The Routledge Handbook of Rewriting in Byzantium presents an overview of the various rewriting processes involved in the production of Byzantine literature. Due to the lack of recent systematic research on the totality of Byzantine literature, which embraces a long millennium of texts, the fluid concept of ‘rewriting’, here studied for the first time in all its complexity, serves as a unifying criterion for understanding the literary task of the Byzantines. Literature in Byzantium went well beyond the problems of language and genre and was adapted according to the audience and the expectations of the readers, which varied greatly in different periods.

With contributions from 25 scholars, this book analyses and discusses a variety of topics, including: the rewriting of the past, modes of persuasion as a driving force behind rewriting, changing muses, the adaptation of hagiography to changing patterns of behaviour, updating of technical texts, and the necessity for theological and philosophical reinterpretation of inherited texts.

This book will appeal to students and scholars alike interested in Byzantine literature, culture, and literary methods.