The insignificance of 1204 and 1453 for the history of Byzantine literature, Medioevo Greco 20 (2020) 1-58 By Panagiotis Agapitos

https://www.academia.edu/44423529/The_insignificance_of_1204_and_1453_for_the_history_of_Byzantine_literature_Medioevo_Greco_20_2020_1_58?rhid=37145989772&swp=rr-rw-wc-145523472&nav_from=1daeb2f3-447c-47c9-a59d-e8a44302a15e The present paper proposes a new periodization model for the history of Byzantine literature between the 11th and the 15th century. The paper examines first the use of the historical model in the periodization schemata of various overviews of Byzantine literature along with the essentialist and teleological concepts inherent in this model. Two further sections present the arguments concerning the insignificance of 1204 and 1453 for a literary history of Byzantium because both dates did not leave a visible imprint on the way people wrote after the disasters had occured, while their presence as historical markers of an abrupt end obscures the continuities and the important changes that took place around them. In two last sections the paper offers two new boundaries that are not instantaneous moments in history but fluid and broad segments of time in its unbroken stream. The years around 1050 and 1350 are marked by a series of changes in the way logoi were perceived both in school and in actual practice, and it is, therefore, proposed that Byzantine literature from the eleventh century onwards is shaped by two fluid periods: 1050-1350 and 1350-1500. ...