Information AboutDigenis Acritas |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT DIGENIS ACRITAS | |
| epics | |
| medieval legends | |
| byzantine empire | |
| fictional greeks | |
| SHOPPER'S DELIGHT | |
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family history of the central hero seem to be located beyond a climate of conflict. The reconciliation of the two peoples through the marriage of the leading figures of the tale and the triumph of Christianity over Islam , achieved through the conversion and reception of the emir and his people into Byzantine society, is the key theme of the first part. The rest of the story unfolds against a background of peaceful coexistence of the two peoples. Written in Medieval Greek by an anonymous author, it marks together with the other acritic poems the beginnings of Greek Vernacular Literature . MANUSCRIPT The Digenis Acritas is an extensive narrative text, although it is not in a pure epic-heroic style. It survives in many manuscripts and versions, the oldest two being the Escorial (=E, 1867 lines) and Grottaferrata versions (=G, 3749 lines), from the names of the libraries in which the respective manuscripts are held. While it should be noted that the form (or forms) in which it has survived is not the product of oral composition, it has nevertheless retained a considerable number of features of its oral origins. The common core of the two versions preserved in the E and G manuscripts goes back to the twelfth century. The text of E appears to be closer to the original composition while G represents a version that is heavily marked by learned reworking. Both texts give enchanting descriptions of the life of the martial societies of the border regions of the empire, while in the figure of Digenis are concentrated the legends that had accumulated around local heroes. The Escorial version is the superior of the two in respect of the power and immediacy of the battle scenes and austerity of style. The epic descriptions of the mounted knights and battles are marked by drama, a swift pace and lively visual detail. STORYLINE The Byzantine - Arab conflicts that lasted from the general and then marries her; he kills a Dragon ; he takes on the so-called apelates, a group of bandits, and then defeats their three leaders in single combat. No one, not even the amazingly strong female warrior Maximu, with whom he commits the sin of Adultery , can match him. Having defeated all his enemies Digenis builds a luxurious palace by the Euphrates , where he ends his days peacefully. Cypriot legend has it that he grabbed hold of the Pentadaktylos (Five Fingers) mountain range in Arab occupied Cyprus in order to leap to Asia Minor (Present day Turkey ), the mountain range, as the name suggests, resembles five knuckles sprouting from the ground. ''Digenis'' continued to be read and enjoyed in later centuries, as the text survives in various versions dating to as late as the 17th Century . The epic tale of Digenis Acritas gave rise also to a cycle of Acritic Songs , some of which survived today. In the later tradition Digenis is eventually defeated only by Death , in the figure of Thanatos /Charos, after fierce single combat on "the marble threshing floors". Thanatos had reportedly already wrestled with Heracles . FORM ''Digenis Acritas'' is written in the demotic Medieval Greek and is composed in fifteen syllable Blank Verse . Rhyming occurs rarely. The poem does not diverge from the standard Political Verse of popular Byzantine literature. Each line holds its own and every hemistich is carefully balanced. The poem flows, is cadential, with no cacophonies with very scarce sound repetitions. Below is an excerpt from the translation of the Escorial manuscript, lines 32-54, by Elizabeth Jeffreys ''(Digenis Akrites, Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 241-2)'': REFERENCES
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