The Historical Present in the Grottaferrata and Escorial Versions of Digenis Akritis: A Narratological Insight

Dzurillova and Kulhankova examine the historical present in the Grottaferrata and escorial versions of Digenis Akritis. The two versions use the historical present differently, in E frequently mimetic, the more oral and lower-register style, in G the more narrative and detached voice of the middle register. Digenis Akritis is well known as the only representative of genuinely Byzantine heroic poetry. The anonymous poem, which narrates the life and deeds of an ambivalent hero, a border guard of double descent, is composed in fifteen-syllable Byzantine verse and preserved in several rather different versions. Although its popularity is unlikely ever to reach the height it did in the late Byzantine period, it has grown significantly in recent decades.