1. Introducing Michael Psellos, Author of Encomion of His Excellency Symeon the Metaphrast and Discourse on the Miracle That Occurred in the Blachernae Church 1.1. The reader of this slender volume will encounter a figure of immense intellectual stature. Michael Psellos (1018–after 1077) combined the roles of scholar and court dignitary in Byzantium at the time of the Byzantine empire’s greatest territorial extent and political influence in… Read more
2. Introduction to the Encomion of His Excellency Symeon the Metaphrast: The Very Model of Scholarly Sainthood 2.1. “The literary commemoration of the saints is the last chapter of the works that confirm the Gospel message” (3.10:220-222). [1] In these few words, Psellos illuminates the significance of hagiography in Byzantium and suggests the reason for the high regard enjoyed by Symeon the… Read more
3. Encomion of his Excellency Symeon the Metaphrast [1] 3.1. In proposing to praise Symeon, great in his conduct and in his discourse, [2] [and to praise] his reputation and his success, bright and widely proclaimed throughout all the world, I do not know what words to use about him nor what to say of all… Read more
Chapter 4. The Theme Formulas and groups of formulas, both large and small, serve only one purpose. They provide a means for telling a story in song and verse. The tale’s the thing. Anyone who reads through a collection of oral epic from any country is soon aware that the same basic incidents and descriptions are met with time and again. This is true in spite… Read more
Chapter 5. Songs and the Song As long as one thought of the oral poet as a singer who carried in his head a song in more or less the exact form in which he had learned it from another singer, as long as one used for investigation ballads and comparatively short epics, the question of what an oral song is could not arise. It was, we… Read more
Chapter 6. Writing and Oral Tradition The art of narrative song was perfected, and I use the word advisedly, long before the advent of writing. It had no need of stylus or brush to become a complete artistic and literary medium. Even its geniuses were not straining their bonds, longing to be freed from its captivity, eager for the liberation by writing. When writing was introduced, epic… Read more
Chapter 7. Homer The practice of oral narrative poetry makes a certain form necessary; the way in which oral epic songs are composed and transmitted leaves its unmistakable mark on the songs. That mark is apparent in the formulas and in the themes. It is visible in the structure of the songs themselves. In the living laboratory of Yugoslav epic the elements have emerged… Read more
Chapter 8. The Odyssey In reading the Odyssey or the Iliad we are at a distinct disadvantage because we are reading isolated texts in a tradition. The comparison with other traditions shows us very clearly that songs are not isolated entities, but that they must be understood in terms of other songs that are current. Had we an adequate collection of ancient Greek epic songs, we could… Read more
Chapter 9. The Iliad The essential pattern of the Iliad is the same as that of the Odyssey; they are both the story of an absence that causes havoc to the beloved of the absentee and of his return to set matters aright. [1] Both tales involve the loss of someone near and dear to the hero (Patroclus and Odysseus’ companions); both… Read more
Chapter 10. Some Notes on Medieval Epic [1] It is perfectly understandable that the oral theory, as it is called, is known best to Classicists, who have been trying to look at Homer from its point of view since the days of Milman Parry. Thanks to Professor Francis P. Magoun, Jr., and to his students, the theory has also attracted the attention… Read more
