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Journal article
New Testament Miracles in the Ethopoeiae of Nikephoros Basilakes
Greek, Roman and Byzantine studies, Vol.61(2), pp.224-248
01/01/2021
Abstract
For more than a millennium after its invention, the rhetorical exercise in ethopoeia was populated with mythological and (to a lesser extent) historical characters along with stereotyped comic figures such as lovestruck painters, cowardly misers, and repentant prostitutes. In the mid-twelfth century in Constantinople, Nikephoros Basilakes (ca. 1115-after 1182) composed a collection of progymnasmata that included thirteen ethopoeiae featuring characters from the Bible. The purpose and the audience of these exercises are unknown. He may have composed and performed them as models for the students in his rhetorical school, for the enjoyment of a circle of other literary elites including the Komnenian novelists, or for an unmentioned patron. His teacher Nikolaos Mouzalon is known to have written at least one biblical ethopoeia, and other writers in the late twelfth through the fourteenth centuries also wrote biblical ethopoeiae, but there is no evidence that students in Greek rhetorical schools were taught to compose biblical-themed ethopoeiae at any date.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- New Testament Miracles in the Ethopoeiae of Nikephoros Basilakes
- Creators
- Craig A Gibson
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Greek, Roman and Byzantine studies, Vol.61(2), pp.224-248
- Publisher
- Duke University
- ISSN
- 0017-3916
- eISSN
- 2159-3159
- Copyright
- Copyright © 2021 Craig A Gibson
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 01/01/2021
- Academic Unit
- Classics
- Record Identifier
- 9984185973202771
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