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Books by Nikos Zagklas

The twelfth century was one of the most fertile periods in Byzantine literary history and this vo... more The twelfth century was one of the most fertile periods in Byzantine literary history and this volume is the first to focus exclusively on its abundant poetic production. It explores the broader sociocultural tendencies that shaped twelfth-century literature in both prose and verse by examining the school as an important venue for the composition and use of texts written in verse, by shedding new light on the relationship between poetry, patronage and power, and by offering the first editions and interpretive studies of hitherto neglected works. In this way, it enhances our knowledge of the history of Byzantine literature and enables us to situate Medieval Greek poetry in the broader literary world of the medieval Mediterranean.

Medieval Encounters, 2024

Special Issue of Medieval Encounters 30, nos. 5-6 (2024). Krystina Kubina and Nikos Zagklas, Int... more Special Issue of Medieval Encounters 30, nos. 5-6 (2024).

Krystina Kubina and Nikos Zagklas, Introduction: Why Write Poetry?
Transcultural Perspectives from the Later Medieval Period

Nikoloz Aleksidze, “The Sweetness of the Persian Tongue”: the Limits
of Poetry in Medieval and Early Modern Georgia

Cameron Cross, Poetic Alchemy: the Rise of Romance from a Persian
Perspective

Krystina Kubina and Nikos Zagklas, Greek Poetry in a Multicultural Society:
Sicily and Salento in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries

Saskia Dönitz, Hebrew Panegyric of the Late Middle Ages: Shemaryah,
Son of Elijah, and His Praise Poems

In twelfth-century Byzantium, poetry played a key part in various contexts of textual production ... more In twelfth-century Byzantium, poetry played a key part in various contexts of textual production and consumption. One of the leading poets of this period was Theodoros Prodromos, whose surviving corpus comprises approximately 17,000 verses. Even though most of his poetry has been presented in modern critical editions, a group of his works has been overlooked by modern philologists and literary scholars alike. The selected corpus—conventionally designated as Miscellaneous Poems—consists of texts on various themes and in a wide range of genres, ranging from cycles of religious and secular epigrams to riddles, ethopoiiai, and works of a self-referential and essayistic nature. This book includes the first critical edition and study of these poems, accompanied by English translations and commentaries. Their study contributes to a more nuanced picture of Prodromos' intellectual profile, expanding his image as the 'poet laureate' of the Komnenian court and providing entirely new insights into his activity in the different settings of Constantinopolitan intellectual life. The book also sheds new light on the complex relationship between patronage and other aspects of literary activity and the circulation of the same text in different performative contexts.

This book aims at a better understanding of middle and late Byzantine poetry by offering both st... more This book aims at a better understanding of middle and late Byzantine poetry by offering both studies on specific authors and their texts and editions of so far unknown texts.It is only in recent years that Byzantine poetry – a long-neglected aspect of Byzantine literature – has attracted the attention of philologists, literary and cultural historians. This holds true especially for the poetry written in middle and late Byzantium.Though many collections of poems are available in modern critical editions, a considerable amount of texts still remains completely unedited or accessible only in outdated and unreliable editions. Moreover, many works of this period have never been studied thoroughly with regard to their cultural impact on society. Issues of authorship and patronage, function, literary motives, generic qualities, and manuscripts still await further study. This volume aims to take a step to fill this gap. Although it includes studies on poetry from the early tenth to the fifteenth centuries, the main focus is placed on the Komnenian and Palaeologan times. It presents editions of completely unknown texts, such as a twelfth-century cycle of epigrams on John Klimax. It includes studies on various types of poetry, including didactic, occasional, and even poetry written for liturgical purposes. By analysing these works and placing them within their literary and socio-cultural context, we can draw conclusions about the cultural tastes of the Byzantines and acquire a more nuanced picture of middle and late Byzantine poetry.

