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"Romanos was a sixth-century Byzantine poet-composer and performer of ritual songs, featuring both didactic and dramatic elements, for the emerging Christian rituals and festivals. Future generations were to call these songs kontakia, a genre that came about at the convergence between the Greek-speaking world and Syriac poetry. The focus of this volume is on Romanos's kontakia that include female characters as protagonists, antagonists, or important supporting characters. From villains to heroines, leaders to followers, saints to sinners, from the exceptionally towering Mother of God to the licentiously lustful Potiphar's wife-these characters may grant us limited insights into the mundane realities of women's lives in Constantinople. The songs represent a male gaze, and literary women rarely behave like physical women anyway. Nevertheless, many of the characters are portrayed with a remarkable psychological depth, combining outstanding boldness with inner struggles of doubt and desires and the sense of being pulled in various directions. With determined faith or faithless determination, bursting with love or wanting in ardor, these women embody the complexities of Christian life. The first four songs in this collection relate stories known from the book of Genesis. The female characters are not protagonists, but Romanos gives them important roles in the ancient narratives of temptation and envy, faithfulness and sacrifice. Two kontakia feature prophetic male protagonists but have important female characters. The next five hymns relate stories originating from the Christian gospels. They have female protagonists, and the narratives convey various corporeal encounters with Christ. The final section contains songs about the Virgin Mary, or Theotokos (God-bearer, Mother of God) as she is often called in Byzantine Christianity. Scholars and other modern readers ask questions about gender dynamics in history, and Romanos's kontakia collected in this volume provide a valuable source for such enquiries. His songs offer intriguing perspectives on gendered ideas and ideals in early Christian Byzantium"--

Christian poetry, Byzantine --- Hymns, Greek --- Women in the Bible --- Women in literature --- Themes, motives --- Mary, --- In literature.