Project

Epistolary codes in Byzantine epistolography: between social context and literary techniques

Code

01N12619

Duration

01 September 2019 → 30 June 2024

Funding

Regional and community funding: Special Research Fund

Promotor

Floris Bernard

Research disciplines

Humanities and the arts
- Literary studies not elsewhere classified
- Theory and methodology of literary studies not elsewhere classified

Keywords

epistolography Byzantium intertextuality network

Project description

Byzantine letters are sophisticated texts, brimming with intertextual allusions, puns, and subtle language, but at the same time they were also real tools of communication in all kinds of social networks. Aim of this project is to connect these literary techniques and conventions (frequently disparaged as irrelevant “decoration” in existing scholarship) with a broad range of social parameters: hierarchies, the dynamics of service and remuneration, gifts, the initiation of relationships, etc.