, Constantino Manasse (Turin 1994).Google Scholar

Jeffreys, E. (trans.), Four Byzantine Novels: Theodore Prodromos, Rhodanthe and Dosikles; Eumathios Makrembolites, Hysmine and Hysminias; Constantine Manasses, Aristandros and Kallithea; Niketas Eugenianos, Drosilla and Charikles (Liverpool 2012).Google Scholar

Jeffreys, E. ‘Byzantine Romances: Eastern or Western?’, in Renaissance Encounters: Greek East and Latin West, ed. Brownlee, M. and Gondicas, D.. (Princeton 2013) 221–37.Google Scholar

Digenis Akritis (Twelfth Century/Version G of Thirteenth–Fourteenth Centuries)20

Jeffreys, E. (ed.), Digenis Akritis. The Grottaferrata and Escorial Versions (Cambridge 1998).Google Scholar

Consolatory Fable about Bad and Good Fortune (First Half of Fourteenth Century)

Lambros, S. P. (ed.), Collection de romans grecs en langue vulgaire et en vers (Paris 1880), 289–311 (O).Google Scholar

Lambros, S. P. (ed.), ‘Λόγος παρηγορητικὸς περὶ Δυστυχίας κατὰ κώδικα τῆς Λειψίας’, Neos Hellenomnemon 3 (1906): 407–432δ [sic] (L).Google Scholar

Cupane, C. (ed.), Romanzi cavallereschi bizantini: Callimaco e Crisorroe, Beltandro e Crisanza, Storia di Achille, Florio e Plaziaflore, Storia di Apollonio di Tiro, Favola consolatoria sulla Cattiva e la Buona Sorte (Turin 1995), 635–91 (revised version of Lambros 1906 with Italian trans.).Google Scholar

Meliteniotes, Verses on Chastity (Mid-Fourteenth Century)21

Many other texts from various stages of the Greek language, along with western and eastern romances, are mentioned in the course of the following chapters,²² but we hope that this brief introduction to the most frequently discussed late Byzantine romances and related texts will help the reader to navigate both this volume and the secondary literature to which the respective chapters refer.

Miller, P. (ed.), ‘Poëme allégorique de Meliténiote, publié d’après un manuscrit de la Bibliothèque Impériale’, Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Impériale et autres bibliothèques 19.2 (1858): 1–138.Google Scholar

Dolezal, M. L. and Mavroudi, M. (partial English trans.), ‘Theodore Hyrtakenos’ Description of the Garden of St. Anna and the Ekphrasis of Gardens’, in Byzantine Garden Culture, ed. Littlewood, A., Maguire, H. and Wolschke-Buhlman, J. (Washington, DC 2002), 151–8.Google Scholar

Schönauer, S., Untersuchungen zum Steinkatalog des Sophrosyne-Gedichts des Meliteniotes mit kritischer Edition der Verse 1107–1247. (Wiesbaden 1996).Google Scholar

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Why this information is here

This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

Accessibility Information

Accessibility compliance for the HTML of this chapter is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.

Book contents

Note on the Late Byzantine Romances and Their Editions

Summary

Information

Access options

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Livistros and Rhodamne – also Tale of Livistros and Rhodamne (Mid-Thirteenth Century)4

War of Troy (Second Half of Thirteenth Century)5

Velthandros and Chysantza (Late Thirteenth Century)6

Kallimachos and Chrysorrhoe (First Half of Fourteenth Century)7

Tale of Achilles – also Achilleid (Mid-Fourteenth Century)8

Apollonios of Tyre – also The Story of Long-Suffering Apollonios of Tyre (Mid-Fourteenth Century)10

Florios and Platziaflore (Second Half of Fourteenth Century)11

Tale of Troy – also Byzantine Iliad (Late Fourteenth–Early Fifteenth Centuries)13

Alexander and Semiramis (First Half of Fifteenth Century)14

Old Knight (First Half of Fifteenth Century)

Imperios and Margarona (Mid-Fifteenth Century)15

Teseida – also The Marriage of Theseus and Aemilia (Late Fifteenth Century)17

Komnenian Novels (Twelfth Century)19

Digenis Akritis (Twelfth Century/Version G of Thirteenth–Fourteenth Centuries)20

Consolatory Fable about Bad and Good Fortune (First Half of Fourteenth Century)

Meliteniotes, Verses on Chastity (Mid-Fourteenth Century)21

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Why this information is here

Accessibility Information

Save book to Kindle

Save book to Dropbox

Save book to Google Drive