Hermoniakos' Iliad
The Hermoniakos' Iliad (
Byzantine paraphrase of the Iliad composed by Constantine Hermoniakos. The poem was commissioned by the Despot of Epirus, who asked Hermoniakos to write a new version of this epic in the Greek vernacular language.[1]
Background and text
Constantine Hermoniakos was a 14th-century
trochaic octasyllables and is divided into 24 rhapsodies and 142 chapters.[2]
Contents and style
Hermoniakos' Iliad was mainly based on two 12th century works: the Chronike Synopsis of
Olympian gods and to reflect the more familiar circumstances of the late medieval Greek world.[3][4] As for the plot, Hermoniakos deals with both the war itself as well as the events that happened before and after.[3] However he falsifies the events of the Iliad and introduces characters that were alien to the Trojan Cycle, thus giving for example Achilles a regiment of Hungarian and Bulgarian troops.[2]
The poem is written in a vernacular language with a mix of learned and popular idioms.romance than other works of that era, like the novel Kallimachos and Chrysorrhoe.[6] The work was published by Emile Legrand in 1890.[2]
References
- ISBN 978-0-313-30813-0.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-313-30813-0.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-19-504652-6
- ISBN 978-0-87395-071-8.
- ISBN 978-0-415-12032-6.
- ISBN 978-0-7146-3372-5.
External links
- La Guerre De Troie, par Constantinos Hermoniakos Emile Legrand. Original version of the poem with introductory comments in French.
