After Antiquity

Book excerpt: Machine generated contents note: Introduction: Forward to the Past -- 1 Aims and Scope -- 2 Some Preliminary Definitions -- 3 The "Continuity Question" Revisited: Old Debates and New Approaches -- PART I. LANGUAGE -- Chapter 1. Greek Polyglossia: Historical Perspectives -- 1 Distinctive Features of the Greek Language -- 2 Diversity and Change: From Ancient Greek to Koine -- 3 Conflicts of Language and Style in the Byzantine Period -- 4 The Emergence of Dialect Literature: Cyprus and Crete -- 5 Forms of Greek in the Ottoman Period -- 6 After National Independence: Struggles for Hegemony -- 7 From "Diglossia" to "Standard Modern Greek"? -- Chapter 2. The New Testament and Its Legacy -- 1 Voices from the Past -- 2 The New Testament -- 3 The Ermergence of a Byzantine Genre: The Kontakion and Roumanos -- 4 Precursors and Precedents -- 5 Romamros' Kontakia On the Nativity and On tle Resurrection -- Chapter 3. Ncnliterary Genres: Some Private and Public Voices -- 1 Writing Home -- 2 Of Purple Pants and Chamber Pots: The Imperial Baggage: Train -- 3 Fragments of a Byzantine Tradition of Oral Song? -- Chapter 4. New Departures in the Twelfth Century -- 1 Texts amd Contexts -- 2 The Timnarion -- 3 Eros and the "Constraints of Desire" in Hysmine and Hyssninias -- 4 Prodrornos and the Politics of Hunger -- PART II. MYTH -- Chapter 5. The Diversity of Mythical Genres -- 1 From Speech Genres to Mythical Genres? -- 2 What Is, Myth? -- 3 Linking Past and Present: Myth and History -- 4 Averting Danger: Myth, Ritual, and Religion -- 5 Dialogic Ethics: Parables and Fables, Proverbs and Riddles -- 6 Songs and Tales: Myth and Fantasy -- 7 From Myth to Literature -- 8 How Do Myths Mean? -- 9 The Nereid "Kalypso" -- Chapter 6. Myth in Song -- 1 Ideology and Folklore: Greek Songs and European Models -- 2 The Greek Canon, the Ballad, and the Muses -- 3 Toward New Approaches? -- 4 Form and Structure: Melody and Narrative -- 5 Focal Conflicts: Life beyond the Grave -- Chapter 7. Magic Cydes in the Wondertales -- 1 The Cirderella of Greek Folklore? -- 2 Spinning Yarns and Narrative Contingency -- 3 Teasers, Twisters, and Movers: Metanarrative and Paranarrative -- 4 Weaving Pictures: The Interpenetration of Themes and Images -- 5 Metamorphosis: Cyclical Images of Body and Cosmos -- 6 Cosmology and Morality -- 7 The Tree of Life and the Cosmic Cycle -- 8 Concluding Comments -- Chapter 8. Between Worlds: From Myth to Fiction -- 1 The Greek Novel, c. I830-1880 -- 2 Paralogic Fiction: The Case of Georgios Vizyenos -- 3 Ethnicity and Sanity -- 4 Antithesis as a Strategy of Reading/Writing -- 5 Ekphrasis: Between Time and Place -- 6 Coda: After Vizyenos -- PART III. METAPHOR -- Chapter 9. The Resources of Ritual -- 1 Ritual and Metaphor -- 2 Contextualizing Ritual: Everyday Life -- 3 Autistic Rituals -- 4 Ritual and Reciprocity -- 5 Rituals of the Life Cycle: Separation, Transition, and Integration -- 6 Greek Texts: Resources of the Past -- Chapter 10. Metaphors in Songs of the Life Cycle -- 1 Journey -- 2 Clothes and Gems -- 3 Hair -- 4 The Garden of Love -- 5 Dangerous Spaces: Hunting and Hunted -- 6 Burning and Withering -- 7 Tears and Poison, Blood and Water -- 8 Plants and Fruits of the Earth -- 9 Hunting Birds -- 10 The Tree of Love and Life -- 11 I What Is Love? -- 12 Who Is Speaking? -- Conclusion: Backward to the Present.