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Education, learning, literature, and art
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Page 13
A great many writings of very different character have been preserved under the name of Prodromus. Prodromus was a novelist, a hagiographer, and orator, the author of letters and of an astrological poem, of religious poems and philosophical works, of satires and humorous pieces. Many of them are occasional compositions commemorating victories, birth, death, marriage, and the like, and they are very valuable for their allusions to personalities and events as well as for information concerning the life of the lower classes in the capital. Prodromus has often incurred severe censure from scholars who emphasize his pitiful poverty of themes and the disgusting external form of his poetical exercises, and say that poetry can not be required from authors who write to get bread. But this adverse judgment may be explained by the fact that for a long time Prodromus was judged by his weakest, though unfortunately best known, writings; for example, by his long bombastic novel in verse, Rhodanphe and Dosicles, which some scholars call desperately dull and a real trial to read. This opinion can hardly be regarded as the final word, A survey of his work as a whole, including his prose essays, satiric dialogues, libels and epigrams in which he followed the best examples of antiquity, especially Lucian, calls for a revision in his favor of the general judgment of his literary activity. In these writings are keen and amusing observations of contemporary reality which undoubtedly make them interesting for social history in general and literary history in particular. Prodromus is noteworthy also for one very important contribution. In some of his writings, especially humorous works, he gave up the artificial classic language and had recourse to the spoken Greek of the twelfth century, of which he left very interesting specimens. Great credit is due him for this. The best Byzantine scholars today accordingly acknowledge that in spite of all his defects Prodromus without doubt belongs among the remarkable phenomena of Byzantine literature, and is, as few Byzantines are, a distinctly pronounced cultural and historical figure.
Under the Comneni and Angeli lived also a humanist, Constantine Stilbes, of whom very little is known. He received a very good education, was a teacher at Constantinople, and later received the title of master of literature. Thirty-five pieces, almost all of them in verse, composed by Stilbes, are known, but are not yet published. The best known of his poems is that on the great fire that occurred in Constantinople on July 25, 1197; it was the first mention of this fact. This poem consists of 938 verses and gives much information on the topography, structures, and customs of the capital of the Eastern Empire. In another poem, Stilbes described another fire in Constantinople in the following year, 1198. The literary legacy of Stilbes, preserved in many European libraries, and his personality certainly deserve further investigation.
A History of the Byzantine Empire - Table of Contents
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Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/vasilief/literature-education-learning-art-6.asp?pg=13
