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Roderick Beaton
Routledge

From Byzantium to Modern Greece: Medieval Texts and Their Modern Reception

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AuthorRoderick Beaton
PublisherRoutledge
PublishedSep 28 2008
Book FormatHardcover
ISBN-139780754659693
Dimensions-
Weight 1.5 pounds
BISAC
CategoriesLiterary Criticism > Ancient and Classical
LanguageEnglish

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Book Description

The twelfth century was a time of cultural renewal and innovation in Byzantium, just as it was in the west. In literature, the long disused genres of epic, satire and the novel (or 'romance') took new forms during that century; at the same time, in language, the vernacular made its first tentative literary appearances. These developments continued uninterruptedly through the late Byzantine and early modern periods. Scholarship since the nineteenth century has been sharply divided over these texts: do they represent the first 'breakthrough' of an emergent 'Modern Greek' literature, or merely a footnote to the Byzantine learned tradition? What, in particular, do they have to tell us about the collective self-definition of the Greek-speakers who wrote them (roughly during the period 1100-1600)? And how has their subsequent reception contributed to defining and consolidating the national identity of the Modern Greeks, since the nation state was established in the 1820s? The papers collected in this book explore the relation between literary texts and collective consciousness, scrutinizing the evidence of the texts themselves in their late- or post-Byzantine context, and assessing how their reception both influenced and was influenced by the processes of nation-building in Modern Greece.

Author Bio

Roderick Beaton grew up in Edinburgh where he first studied Latin and ancient Greek before going on to Peterhouse, Cambridge, to graduate with a BA in English Literature and a PhD in Modern Greek. He came to King’s in 1981, first as Lecturer in Modern Greek Language and Literature, and then from 1988 until his retirement in 2018 as Koraes Professor.

For ten years he headed the Department of Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies (whose functions since 2015 have been taken over by the Department of Classics), and from 2012 to 2018 was Director of the Centre for Hellenic Studies.

He is a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA, 2013), a Fellow of King’s College (FKC, 2018), Commander of the Order of Honour of the Hellenic Republic (2019) and, from September to December 2021, has been appointed A.G. Leventis Visiting Professor in Greek at the University of Edinburgh.

Teaching

Myth and modern literature; nations and nationalism in the Hellenic world; Romanticism and the making of modern Greece; Classical reception in modern Greece; and (at MA level) the history of the Greek novel in comparative context.

Expertise and public engagement

I frequently appear in Greek national press and on national radio, as well as many online appearances. I am actively involved in the organization of events in Greece, the UK and elsewhere to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Greek Revolution in 2021, and have already recorded extensive interviews for several TV and film documentaries on the subject.

I am available to the talk to the media about any aspect of current affairs or the modern history and culture of Greece or Cyprus.

Source: King's College London, U.K.

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From Byzantium to Modern Greece: Medieval Texts and Their Modern Reception

Literary Criticism

Ancient and Classical

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