Roman et société à Byzance au xiiéme siècle

Romance and society in byzantium in the twelfth century

• Auteur / Autrice : Florence Meunier
• Direction : Alain Ducellier
• Type : Thèse de doctorat
• Discipline(s) : Histoire
• Date : Soutenance en 1997
• Etablissement(s) : Toulouse 2

Mots clés

Mots clés contrôlés

12e siècle

Byzance

Civilisation

Roman byzantin

Résumé

Malgre une absence quasi totale de references au christianisme, les romans byzantins du xiieme siecle sont le fruit de leur epoque. Influences certes dans leur thematique (amour et aventures, role des dieux de l'olympe) par les romans grecs de la periode imperiale, ils temoignent pourtant - et malgre eux - d'une realite politique et socio-culturelle propre : corpus de references litteraires et langue specifiques, utilisation d'un lourd appareil rhetorique; importance accordee au pathos ainsi qu'a la virginite, la famille et la naissance; presentation d'un ceremonial de cour, d'une strategie et d'une tactique militaires precis; gout paien pour les arts divinatoires. Mais le gommage des reperes spatio-temporels semble signifier en meme temps un desir d'evasion des romanciers, un besoin d'echapper a la realite concrete, trop oppressante peut-etre, pour chercher refuge dans un monde imaginaire. La structure simplifiee par rapport aux romans grecs de ces romans, grace a une unite d'action, les rapproche davantage de notre conception du roman. Romans medievaux empruntant aussi a l'hagiographie et a l'epopee byzantines, ont-ils subi l'influence des romans occidentaux contemporains? malgre les hypotheses qu'on a avancees et qui trahissent souvent ces textes, tres peu et de maniere superficielle, voire pas du tout. En revanche l'un d'eux surtout, a cause du comportement provocant de l'heroine, est a rapprocher de textes arabes. Quant a l'existence d'epigones, elle semble quasi nulle et les romans byzantins du xiieme siecle laissent place au xiveme a des romans courtois fortement occidentalises qui n'ont plus de byzantin que le nom.

Despite a nearly total absence of references to christianity, twelfth-century byzantine romances are very much a product of their age. Though they are undeniably influenced by greek romances of the imperial age in their choice of themes such as love, adventure and the gods of mount olympus, one can nonetheless detect in them, through a glass darkly, links to the political realities, culture and society of their time. It shows up in the corpus of literary references, of peculiarities of language and use of a heavy rhetorical machinery ; in the importance given to pathos, virginity, family and birth ; the presentation of court ceremonial, military tactics and strategy, even in the pagan taste for the arts of divination. But the fact that open references to time and location are absent would seem revelatory of the writers' desire for escapism, a flight from too oppressive a concrete reality, taking refuge in an imaginary world. The simplified structure of the romances compared to greek ones, a result of their single plot, makes them closer to our conception of the novel. Were these medieval romances - which also borrow from byzantine hagiography and epic - influenced in any way by the western-european ones, contemporary with them ? despite various theories that have been put forward, the text gives only tiny, very superficial signs of such an influence, if any. But especially for e of the romances, one could find parallels in arabic literature, in view of the heroine's provocative behaviour. As for later imitators, they seem to be non-existent. Twelfth-century byzantine romances give way by the fourteenth to courtly romances on clearly western lines, which have nothing specifically byzantine left in them.