by Foteini Spingou, Charles Barber, Nathan Leidholm, Thomas Carlson, Ivan Drpić, Alexandros (Alexander) Alexakis, elizabeth jeffreys, Theocharis Tsampouras, Mircea G . Duluș, Nikos Zagklas, Ida Toth, Alexander Riehle, Brad Hostetler, Michael Featherstone, Emmanuel C Bourbouhakis, Shannon Steiner, Efthymios Rizos, Divna Manolova, Robert Romanchuk, Maria Tomadaki, Kirsty Stewart, Baukje van den Berg, Katarzyna Warcaba, Florin Leonte, Vasileios Marinis, Ludovic Bender, Linda Safran, Sophia Kalopissi-Verti, Rachele Ricceri, Luisa Andriollo, Alex J Novikoff, Annemarie Carr, Marina Bazzani, Greti Dinkova-Bruun, Renaat Meesters, Daphne (Dafni) / Δάφνη Penna / Πέννα, Annemarie Carr, Alexander Alexakis, Jeremy Johns, Maria Parani, Lisa Mahoney, Irena Spadijer, and Ilias Taxidis

ISBN: 9781108483056 Series: Sources for Byzantine Art History 3 In this book the beauty and m... more ISBN: 9781108483056
Series: Sources for Byzantine Art History 3

In this book the beauty and meaning of Byzantine art and its aesthetics are for the first time made accessible through the original sources. More than 150 medieval texts are translated from nine medieval languages into English, with commentaries from over seventy leading scholars. These include theories of art, discussions of patronage and understandings of iconography, practical recipes for artistic supplies, expressions of devotion, and descriptions of cities. The volume reveals the cultural plurality and the interconnectivity of medieval Europe and the Mediterranean from the late eleventh to the early fourteenth centuries. The first part uncovers salient aspects of Byzantine artistic production and its aesthetic reception, while the second puts a spotlight on particular ways of expressing admiration and of interpreting of the visual.

Edited Poems (Numbering after Hörandner) Religious Poems 120, Προσφωνητήριοι εἰς τὸν μέγαν ἀπ... more Edited Poems (Numbering after Hörandner)

Religious Poems
120, Προσφωνητήριοι εἰς τὸν μέγαν ἀπόστολον Παῦλον , εἰς τὸν Θεολόγον Γρηγόριον, εἰς τὸν Μέγαν Βασίλειον, εἰς τὸν Χρυσόστομον, εἰς τὸν Γρηγόριον Νυσσέα, εἰς τὸν ἅγιον Νικόλαον, six poems-72 elegiac couplets.
121, Εἰς τὸν Ἀβραάμ, ξενίζοντα τὴν ἁγίαν Τριάδα, 8 dodecasyllables.
122, Εἰς τὸν Ἀβραάμ, ξενίζοντα τὴν ἀγίαν Τριάδα, 3 dodecasyllables.
123, Ἐπὶ ἀναγνώσει, 26 dodecasyllables.
124, Στίχοι περὶ τῆς ἁγίας Βαρβάρας, 10 poems- 64 dodecasyllables.
125, Στίχοι περὶ τῆς ἁγίας Βαρβάρας, 10 hexameters.
127, Eἰς τὰς ιβ΄ἑορτὰς, τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, 16 dodecasyllables.
128, Τοῦ Πτωχοπροδρόμου, 26 dodecasyllables.
129, Εἰς τὴν ὑπεραγίαν Θεοτόκον, 16 dodecasyllables.
130, Εἰς εἰκόνα τῆς ὑπεραγίας Θεοτόκου, 14 dodecasyllables.
131, Εἰς τὴν σταύρωσιν ἡρῶοι στίχοι, 2 poems- 10 hexameters.
133, Prologue to a theological work, 21 dodecasyllables.

Satirical poems
142, Σχετλιαστικοὶ ἐπὶ τῇ ἀτιμίᾳ τοῦ λόγου, 28 hexameters.
143, Σχετλιαστικοὶ εἰς τὴν πρόνοιαν, 167 dodecasyllables.

