Dioptra. Edition of the Greek version

The Dioptra, a work of about 7000 verses, was written in 1095 by Philippos Monotropos. It is structured in five books: the Klauthmoi, a poem of contrition addressed to the soul, which is placed as the first or fifth book of the Dioptra, and four books in form of a dialogue between the soul and the body, who are personified as mistress and maid respectively. In the dialogue part of the text the soul asks her maid questions concerning various theological and philosophical problems. The Dioptra was immensely popular in the Byzantine and Post-Byzantine periods - 80 manuscripts transmit the Dioptra as a whole or in fragments. Moreover, the Dioptra was often paraphrased and translated. Of those translations, the Slavonic was by far the most popular, as it is transmitted in about 200 manuscripts. Despite its importance for Byzantine and Slavonic philology, linguistics and theology, the Dioptra is hardly known to scholars, mainly due to the lack of a modern, accessible edition: The only edition of the whole Greek text, made by the monk SPYRIDON LAVRIOTES (Athens 1920), is based on only one manuscript, which transmits a substantially alternated form of the Dioptra. In July 2005 the first project "Die Dioptra des Philippos Monotropos", financed by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), was initiated (Einzelprojekte Nr. P18245; project leader: Prof. Dr. W. HÖRANDNER, Prof. Dr. H. MIKLAS). Its intention was to carry out preliminary research for a critical edition of the Greek and the Slavonic Dioptra and to edit part of the text. This intention has been fulfilled. At the end of the Greek part of the first project (June 2009), the first volume of the edition of the Dioptra, containing an introduction to the Dioptra and its author, its language and metric, the descriptions of manuscripts and their filiations and the edition of the prefaces and the Klauthmoi, will be ready for publication. In the Slavonic part the known manuscripts were described, Books I (Klauthmoi), II and IV were collated and the stemma was drawn up under consideration of the Greek model; the Slavonic text of Book I and the prefaces was critically edited and translated into German. As E. AFENTOULIDOU was on parental leave, the Greek part of the first project was prolonged for one year. As a result, separate proposals for the continuation of the Greek and the Slavonic part had to be handed in. Nevertheless, the cooperation will be continued without interruption. The second project on the Slavonic translation of the Dioptra has been approved and has already begun (FWF-Project P21250-G02: Die slavische Dioptra-Übersetzung/ The Slavonic Translation of the Dioptra). The main purpose of the second project on the Byzantine Greek Dioptra, which is now applied for, is the edition of the four dialogue books and the appendices. The principles of the edition will be those already elaborated and successfully applied during the first project. Further research on the sources, the language and metric of the Dioptra will be made on the basis of the complete critical edition. Project Website: http://www.oeaw.ac.at/byzanz/dioptra.htm

Summary for public relations work The aim of the project was to make the eleventh-century text of the Dioptra accessible to modern scholars through a reliable critical edition. It was the continuation of the ASF-funded project Die Dioptra des Philippos Monotropos (P 18245 Einzelprojekte), the aim of which was to carry out preliminary research for the edition of both the Greek text and its Slavonic translation.Composed as a dialogue between the body and the soul in more than 7000 verses by the otherwise unknown Philippos Monotropos, the Dioptra is an important text both because of its popularity in Byzantium and beyond, and its place within Byzantine literature. Its straightforward language, its structure in questions and answers and the fact that it was written in verses appealed to those Byzantines who, without being scholars, had some formal education and a vivid interest in the visible and invisible world that surrounded them. Thus, the Dioptra is a first-rate source for the mentality of a part of the Byzantine society which has only recently attracted scholarly attention. It is also an important source for the literary language known as Schriftkoine, which has been the focus of some studies in the last years, as the old dichotomy between archaising and vernacular begins to get reconsidered. Moreover, its literary character, manifested, among other, in the creation of the fictitious personas of the body and the soul, place the Dioptra at the beginnings of the revival of fictionality of the 12th century. The Dioptras popularity continued among Greek and Slavonic speakers beyond the Middle Ages.The great popularity of the Dioptra had as a result that it was transmitted as a whole or in fragments in seventy-four manuscripts an unusually large number for Byzantine texts, especially those written in verses. Further eight manuscripts transmit Greek paraphrases of the Dioptra. In the course of the previous project, manuscript reproductions were purchased, manuscripts were descripted and their relationships were investigated on the basis of the collation of selected passages. Moreover, questions on the chronology and method of the composition were dealt with based on adequate manuscript evidence, thus correcting some false assumptions of the past. In the course of the follow-up project the entire text was critically edited on the basis of the evidence provided by the evaluation of the entire manuscript tradition.