Stratis Papaioannou, Michael Psellos: Rhetoric and Authorship in Byzantium, Cambridge University Press 2013
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| Table of contents click here |
This book explores Michael Psellos' place in the history of
Greek rhetoric and self-representation and his impact on the development of
Byzantine literature. Avoiding the modern dilemma that vacillates between
Psellos the pompous rhetorician and Psellos the ingenious thinker, Professor
Papaioannou unravels the often misunderstood Byzantine rhetoric, its rich
discursive tradition and the social fabric of elite Constantinopolitan culture
which rhetoric addressed. The book offers close readings of Psellos' personal
letters, speeches, lectures and historiographical narratives, and analysis of
other early Byzantine and classical models of authorship in Byzantine book
culture, such as Gregory of Nazianzos, Synesios of Cyrene, Hermogenes and
Plato. It also details Psellos' innovative attention to authorial creativity,
performative mimesis and the aesthetics of the self. Simultaneously, it traces
within Byzantium complex expressions of emotion and gender, notions of
authorship and subjectivity, and theories of fictionality and literature,
challenging the common fallacy that these are modern inventions.
