Letters and New Philology

Alexander Riehle

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Chapter 17 Letters and New Philology

In: A Companion to Byzantine Epistolography

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Alexander Riehle

Alexander Riehle
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 466–501

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004424616_019

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Abstract

Essentially all Greek letters from the Middle Ages have come down to us not as originals but as manuscript copies, most often as part of collections. This specific form of transmission involves interpretive issues that for Byzantine epistolography have hardly been addressed. Scholarship on letter-writing commonly treats the individual letters transmitted in collections as documents of written communication while ignoring the issue that these collections provide a selective and most often deliberately manipulated image of original correspondence. This essay proposes that we turn our attention to the realities of epistolary manuscripts and that we take the historical collections seriously as coherent works of literature. The “New Philology”, it is argued, can serve as a useful guide for such an endeavor. While this philological movement, which emerged from currents of postmodern theory in the late 1980s, lacks a coherent conceptual framework or consistent methodology, its focus on the phenomenon of textual fluidity in medieval manuscript cultures and on concomitant problems of presentation in critical editions are highly relevant to the suggested reconsideration of Byzantine letter-collections.

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A Companion to Byzantine Epistolography

Series: Brill's Companions to the Byzantine World, Volume: 7

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004424616

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 10 Jun 2020

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Chapter 17 Letters and New Philology

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A Companion to Byzantine Epistolography

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