Fictional storytelling in the medieval eastern Mediterranean and beyond / / edited by Carolina Cupane, Bettina Kronung.

• TeilnehmendeR: Cupane, Carolina.; Krönung, Bettina.
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden ;, Boston : : Brill,, [2016]
• Year of Publication: 2016
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Brill's Companions to the Byzantine World 1.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (550 pages) :; color illustrations.
• Notes: Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

This volume offers an overview of the rich narrative material circulating in the medieval Mediterranean. As a multilingual and multicultural zone, the Eastern Mediterranean offered a broad market for tales in both oral and written form and longer works of fiction, which were translated and reworked in order to meet the tastes and cultural expectations of new audiences, thus becoming common intellectual property of all the peoples around the Mediterranean shores. Among others, the volume examines for the first time popular eastern tales, such as Kalila and Dimna, Sindbad, Barlaam and Joasaph, and Arabic epics together with their Byzantine adaptations. Original Byzantine love romances, both learned and vernacular, are discussed together with their Persian counterparts and with later adaptations of western stories. This combination of such disparate narrative material aims to highlight both the wealth of medieval storytelling and the fundamental unity of the medieval Mediterranean world. Contributors are Carolina Cupane, Faustina Doufikar-Aerts, Massimo Fusillo, Corinne Jouanno, Grammatiki A. Karla, Bettina Krönung, Renata Lavagnini, Ulrich Moennig, Ingela Nilsson, Claudia Ott, Oliver Overwien, Panagiotis Roilos, Julia Rubanovich, Ida Toth, Robert Volk and Kostas Yiavis.

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material -- Introduction: Medieval Fictional Story-Telling in the Eastern Mediterranean (8th–15th centuries AD): Historical and Cultural Context / Carolina Cupane and Bettina Krönung -- 1 Mapping the Roots: The Novel in Antiquity / Massimo Fusillo -- 2 Romantic Love in Rhetorical Guise: The Byzantine Revival of the Twelfth Century / Ingela Nilsson -- 3 In the Mood of Love: Love Romances in Medieval Persian Poetry and their Sources / Julia Rubanovich -- 4 In the Realm of Eros: The Late Byzantine Vernacular Romance – Original Texts / Carolina Cupane -- 5 The Adaptations of Western Sources by Byzantine Vernacular Romances / Kostas Yiavis -- 6 A Hero Without Borders: 1 Alexander the Great in Ancient, Byzantine and Modern Greek Tradition / Ulrich Moennig -- 7 A Hero Without Borders: 2 Alexander the Great in the Syriac and Arabic Tradition / Faustina C.W. Doufikar-Aerts -- 8 A Hero Without Borders: 3 Alexander the Great in the Medieval Persian Tradition / Julia Rubanovich -- 9 Tales of the Trojan War: Achilles and Paris in Medieval Greek Literature / Renata Lavagnini -- 10 Shared Spaces: 1 Digenis Akritis, the Two-Blood Border Lord / Corinne Jouanno -- 11 Shared Spaces: 2 Cross-border Warriors in the Arabian Folk Epic / Claudia Ott -- 12 The Literary Life of a Fictional Life: Aesop in Antiquity and Byzantium / Grammatiki A. Karla -- 13 Secundus the Silent Philosopher in the Ancient and Eastern Tradition / Oliver Overwien -- 14 Fighting with Tales: 1 The Arabic Book of Sindbad the Philosopher / Bettina Krönung -- 15 Fighting with Tales: 2 The Byzantine Book of Syntipas the Philosopher / Ida Toth -- 16 From the Desert to the Holy Mountain: The Beneficial Story of Barlaam and Ioasaph / Robert Volk -- 17 The Wisdom of the Beasts: The Arabic Book of Kalīla and Dimna and the Byzantine Book of Stephanites and Ichnelates / Bettina Krönung -- 18 “I grasp, oh, artist, your enigma, I grasp your drama”: Reconstructing the Implied Audience of the Twelfth-Century Byzantine Novel / Panagiotis Roilos -- 19 “Let me tell you a wonderful tale”: Audience and Reception of the Vernacular Romances / Carolina Cupane -- General Bibliography / Carolina Cupane and Bettina Krönung -- General Index / Carolina Cupane and Bettina Krönung.