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John Tzetzes ( grc-gre, Ἰωάννης Τζέτζης, Iōánnēs Tzétzēs; c. 1110,
Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...
– 1180, Constantinople) was a
Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or w ...
and
grammarian Grammarian may refer to: * Alexandrine grammarians, philologists and textual scholars in Hellenistic Alexandria in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE * Biblical grammarians, scholars who study the Bible and the Hebrew language * Grammarian (Greco-Roman ...
who is known to have lived at
Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...
in the 12th century. He was able to preserve much valuable information from ancient Greek literature and scholarship.


Biography

Tzetzes described himself as pure
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
on his father's side and part Iberian ( Georgian) on his mother's side. In his works, Tzetzes states that his grandmother was a relative of the Georgian Bagratid princess Maria of Alania who came to Constantinople with her and later became the second wife of the ''
sebastos ( grc-gre, σεβαστός, sebastós, venerable one, Augustus, ; plural , ) was an honorific used by the ancient Greeks to render the Roman imperial title of . The female form of the title was (). It was revived as an honorific in the 11th-ce ...
''
Constantine Keroularios Constantine Keroularios ( el, Κωνσταντῖνος Κηρουλάριος) was a high-ranking Byzantine official in the third quarter of the 11th century. Life Constantine was a nephew of the powerful Michael Keroularios, Patriarch of Const ...
, '' megas droungarios'' and nephew of the patriarch Michael Keroularios. He worked as a secretary to a provincial governor for a time and later began to earn a living by teaching and writing. He was described as vain, seems to have resented any attempt at rivalry, and violently attacked his fellow grammarians. Owing to a lack of written material, he was obliged to trust to his memory; therefore caution has to be exercised in reading his work. However, he was learned, and made a great contribution to the furtherance of the study of
ancient Greek literature Ancient Greek literature is literature written in the Ancient Greek language from the earliest texts until the time of the Byzantine Empire. The earliest surviving works of ancient Greek literature, dating back to the early Archaic Greece, Archa ...
. Tzetzes published a collection of 107 of his ''Letters'' addressed partly to fictitious/unidentified personages, and partly to influential men and women of the writer's time. They contain a considerable amount of social and biographical information, and are full of learned allusions to history, rhetoric, and mythology. These letters became the springboard for what became during the Renaissance perhaps the most influential of his many works, the ''Book of Histories'', usually called ''Chiliades'' ("thousands") from the arbitrary division by its first editor (N. Gerbel, 1546) into books each containing 1,000 lines. The work consists of 12,674 lines of
political verse Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...
, divided into 660 topics, each of which is a gloss on a literary, historical, or other learned reference in one of his published letters. The first 141 histories serve as poetic footnotes to a verse letter Tzetzes addressed to John Lachanas, an official in Constantinople. This collection of literary, historical, theological, and antiquarian miscellanies provides an important snapshot of the intellectual world of Constantinople in the mid-12th century, and also preserves fragments of more than 200 ancient authors, including many whose works have been lost. The author subsequently brought out a revised edition with marginal notes in prose and verse (ed. T. Kiessling, 1826; on the sources see C. Harder, ''De J. T. historiarum fontibus quaestiones selectae'', diss., Kiel, 1886). Tzetzes supplemented
Homer Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...
's ''
Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; grc, Ἰλιάς, Iliás, ; "a poem about Ilium") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Ody ...
'' by a work that begins with the birth of
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...
and continues the tale to the Achaeans' return home. The ''Homeric Allegories'', in "political" verse and dedicated initially to the German-born
