Gunnel Ekroth

Ingela Nilsson

"The possibility of visiting the realms of the dead and yet returning alive is an idea that has fascinated people throughout time and across cultures. The European tradition goes back to Greek and Roman antiquity, represented by such famous round trips to Hades as those undertaken by Odysseus and Aeneas, but it is clear that the Graeco-Roman tradition had older Mesopotamian antecedents."--

Visits to the Underworld from Antiquity to Byzantium

Round Trip to Hades in the Eastern Mediterranean Tradition

Narrative Technique and Mimesis in Eumathios Makrembolites' Hysmine & Hysminias

Erotic Pathos, Rhetorical Pleasure

Paul Stephenson

The Desire for a Lost Empire

Wanted : Byzantium

Adam J. Goldwyn

The corpus of Palaiologan romances consists of about a dozen works of imaginative fiction from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries which narrate the trials and tribulations of aristocratic young lovers. This volume brings together leading scholars of Byzantine literature to examine the corpus afresh and aims to be the definitive work on the subject, suitable for scholars and students of all levels. It offers interdisciplinary and transnational approaches which demonstrate the aesthetic and cultural value of these works in their own right and their centrality to the medieval and early modern Greek, European and Mediterranean literary traditions. From a historical perspective, the volume also emphasizes how the romances represent a turning point in the history of Greek letters: they are a repository of both ancient and medieval oral poetic and novelistic traditions and yet are often considered the earliest works of Modern Greek literature.

A Handbook

Reading the Late Byzantine Romance

The intricate relationship between the erotic and the literary is a recurring theme in Western literature, with a starting-point in Plato's dialogues. Our need to talk, write, and read about love has resulted in a rich tradition, ranging from theoretical and philosophical discussions of Eros to love romance and poetry, clearly marked by the classical heritage but continuously unfolding and rewriting itself. The essays in this volume aim at providing both students and scholars with a series of discussions of this long tradition of reading and writing the erotic, seen from a number of different perspectives. A certain emphasis is placed on Classical philology, and in particular Greek and Roman love poetry from Antiquity to the Byzantine period. The contributors examine texts by Plato, Catullus, Sulpicia, Meleager and Niketas Choniates among others; but the anthology also offers more general treatments within the fields of Byzantine Studies, Iranian Languages, History of Ideas and Comparative Literature. Across this range of writers and disciplines, this collection of essays offers stimulating and original perspectives on how Eros has been appropriated in a variety of ways for purposes of producing narratives of love. Contributors: Emmanuel C. Bourbouhakis, Anders Cullhed, Tomas Hägg, Regina Höschele, Dimitrios Iordanoglou, Mats Persson, Mathilde Skoie, Bo Utas, David Westberg, Tim Whitmarsh

Essays on the Poetics of Love and the Erotics of Reading

Plotting with Eros

Ingela Nilsson

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