Poems on various subjects
153, Ἐπι ἀποδήμου τῇ φιλίᾳ, 297 dodecasyllables.
154, Εἰς τὰς ἀρετὰς καὶ εἰς τὰς κακίας, 52 dodecasyllables.
155, Eἰς εἰκονισμένον τὸν βίον, 19 political verses.
156, Εἰς δακτύλιον ἔχοντα σφραγῖδα ἐρῶντας, 5 poems- 10 dodecasyllables.
158, Ἐπὶ κήπῳ, 5 poems- 44 dodecasyllables.
159, Εἰς τοὺς ιβ΄ μήνας, 69 dodecasyllables.
160, Αἴνιγμα εἰς τὴν νεφέλην, 4 elegiac couplets.
161, Ὑποθετικοὶ ἐπί τινι ἐκβρασθέντι τῆς θαλάσσης ἄχειρι νεκρῷ, 9 elegiac couplets.
162, Στίχοι ὑποθετικοὶ εἰς Παυσανίαν ἀπολιθωθέντα διὰ τὸν θάνατον τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ Πέτρου, three poems- 7 elegiac couplets.

Papers by Nikos Zagklas

Medieval Encounters, 2024

In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, southern Italy experienced a period of relative politica... more In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, southern Italy experienced a period of relative political stability and economic prosperity under the Normans as well as the Hohenstaufen dynasty that succeeded them. These cultural conditions fostered a cultural resurgence, which included the composition of Greek poetry. Poets in Sicily wrote from within a multicultural context, including the presence of Arabic- and Latin-speaking communities. Many of their poems illustrate the generative intersections between the Byzantine-Constantinopolitan, Latin, and Arabic traditions. Later in Salento, poetry was written in a rather closed Greek-speaking, Orthodox society. Comparing Greek poetry from Sicily and Salento shows some differences between composition in the two regions. Whereas Sicilian poetry includes especially creative narrative poems, composed for the rich and sophisticated courts of the island, the Salentine poetry bears the stamp of the schoolroom. In fact, most poems from both Sicily and Salento survive in manuscripts that can be traced to a pedagogical environment. While the circulation of these poems was limited to their surrounding regions, their literary sophistication betrays remarkable creativity and the multicultural conditions of composition, further evidence of the vitality of Greek literary culture far from the heartland of the Byzantine Empire.

Medieval Encounters, 2024

Introduction to the homonymous Special Issue of Medieval Encounters

K. Kubina and A. Riehle (eds.), Epistolary Poetry from Late Antiquity to Byzantium, 2021

P. Marciniak and. I. Nilsson (eds.), Satire in the Middle Byzantine Period—The Golden Age of Laughter? (Leiden: Brill, 2020)

Byzantine works are not always so flattering and pleasant to the ears of an addressee. They can a... more Byzantine works are not always so flattering and pleasant to the ears of an addressee. They can abound with abusive and vitriolic assaults. This holds especially true for works written in verse. In order to demonstrate their poetic virtuosity, fulfil their social aspirations and secure their social status, many poets criticize and even destroy the reputation of their opponents. This paper discusses some of the trends that emerge in verse satires and invectives written in the twelfth century as well as the models these poets made use for the composition of their works. It argues that their works owe a great deal, not only to the Lucianic satire, but also to he mocking epigrams from the eleventh book of the Greek Anthology. Moreover, it examines how twelfth-century poets debunk their rivals within a number of contexts. The art of abuse differentiates between some contemporary authors offering a glimpse into the way they acted within the competitive intellectual setting of the twelfth century.

Poetry in Norman Italy, 2019

Dear reader, Please note that this article is published with Brepols Publishers as a Gold Open Ac... more Dear reader, Please note that this article is published with Brepols Publishers as a Gold Open Access article under a Creative Commons CC 4.0: BY-NC license. The article is also freely available on the website of Brepols Publishers : https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/abs/10.1484/M.SBHC-EB.5.115583 under this same license.

Abstract
Metrical polyeideia is an important quality in many poetic traditions, from the antiquity to Byzantine times and beyond. As with their ancient models, the Byzantines even combined more than one meters within a single work, such as short epigrams, long metrical commentaries and novels. However, it has gone unnoticed that after the year 1000, many authors composed even cycles of poems or stanzas for the very same occasion, yet written in different meters. This article aims to examine this neglected practice and shed some light on the driving motivations behind the composition of such works. It demonstrates its continuous popularity throughout the twelfth century, since there are numerous multimetric cycles by Theophylaktos of Ochrid, Theodore Prodromos, Niketas Eugenianos, Manganeios Prodromos, and Efthymios Tornikes. Moreover, all these multimetric cycles are associated with a wide range of types of occasional poetry, including monodies, epitaphs, epithalamia and panegyrics. Since the composition of ceremonial poetry on commission reached its heyday in the twelfth century, it is argued that many authors made use of the multimetric cycles to present novel compositions to their patrons. In order to achieve generic innovation, they mixed not only contents, motifs and modes from different literary generic categories, but also different metrical forms.

