FWO

What is the difference between miracle and magic? Scholars today believe that one cannot meaningfully differentiate between the two. The difference is a matter of perspective. This project investigates how Christians in late antiquity made the distinction between the fluid concepts of miracle and magic, how they tried to make it convincing, and why they constructed the distinction in the first place. It investigates these questions through the study of the character type of the 'magos' (‘magician’) in Byzantine hagiography (i.e. Christian narratives about holy (wo)men). The project takes a literary approach, studying the depiction of confrontations between so-called ‘magoi’ and holy (wo)men in hagiography, to see what kind of image Christians portray of 'magoi' and how they distinguish such figures from the saints. The project aims to show that the portrayal of 'magoi' as impostors and frauds lends the saint religious authority and thereby builds up the identity of the Christian community.

Medieval romance is arguably the most influential secular literary genre of the European Middle Ages. Its history has not been written yet. In order to enhance our understanding of this history (both conceptually and cross-culturally), this project offers the first reconstruction and interpretation of the persistence of (ancient) novelistic and (late antique and medieval) hagiographical traditions in French, Anglo-Norman and English medieval romance. Whereas it is assumed that ancient novels influenced medieval romance only if there were Latin versions of them, this project aims to explore the importance of hagiography as a possible narrative bridge between ancient (Greek) novels and medieval vernacular romance. The research hypothesis is that medieval romances were impacted (directly or indirectly) by ancient novelistic and late antique and medieval hagiographical influences of different kinds, and that they adopted, rehearsed, re-used and adapted them to various degrees in order to construct their protagonists as heroes/heroines. Two interrelated sets of research questions will test this hypothesis, one tracing diachronic continuity and the other examining synchronic differentiation. Methodologically, this project complements two literary-theoretical models, one modern (narratology), one ancient (rhetoric). The project will contribute to our knowledge about both reception of ancient novels in the Middle Ages and the literary complexities of medieval romance.

While the ancient Greek novels have been shown to absorb preceding Greek and eastern traditions, not much systematic attention has been paid to how they use, address or confront preceding Latin traditions. This project is designed to fill this gap, a course of action supported (even invited) by recent scholarship that (rightly) challenges unidirectional conceptualizations of the influence of Greek on Latin literature. This project aims at a systematic analysis of the presences (in different forms) of a number of Latin literary genres in the Greek novels that have come down to us (i.e. the five extant novels, the fragments and a number of so-called ‘fringe novels’). The driving research hypothesis is that Greek novels to varying degrees and in different ways address, respond to and make creative use of not just Greek and eastern narrative traditions but also of Latin ones, and, more specifically, that they use Latin narrative traditions in order to (a) conceptualize the intertwined notions of love and heroism, and (b) develop metaliterary thoughts about the generic encoding underlying these notions. Its method is defined by three stages: (1) taking stock of overlaps, (2) interpreting/conceptualizing them, and exploring metaliterary strategies. Given the project’s approach, it impacts the study of both Greek and Latin (meta)literature, and that of fiction.

This project seeks to examine the literary representation of performance in Greek late antique hagiographical Lives of 'saints in disguise' (4th-10th c.), holy types that are usually not studied together but that may arguably be compared on the basis of their adoption of a false identity. Among them are Lives of cross-dressers, of holy fools, and of other saints who take on other forms of disguise. The project investigates the narrative strategies that are used in these stories to represent disguise and theatrical performance, characteristics which are not readily associated with saints and holiness. More specifically, the project examines aspects of the saint’s performance vis-à-vis other characters as well as aspects of the text’s performance vis-à-vis the reader and its narrative effects. By highlighting fictional aspects of the texts, the project aims to show also that the theme of disguise was sought out for its narrative qualities and entertaining effect as much as its edifying value.