Orality in Medieval and Modern Greek Poetry: Introduction

Abstract

A colloquium under the above title was held in Oxford on May 12–13, 1989, under the auspices of the British association of university teachers of Modern Greek studies known as SCOMGIU (Standing Committee on Modern Greek in the Universities). The following articles represent a selection of the papers given at this colloquium, some printed with minimal alterations (thus preserving some traces of their oral performance) and others extensively rewritten.     

Literary Cryptograms and the Cretan Academies

Abstract

Recent researches into the history of the Cretan Academies have added a new dimension to our understanding of the extraordinary flowering of scholarship and literature termed the Cretan Renaissance. We now know that the small island of Crete, dominated for so many centuries by Venetian overlords, had developed by 1560–1632 a resident intelligenzia capable of furnishing three Academies: the Vivi of Rethymno, founded in January 1562 by Francesco Barozzi; the Stravaganti of Irakleio, founded in 1591 by Andrea Cornaro; and the Sterili of Chania, granted a meeting-hall in August 1632 and additional protection by a decree of December 1637.     

An East Cretan LM IA Vase at Knossos

A fragment of a jug published from recent excavations at Palaikastro in E. Crete resembles very closely, in its decoration of double-axes and in its size and shape, a bridge-spouted jug from Evans's excavation in the House of the Frescoes at Knossos. The excavators, who noted the resemblance, were concerned about the date of the vase, LM IA: but implications go beyond this chronological aspect. Stylistically, the lavish use of subsidiary white paint for details of the decoration is without parallel at Knossos. This is, however, a feature of the E. Cretan style where it was practised extensively. These provide firm grounds for believing that the vase found at Knossos is an import from the area of Palaikastro. As such, it is not unique, since similar imports (though few) have been identified in Central Crete, and some others can be added to them. This evidence testifies to hitherto undocumented interrelations between the two regions of the Island at the LM IA stage.     

Orality and the reception of late Byzantine vernacular literature

Abstract

The starting point for this paper is the belief that orality has to be understood in a wider sense than is given to the term by the oral-formulaic theory of Milman Parry and Albert Lord. This is the more important when the field of study is medieval or modern Greece, societies far removed from what Walter Ong (1982: 31–75) has termed the ‘primary orality’ of a culture from which writing is absent. The oral formulaic theory, although excellent as a tool for the analysis of materials actually transcribed from oral performance, has come to be seen in the last fifteen years or so as an unwieldy and often unreliable yardstick for assessing the interaction of oral and written types of discourse. The insistence of the theory that for a text to be considered oral, the three processes of composition, performance and transmission should be simultaneous, imposes a definition of orality which is unjustifiably restrictive, and despite the well-intentioned efforts of Albert Lord and others to address the problem of the ‘transitional’ text, the method of analysis developed through close study of one particular oral tradition in Yugoslavia has proved disappointingly inflexible in its attempt to account for texts which are neither, according to its own definitions, truly oral nor fully literary (cf. Beaton 1987).     

Orality in Persian Argumentative Discourse: A Case Study of Editorials

Languages have their own distinctive styles of argumentation. It seems some languages like Arabic and Persian have a preference for using the “oral” features of parataxis, formulaicity and repetition as persuasive devices in argumentation. The purpose of this article is first to examine these “oral” characteristics in Persian argumentation, and then to tie together the two areas of research: the study of orality and the study of metadiscourse. The article claims that these oral characteristics in Persian are means of gaining rhetorical effectiveness. Therefore, they should be considered as metadiscourse devices used to create a bond between writer and reader.     