Dumbarton Oaks Papers 71 (2017) 229-248, 2017

The twelfth century has often been described as a period of extended literary experimentation and... more The twelfth century has often been described as a period of extended literary experimentation and innovation. This paper explores a hitherto unnoticed experimentation of this period, which emanates from the interaction between prose and verse across a wide range of genres. It argues that the nature of their interaction witnessed a shift in view of two popular twelfth-century practices: either single works whose narrative is a mixture of prose and verse, or two and even three separate works written in different forms (prose and verse) but for the very same occasion; the former can be termed “mixed works”, while the latter “diptychs” or “triptychs”. This is the first step to understand the synergy between prose and verse in Byzantium and the driving forces behind the composition of such literary hybrids.

Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 57 (2017) 1120–1148, 2017

Byzantinische Zeitschrift 109/2 (2016) 895‒918

The fourteenth-century manuscript Vaticanus gr. 743 transmits seven anonymous poems entitled as f... more The fourteenth-century manuscript Vaticanus gr. 743 transmits seven anonymous poems entitled as follows: 1) εἰς ἀστρονόμον 2) ἴαμβος 3) εἰς πίθηκον λαβόντα μεγάλην γυναῖκα 4) εἰς τὸν ἅγιον Ἰάκωβον 5) εἰς τὴν ἁγίαν μάρτυρα Βαρβάραν 6) εἰς τὰ λαιμία τοῦ Χριστοῦ καὶ τοῦ ἀρχιστρατήγου 7) εἰς τὸν χορὸν τῶν ψαλτῶν καὶ εἰς τὸν χειρονόμον. The first three are satires, while the remaining four epigrams were most likely meant to be inscribed next to corresponding images. Although the first poem was edited quite recently, the other six remain unedited. The aim of this article is to provide an edition and translation of all these texts together as well as to discuss their dating and authorship. Vaticanus gr. 743 (paper, 200 ×135 mm, 108 fols., + 6a and 95a) is a miscellaneous manuscript copied by four different scribes at some point in the fourteenth century.¹ Whereas the first ninety folios transmit various prose texts of philosophical interest, the last three quires (fol. 91 r –106 v), copied by two different scribes, form a sylloge of poems: The antepenultimate quire (fol. 91 r –97 r) pre

The poem Eis tas aretas kai tas kakias, which is attributed to Theodoros Prodromos, is also trans... more The poem Eis tas aretas kai tas kakias, which is attributed to Theodoros Prodromos, is also transmitted in a couple of manuscripts under the name of a certain Paniotes. The purpose of this article is twofold; on the one hand, it is an attempt to examine if there is any relevant information regarding Paniotes both in Byzantine sources as well as in the modern bibliography. On the other hand, combination of evidence allows us to assume that Paniotes could also be identified with the well-known author of the twelfth century Constantine Manasses.

W. Hörandner, A. Rhoby and N. Zagklas (eds), in A Companion to Byzantine Poetry (Leiden/Boston, 2019), 2019

Ceremonial poetry, didactic poetry, satire, verse schede, poems concerned with the “rhetoric of p... more Ceremonial poetry, didactic poetry, satire, verse schede, poems concerned with the “rhetoric of poverty” are some popular texts types that stand for the use of verse for various occasions and purposes during the Komnenian period. Although many of these texts types pro-exist, their production during this period is much larger than any other century of the Middle and Late Byzantine times. This result was partly due to the emergence of a group of poets who wrote on commission for various imperial and aristocratic individuals. The paper offers a bird’s eye view of the evolution of Byzantine poetry from Alexios I Komnenos’ ascension to the throne (1081) until the conquest of Constantinople by the Latins (1204) by focusing both on well known and less know poets. It argues that certain poetic trends continue to exist throughtout this long century, while some other cease or undergo changes. The last part of the paper takes a closer look at the driving powers (patronage, education and demonstration of intellectuality) behind the composition of Komnenian poetry and their interlinks.