Theory of Literature

Abstract

The present chapter introduces the immense body of theory on literature produced in Byzantium. It focuses on three questions: (1) Where does one encounter Byzantine literary theory? Such theory is found in manuals, textbooks, commentaries, and related works written in the context of discursive education, as well as in “para-texts” (titles, colophons, dedicatory epigrams, and the like) and in “meta-texts” (such as theoretical statements about literature within Byzantine texts). (2) What are the main features and major preoccupations of Byzantine literary theory? Here, the emphasis on prescription is highlighted, but also the absence of any comprehensive or totalizing aesthetics, and thus the presence of a multiplicity of ideologies and aesthetic preferences. And (3) what are the notions of “literature” that emerge? In regard to this, the chapter offers a case study by tracing Byzantine approaches toward a key concept in modern literary theorization, namely fiction or fictionality.