The conquered : Byzantium and America on the cusp of modernity / Eleni Kefala.

By:

Kefala, Eleni [author]

Material type: Text

TextSeries: Extravagantes (Dumbarton Oaks)Publication details: Washington, DC : Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2020.Description: xiii, 158 pages : illustration, maps, facsimiles ; 24 cmContent type:

text

Media type:

unmediated

Carrier type:

volume

ISBN:

9780884024767

Subject(s):

DDC classification:

808.803582

Contents:

Serendipities -- Byzantium, America, and the "modern" -- Tradition and theory -- Imparting trauma -- Texts and their afterlife.

Summary: "In the middle of the fifteenth century, ominous portents like columns of fire and dense fog were seen above the skies of Constantinople as the Byzantine capital fell under siege by the Ottomans. Allegedly, similar signs appeared a few decades later and seven thousand miles away, forecasting the fall of the Mexica capital of Tenochtitlan-Tlatelolco to the Spanish and their indigenous allies. After both cities had fallen, some Greeks and Mexica turned to poetry and song to express their anguish at the birth of what has come to be called the "modern" era. This study probes issues of collective memory and cultural trauma in three sorrowful poems, the "Lament for Constantinople," the "Huexotzinca Piece," and the "Tlaxcala Piece." Composed by anonymous authors soon after the conquest of the two cities, these texts describe the fall of an empire as a fissure in the social fabric and an open wound on the body politic. They are the workings of creators who draw on tradition and historical particulars to articulate, in a familiar language, the trauma of the conquered"-- Back covers.

Holdings ( 1 )
Title notes ( 3 )

Holdings
Item type	Current library	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
Book - 7-day loan	CYA Library Main Collection	808.803582 KEF (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Available		00000011384

Total holds: 0

Includes bibliographical references (pages 137-148) and index.

Serendipities -- Byzantium, America, and the "modern" -- Tradition and theory -- Imparting trauma -- Texts and their afterlife.

"In the middle of the fifteenth century, ominous portents like columns of fire and dense fog were seen above the skies of Constantinople as the Byzantine capital fell under siege by the Ottomans. Allegedly, similar signs appeared a few decades later and seven thousand miles away, forecasting the fall of the Mexica capital of Tenochtitlan-Tlatelolco to the Spanish and their indigenous allies. After both cities had fallen, some Greeks and Mexica turned to poetry and song to express their anguish at the birth of what has come to be called the "modern" era. This study probes issues of collective memory and cultural trauma in three sorrowful poems, the "Lament for Constantinople," the "Huexotzinca Piece," and the "Tlaxcala Piece." Composed by anonymous authors soon after the conquest of the two cities, these texts describe the fall of an empire as a fissure in the social fabric and an open wound on the body politic. They are the workings of creators who draw on tradition and historical particulars to articulate, in a familiar language, the trauma of the conquered"-- Back covers.