empress Irene Irene of Athens ( el, Εἰρήνη, ; 750/756 – 9 August 803), surname Sarantapechaina (), was Byzantine empress consort to Emperor Leo IV from 775 to 780, regent during the childhood of their son Constantine VI from 780 until 790, co-rul ...
and then to
Constantine Cotertzes Constantine most often refers to: * Constantine the Great, Roman emperor from 306 to 337, also known as Constantine I * Constantine, Algeria, a city in Algeria Constantine may also refer to: People * Constantine (name), a masculine given n ...
, are two didactic poems, the first based on the ''Iliad'' and the second based on the ''Odyssey,'' in which Homer and the Homeric theology are set forth and then explained by means of three kinds of
allegory As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a hidden meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory t ...
:
euhemeristic Euhemerism () is an approach to the interpretation of mythology in which mythological accounts are presumed to have originated from real historical events or personages. Euhemerism supposes that historical accounts become myths as they are exagg ...
(), anagogic () and
physic Physic may refer to: * The study or practice of medicine * A substance administered as medicine, or the medicinal plant from which it is extracted: ** ''Gillenia stipulata ''Gillenia stipulata'', or American ipecac, is an herbacious perennial ...
(). These works were translated into English in 2015 and 2019 by Adam J. Goldwyn and Dimitra Kokkini.Tzetzes, John. ''Allegories of the Odyssey.'' Trans. Adam J. Goldwyn and Dimitra Kokkini. Harvard University Press. In the ''Antehomerica'', Tzetzes recalls the events taking place before Homer's ''Iliad''. This work was followed by the ''Homerica'', covering the events of the ''Iliad'', and the ''Posthomerica'', reporting the events taking place between the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey''. All three are currently available in English translations. Tzetzes also wrote commentaries on a number of Greek authors, the most important of which is that elucidating the obscure ''Cassandra'' or ''Alexandra'' of the Hellenistic poet
Lycophron Lycophron (; grc-gre, Λυκόφρων ὁ Χαλκιδεύς; born about 330–325 BC) was a Hellenistic Greek tragic poet, grammarian, sophist, and commentator on comedy, to whom the poem ''Alexandra'' is attributed (perhaps falsely). Life a ...
, usually called "On Lycophron" (edited by K.O. Müller, 1811), in the production of which his brother Isaac is generally associated with him. Mention may also be made of a dramatic sketch in iambic verse, in which the caprices of fortune and the wretched lot of the learned are described; and of an iambic poem on the death of the emperor
Manuel I Komnenos Manuel I Komnenos ( el, Μανουήλ Κομνηνός, translit=Manouíl Komnenos, translit-std=ISO; 28 November 1118 – 24 September 1180), Latinized Comnenus, also called Porphyrogennetos (; " born in the purple"), was a Byzantine empero ...
, noticeable for introducing at the beginning of each line the last word of the line preceding it (both in Pietro Matranga, ''
Anecdota Graeca Anecdota may refer to: *The '' Anecdota'' or ''Secret History'' of Procopius *Hence an anecdote * ''Anecdota'' (album), 2004 release by Lucid Druid ''Anecdota'' also appears in the title of many books, especially history or memoir A memoir (; ...
'' 1850). For the other works of Tzetzes see J. A. Fabricius, ''Bibliotheca graeca'' (ed. Harles), xi.228, and Karl Krumbacher, ''Geschichte der byz. Litt.'' (2nd ed., 1897); monograph by G. Hart, "De Tzetzarum nomine, vitis, scriptis," in Jahn's ''Jahrbucher für classische Philologie. Supplementband xii'' (Leipzig, 1881).


References


Sources

* * * Gautier, Paul (1970), ''La curieuse ascendance de Jean Tzetzes''. ''Revue des Études Byzantines'', 28: 207–20. * Goldwyn, Adam, Kokkini, Dimitra (2015), ''Allegories of the Iliad''. Harvard University Press.


External links


Tzetzes Allegoriae Iliadis 1851 edition at Internet Archive

Scolia eis Lycophroon, 1811 edition at Google Books

Tzetzes, Letters 1851 edition at Internet Archive

Ioannis Tzetzae Antehomerica, Homerica et posthomerica 1793 edition at Google Books
* English translations of Tzetzes
AntehomericaHomerica
an
Posthomerica
* English translation of Tzetzes
Chiliades

Chiliades 1826 edition at Google Books

Tzetzes, Miscellanea, in Estense Digital Library
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tzetzes, John 1110s births 1180 deaths Byzantine grammarians Byzantine poets 12th-century Byzantine people 12th-century people from Georgia (country) Byzantine people of Georgian descent 12th-century Byzantine writers