Anna Komnene: the life and work of a medieval historian
Información General
- Autores: Leonora Neville
- Editores: Oxford University Press
- Año de publicación: 2016
- País: Reino Unido
- Idioma: inglés
- ISBN: 9780190498177
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Resumen
The authorial persona constructed by Anna Komnene in her Alexiad (a history of her father the Byzantine Emperor, Alexios Komnenos, 1081–1118) responded to the challenges Byzantine culture created for female historical authorship. Fundamental cultural conceptions of masculinity, femininity, authority, deference, and morality within Byzantine society worked to make history writing an activity for men. Once the masculinity of history writing is understood, we can see how Anna endeavored to construct herself as both an authoritative historian and a meritorious woman. The first half of this book offers explanations of how various aspects of Anna’s self-presentation in the Alexiad work to convince her audience that she was capable of writing a reliable history, even though she was a woman, and that she was a morally virtuous woman, even though she wrote a history. These new interpretations of Anna’s authorial persona then spark a thorough re-thinking of the standard narrative that defines Anna’s life by the failure of her supposed political ambitions. The second half of this work reviews the medieval sources pertaining to the succession of John II Komnenos with fresh eyes and questions the foundations of the story that Anna disputed her brother’s rule. The story of Anna’s bloodthirsty ambition owed its creation less to medieval evidence than to eighteenth and nineteenth century scholars who did not perceive her efforts to appear modest and feminine in the Alexiad, but still considered female historical authorship to be problematic.
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