OBSERVATIONS ON THE TEXT AND CONTEXT OF ANNA KOMNENE’S ALEXIAD
OBSERVATIONS ON THE TEXT AND CONTEXT OF ANNA KOMNENE’S ALEXIAD

Summary/Abstract: This paper deals with Anna Komnene’s ways of conveying important political messages in the Alexiad through observation of the narrative structure and arrangement of the text in some episodes. It off ers another way of reading the Alexiad, which could improve our understanding of this crucial historical source of the Byzantine 12th century. With potential new ways of literary and historical analysis of the Alexiad and necessary contextualisation of Anna’s narrative and metanarrative, the significant work of the Komnenian princess emerges as a complex mixture of genres. Anna’s use of epideictic rhetoric presents a starting point for understanding her work. Th rough the analysis of the three important episodes in the Alexiad, we intend to show various forms of Anna’s literary expression which enable us to reveal the hidden meaning of the text, and its historical, and more importantly, its ideological context.

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