Identification of organic materials in icons of the Cretan School of iconography

The Cretan School of iconography is the last great flowering of the traditional Byzantine painting manner, which is however influenced by different schools and western art. Despite their historical significance, icons of the Cretan School have been rarely studied through modern chemical techniques and therefore very few information is available on the materials used by the Cretan painters. In the present investigation, the organic materials contained in several icons of the Cretan School of Iconography from the collection of the Benaki Museum, Athens, Greece, are analyzed and identified by High Performance Liquid Chromatography coupled to a Diode Array Detector (HPLC–DAD) and Gas Chromatography with Mass Spectrometry (GC–MS).The HPLC–DAD results provide support to a recently published report which showed that kermes used in “Cretan” icons of 15th century and early 16th century was replaced by cochineal which was used in icons dated after early 16th century. This trend is known for western art and it is now proved for Cretan icons, showing thus the influence of the Cretan painters by other European painting schools. Other dyes detected in the historical samples, extracted from Cretan icons are madder (possibly Rubia tinctorum L., according to HPLC profiles) and indigoid dyes. Oils, such as linseed and walnut oil, are identified in samples extracted from the seven icons tested by GC–MS. Egg yolk is identified in the extract of only one icon and animal glue, originated most likely from the gesso ground, is found in six samples. Other organic materials detected by GC–MS were wax, as well as synthetic resins, applied during conservation treatments.     

男王后:从历史叙事到文学叙事

男王后的故事源于《陈书.韩子高传》,随着时代的变迁,韩子高从历史走进了文学,他的姓氏、身份及人生际遇亦随之改变,一个青年骁将在文人的想象中逐步蜕变为王世贞《艳异编》中的帝王男宠,最后又被王骥德定格为以色事君的男王后。男王后故事的演变不仅形象体现了历史叙事与文学叙事之间的巨大差别,更折射出晚明男风盛行的社会状况以及男尊女卑性别霸权在男人内部的戏拟与复制。     

《全宋诗·梅询诗集》辑考

梅询是宋代初期著名的诗人,其诗风对大诗人梅尧臣影响较大。《全宋诗·梅询诗集》编者忽略了元陈天麟编的《许昌梅公年谱》和明梅一科辑的《许昌梅公诗略》,以致梅询诗歌遗漏很多。本文从元陈天麟的《许昌梅公年谱》中辑佚1首;从明梅一科《许昌梅公诗略》中辑佚19首;另从明钱榖的《吴都文粹续集》中辑佚2首。     

关于《新唐书》的书法问题

北宋中期,《新唐书》在宋祁、欧阳修的主持下,历十七年终于修成。然而人们对《新唐书》的批评很多,集中在书法问题上,包括史料的取舍、语言的采用、褒贬体例等。《新唐书》之所以在书法上出现这些问题,主要原因是修书组织存在重大缺陷,而且修史官员对春秋笔法理解方面有较大的差异,文人修史存在着如修史者的态度、主观好恶、修史风格等许多弊病。     

Identification of colourants in icons of the Cretan School of iconography using Raman spectroscopy and liquid chromatography

The stratigraphies of twenty five (25) samples removed from twenty (20) icons of the Cretan School of iconography are studied using Optical Microscopy and micro-Raman spectroscopy. The objects are dated in 15th–17th c. and belong to the collection of the Benaki Museum, Athens, Greece. Cinnabar, red ochre, minium, yellow ochre, azurite, malachite, lapis lazuli, lead white, carbon black, and indigo are identified in the cross-sections of the icon samples using Raman spectroscopy.     

在书面与口头传统之间--以敦煌本《舜子变》的口承故事性为探讨对象

“舜”为上古五帝之一,其事迹屡见于各种典籍文献之中,历代人们对于他“至孝”的美德,以及“尧舜禅让”的圣王之治亦多所称美。而这位传说中的上古帝王,在中华文化发展的历史过程中,由于儒墨学者的极力推崇,在后人的心目中,便成为道德高尚、人格完美的代表人物之一,并逐渐“定型化”为上古的“先圣先王”。     

Photius and Poetry

Abstract

‘No art or science, except poetry, was foreign to this universal scholar’. Thus Edward Gibbon. It has long been notorious that poets are excluded from the Bibliotheca. Why? The question persists. Hence the present paper.