The Sinful Woman as an Example of Metanoia in the Byzantian Poetry

Abstract

Sinful Woman as an Example of Metanoia in the Byzantian Poetry A story about the sinful woman is told in the Gospel, where she is an example of deep repentance. The Byzantine authors often used this example in their poetic and homiletic works. In this article I juxtapose three genres of Byzantine poetry and I compare the literary motif of the sinful woman which appears in each of them. I choose the most representative genres of Byzantine poetry, as kontakion, kanon and troparion (or sticheron). In the first part I examine Romanos’ kontakion On the sinful woman, in the second one – Andrew of Crete’s the Megas Kanon and in the last part – Kassia’s troparion, commonly called On Mary Magdalene. The works are connected by the common theme, but they are different in respect of the form and the literary genre. In my paper I try to show how the same example of the Gospel parable is used in different ways in literary works.

Keywords

• Romanos the Melodist
• Andrew of Crete
• Kassia the Nun
• kontakion
• kanon
• troparion