Michael Psellos in Translation – serie

Mothers and Sons, Fathers and Daughters makes available for the first time complete English translations from the works of Michael Psellos (1018–1076?), a key philosopher of the Byzantine Empire. Psellos was not simply a philosopher, he was also a courtier, historian, and monk, and his works betray a dazzling engagement with philosophy, theology, history, and science. These interests were expressed in some eleven hundred works, including formal rhetorical texts, history writing, letters, poetry, and texts written for his students. This book contains the works that Psellos wrote about his family, including a long funeral oration for his mother that features unique recollections from a childhood spent in Constantinople; a funeral oration for his young daughter Styliane, which includes a detailed description of her physical appearance and a moving account of her illness and death; a legal work pertaining to the engagement of his second, adopted, daughter; and various letters and other works that relate to the private life of this Byzantine family. These works offer us a rare and comprehensive picture of the family life of a medieval Byzantine courtier and philosopher. Much of the material follows the rules of rhetoric inherited from classical and Christian antiquity, but Psellos was always recasting the conventions of those genre to express his own revolutionary views regarding the relation of body and soul. Some of these works also have an apologetic or legal purpose, as Psellos sometimes used them to get himself out of some trouble. Mothers and Sons, Fathers and Daughters will appeal to all who study medieval women, childhood, and the family, especially as it provides a Byzantine perspective that has been absent from most modern discussions of those topics.

Mothers and Sons, Fathers and Daughters makes available for the first time complete English translations from the works of Michael Psellos (1018–1076?), a key philosopher of the Byzantine Empire. Psellos was not simply a philosopher, he was also a courtier, historian, and monk, and his works betray a dazzling engagement with philosophy, theology, history, and science. These interests were expressed in some eleven hundred works, including formal rhetorical texts, history writing, letters, poetry, and texts written for his students. This book contains the works that Psellos wrote about his family, including a long funeral oration for his mother that features unique recollections from a childhood spent in Constantinople; a funeral oration for his young daughter Styliane, which includes a detailed description of her physical appearance and a moving account of her illness and death; a legal work pertaining to the engagement of his second, adopted, daughter; and various letters and other works that relate to the private life of this Byzantine family. These works offer us a rare and comprehensive picture of the family life of a medieval Byzantine courtier and philosopher. Much of the material follows the rules of rhetoric inherited from classical and Christian antiquity, but Psellos was always recasting the conventions of those genre to express his own revolutionary views regarding the relation of body and soul. Some of these works also have an apologetic or legal purpose, as Psellos sometimes used them to get himself out of some trouble. Mothers and Sons, Fathers and Daughters will appeal to all who study medieval women, childhood, and the family, especially as it provides a Byzantine perspective that has been absent from most modern discussions of those topics.

Psellos and the Patriarchs: Letters and Funeral Orations for Keroullarios, Leichoudes, and Xiphilinos contains translations of the funeral orations written by Michael Psellos, the leading Byzantine intellectual of the eleventh century, for the three ecumenical patriarchs of Constantinople whom he knew best: Michael Keroullarios (1043-1058), Konstantinos Leichoudes (1059-1063), and Ioannes Xiphilinos (1064-1075). The orations are significant sources for the lives and reputations of these patriarchs; they are also a prime source for the educational reforms made by the emperor Konstantinos IX Monomachos in the mid-1040s, and for many events of that turbulent century that Psellos witnessed, including popular uprisings, plots, civil wars, and the battle with the Catholic legates in 1054. Never before translated into English, the orations and letters are introduced by a detailed analysis of Psellos' historical relationships with the patriarchs and an interpretation of the works.The orations are not only important historical sources: they are crucial specimens of Byzantine rhetoric in a period of transition, as well as being key texts in the corpus of Psellos himself. Psellos used them to score important points in support of his own philosophical agenda and to make broader claims about ethics and metaphysics and the role of learning in political and ecclesiastical life. The orations are here accompanied by translations of a long letter that Psellos wrote to Keroullarios and a pair of letters to Xiphilinos, in which he defended key aspects of his philosophical project.

The ambition of Michael Psellos on Literature and Art is to illustrate an important chapter in the history of Greek literary and art criticism and introduce precisely this aspect of Psellian writing to a wider public.

The ambition of Michael Psellos on Literature and Art is to illustrate an important chapter in the history of Greek literary and art criticism and introduce precisely this aspect of Psellian writing to a wider public.