Table of Contents

Contents: Digenes Akrites and Byzantine literature: the 12th century background to the Grottaferrata version Paul Magdalino; Digenes Akrites: Escorial or Grottaferrata? An overview Stylianos Alexiou; The Grottaferrata version of Digenes Akrites: a reassessment Elizabeth Jeffreys; The primacy of the Escorial Digenes Akrites Catia Galatariotou; An epic in the making? The early versions of Digenes Akrites Roderick Beaton; Digenes Akrites and the Old Spanish epics David Hook; Armenia and Armenians in Byzantine epic Hratch Bartikian; The historian'sDigenes Akrites Anthony Bryer; Digenes = Alexander? The relationships between Digenes Akrites and the Byzantine Alexander Romance in their different versions Ulrich Moennig; Digenes Akrites in prose: the Andros version and its Modern Greek literature George Kechagioglou; The Akritic hero: socio-cultural status in the light of comparative data Theodore Papadopoullos; Is there such a thing as an ’akritic song’? Problems in the classification of the narrative songs Guy Saunier; None but the brave deserve the fair: abduction elopement, seduction and marriage in the Escorial Digenes Akrites and Greek heroic songs Peter Mackridge; Digenes Akrites as literature David Ricks; Bibliography; Indexes. 14 studies in English

About the Author

Roderick Beaton and David Ricks Paul Magdalino, Stylianos Alexiou, Elizabeth Jeffreys, Catia Galatariotou, Roderick Beaton, David Hook, Hratch Bartikian, Anthony Bryer, Ulrich Moennig, George Kechagioglou, Theodore Papadopoullos, Guy Saunier, Peter Mackridge, David Ricks.