Download or read book After Antiquity written by Margaret Alexiou and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 604 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. 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.