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Chapter 13 - Literary Landscapes in the Palaiologan Romances

An Ecocritical Approach

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 December 2018

By
Kirsty Stewart
Edited by
Adam J. Goldwyn  and
Ingela Nilsson
Adam J. Goldwyn
Affiliation:
North Dakota State University
Ingela Nilsson
Affiliation:
Uppsala Universitet, Sweden
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Summary

This chapter applies an ecocritical approach to the Palaiologan romances, examining the use and interpretation of a variety of natural landscapes in four works; Velthandros and Chrysantza, Kallimachos and Chrysorrhoe, Livistros and Rodamne and the Tale of Achilles. It focuses primarily on the connections between individual landscapes and the development of plot and character, drawing attention to their narrative roles and gender associations. The traditional link between the heroine and the garden in particular will be reassessed in relation to other characters and settings. In doing so connections and differences between these romances and texts of a similar genre in earlier Greek, as well as some from the Western courtly milieu and the Perso-Arabic tradition will be highlighted. Through this it aims to suggest ways in which Byzantine authors and audiences thought about the natural world and used it to present specific associations and ideas.
Type
Chapter
Information
Reading the Late Byzantine Romance
A Handbook
 , pp. 272 - 298
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2018

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Benson, L. D. (ed.), The Riverside Chaucer, 3rd edn (Boston 1987).Google Scholar
Conca, F. (ed.), Il romanzo bizantino del XII secolo: Teodoro Prodromo, Niceta Eugeniano, Eustazio Macrembolita, Constantino Manasse (Turin 1994).Google Scholar
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Betts, G. (trans.), Three Medieval Greek Romances (New York 1995).Google Scholar
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Smith, O. L. (ed.), The Byzantine Achilleid: The Naples Version. Introduction, critical edition and commentary by Ole L. Smith; edited and prepared for publication by P. A. Agapitos and K. Hult (Vienna 1999) 13–74.Google Scholar

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