This course explores the world of literature and learning during the last centuries of the Byzantine Empire, from the reconquest of Constantinople by Michael VIII Palaiologos in 1261 to the city’s fall to the Ottomans in 1453 and the reign of Sultan Mehmed II (1451–1481). The intricate political entanglements between Byzantines, Ottomans, and Latins during this period went hand in hand with cultural interactions that left their mark on the different literatures and intellectual cultures of the time. By concentrating on major literary genres such as imperial oratory and epistolography, by studying the oeuvre of leading Byzantine intellectuals, and by analyzing key texts of the time, this course explores a period of great cultural flourishing against the background of political tumult and territorial fragmentation.
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