Digenis Akritis: The Grottaferrata and Escorial Versions

Elizabeth Jeffreys

Cambridge University Press, May 7, 1998 - Literary Criticism - 398 pages

Digenis Akritis is Byzantium's only epic poem, telling of the exploits of a heroic warrior of 'double descent' on the frontiers between Byzantine and Arab territory in Asia Minor in the ninth and tenth centuries. It survives in six versions, of which the two oldest, dating from the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, are presented here in an edited version. The manuscripts are preserved in the Grottaferrata monastery near Rome and the Escorial Library in Spain. Behind these two versions lies a twelfth-century poem that can now be glimpsed at but not reconstructed. This edition and translation aims at highlighting the nature of the lost poem, and at providing a guide through the maze of recent discussions about the epic and its background.

Contents

• Acknowledgements page: ix
• Introduction: xiii
• Sigla: lxi
• Grottaferrata text and translation: 1
• Book 1: 7
• Book 2: 27
• Book 3: 47
• Book 4: 66
• Book 5: 134
• Book 6: 152
• Book 7: 202
• Book 8: 216
• Escorial text and translation: 237
• Bibliography: 376
• Name index: 387

Bibliographic information

• Title: Digenis Akritis: The Grottaferrata and Escorial Versions; Volume 7 of Cambridge Medieval Classics
• Editor: Elizabeth Jeffreys
• Translated by: Elizabeth Jeffreys
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1998
• ISBN: 0521394724, 9780521394727
• Length: 398 pages
• Subjects: Literary Criticism / General; Literary Criticism / Medieval; Literary Criticism / Middle Eastern; Literary Criticism / Poetry; Poetry / General