‘Be Amorous,But Be Chaste: Sexual morality in Byzantine learned and vernacular romance

Abstract

Tales of love and romance, although love stories were regarded of less account than other literary themes, had always been a part of the literature of ancient Greece:

‘;There never was a time in the history of Greek Literature when a good story of personal adventure of any kind, erotic or non-erotic, tragic, comic or scandalous, wonder-seeking or realistic, was not welcome to readers or listeners, so long as it was presented within the context of an approved literary form, or on a suitable oral occasion. The Greeks from the earliest times were familier with all kinds of stories and enjoyed them.’