Digenis Akritis
The Grottaferrata and Escorial Versions

Two newly edited and translated versions of the Byzantium epic, Digenis Akritis: one from the Grottaferrata monastery near Rome, the other from the Escorial library in Spain.

Elizabeth Jeffreys (Edited by)

9780521394727, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 7 May 1998

464 pages
22.4 x 14.5 x 3.4 cm, 0.72 kg

"This edition for the first time makes this challenging medieval text fully accessible to medievalists beyond te specialisms of Byzantine or modern Greek studies and will surely remain standard for many years to come." Speculum

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.

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Sigla
Grottaferrata text and translation
Books 1–8
Escorial text and translation
Bibliography
Name index.

Subject Areas: Poetry by individual poets [DCF]