Voordrachten

Echo’s van verzen over de Bosporus: Poëzie lezen en schrijven in het 11de-eeuwse Constantinopel

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Abstract

This contribution investigates the production and reception of Byzantine poetry as social and cultural practices in a contemporary context. The texts under view are poems composed in the period from 1028 to 1081, predominantly by the three poets Christopher Mitylenaios, John Mauropous and Michael Psellos. ‘Poet’ and ‘poetry’ were no separate categories used for contemporary texts written in verse.The writing of poetry was seen as part of the activities of an intellectual combining the roles of teacher, scholar and orator. Poetry circulated at first separately, on fugitive media, within a limited circle of peers. Further, the social aspects of writing poetry are investigated. In a society where intellectual qualities were put forward as essential competences of someone belonging to the elite, poems served to demonstrate those qualities. Education was an important background for poetic production. Students composed poetry as exercises and teachers entered intocompetition with rivals, exchanging poems as tools to harm others’ reputations.Finally, poetry was an apt tool to position oneself in the intellectual field: the poets followed different self-representational strategies to attain that goal.

How to Cite:

Bernard, F., (2011) “Echo’s van verzen over de Bosporus: Poëzie lezen en schrijven in het 11de-eeuwse Constantinopel”, Tetradio 20(1): 5, 85–111. doi: https://doi.org/10.21825/tetradio.91809