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Project

Greek Mythography in the Byzantine World. Investigations into the Remnants of an Age-old Genre.

The proposed project seeks to shed light on the evolution of Greek mythography after antiquity, more particularly in the Byzantine era. Despite the common interest in classical mythology, the genre of mythography (“writing about myth”) did for a long time not receive the scholarly attention it deserved. During the past two decades, however, we have witnessed a revival of interest in this classical genre. The proliferation of studies about Greek mythography has expanded our understanding of classical Greek society, but a lot remains to be done. Most scholars have been focusing on one specific mythographic collection, but an overall view of mythography as a genre and its evolution after antiquity has been lacking. As Byzantine literature is mostly known for her mimetic nature, it would be interesting to take a look at how Byzantine culture adopted this age-old genre. At first sight, it seems as if mythography just disappeared off the radar in Byzantium, since we can identify few real exemplars of Byzantine mythography. However, a closer look does reveal mythographic impulses. Therefore, this study aims at exploring Byzantine literature in search for Byzantine descendants of Greek mythography. In addition, the close examination of these representatives of Byzantine mythography will result in a study about the nature of Byzantine mythography (e.g. its resemblances with and divergences from classical mythography) and will propose a definition of the genre.

Date:1 Oct 2015 →  27 Nov 2017
Keywords:Age-old Genre, Remnants, Byzantine World, Greek Mythography
Disciplines:Language studies, Literary studies