Narrating Loyalty in George of Pisidia and Manuel Philes

Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 2007

2013

This study gives the editio princeps of two poems by Manuel Philes and looks at the relationship between the poet and the Asan family, which commissioned the poems. The first text is an epitaph for Irene Asanina Komnene Palaiologina, the daughter of Michael VIII Palaiologos. The second poem is an epigram written for a church that Irene’s son Isaac commissioned. I argue that both poems were commissioned by Isaac Asan, who donated a church as burial place for his family, where both texts were inscribed. When the two poems are read in the context of others connected with the Asan family, one can prove contact between Philes and three of Irene’s sons from at least 1316 to 1332. The literary analysis shows that, in commissioned poetical works, the Byzantines sought individual responses to specific situations and the genre of occasional poetry should not be neglected as an arbitrary mixture of common topoi.

Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 2023

The Ottoman conquest of Constantinople not only destroyed the Byzantine Empire as a political entity but caused the collapse of patronage networks vital to all aspects of Byzantine cultural life, including literary production. After 1453 authors had to seek sources of support under new lords and divergent cultural imperatives: Ottoman Constantinople, Crete, and humanist Italy became major centres of Greek poetic production and intellectual life. Through the analysis of poems by George Amiroutzes, Michael Apostoles, Bessarion, Andronikos Kallistos, and others, this article examines how these authors adapted their compositions to new communities, substantially transforming their (literary) identity.

Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 2020

This article presents the critical edition of eight hitherto unpublished poems by Manuel Philes together with a translation and a commentary. The poems are verse letters addressed to various high-ranking individuals. Poem 1 is addressed to the emperor, whose power is emphasised in a request to help Philes escape from his misery. Poem 2 is a fragment likewise addressed to the emperor. Poem 3 is a consolatory poem for a father whose son has died. In poem 4, Philes addresses a patron whose wife hurried to Constantinople after she had become the object of hostility of unknown people. Poem 5 is addressed to the month of August and deals with the return of a benefactor of Philes to Constantinople. In poem 6, Philes writes on behalf of an unnamed banker and asks the megas dioiketes Kabasilas to judge the latter justly. Poems 7 and 8 are tetrasticha including a request for wine.

1986

This article examines Plutarch's reception in George Pisides' poetry. The first section argues in favour of Pisides' familiarity with Plutarch's writings, mainly in view of verbatim quotations and other thematic connections or allusions. The second section explores Pisides' more creative use of Plutarch by discussing his direct addresses to the Chearonean philosopher and comparing them with Pisides' similar apostrophes to Homer and Demosthenes in The Persian Expedition and the Heraclias. By seeking to 'rewrite' the heroic past, Pisides presents himself as a skilled emulator of his ancient predecessors, thereby enhancing his self-fashioning as the imperial spokesman par excellence.

JAHRBUCH DER ÖSTERREICHISCHEN BYZANTINISTIK, 70. Band/2020, 2021

The following paper will endeavour to show how much the poetic style of George of Pisidia in the Bellum Avaricum is linked to his political involvement and to the purpose he gave to his poem. Besides, through the use of specific poetic devices, which will be presented and analysed here in detail, he not only seeks to celebrate the victory after the siege of Constantinople but also to introduce a poetry more understandable and more audible for its public, certainly informed and sensitive to his complex poetic devices, but also more and more familiar with a new poetry, closer to the spoken language. Therefore, the poetry of George of Pisidia appears both as a means and an end, and expresses well the strong awareness of his own creative process, especially through the notion of "eumetria" which saturates the whole poem and represents well everything involved in the poet’s σκοπός.