Intratextual and Intertextual Contexts of Irmoi in the Preparation of Critical Editions of Early Slavic Hymnography

Abstract

The article tackles intratextual and intertextual contexts of irmoi in Slavic canons of the Byzantine tradition. It concentrates on the relations between irmoi and biblical canticles and troparions of canonical songs and on the function irmoi serve in creating connections between troparions and biblical texts. In the subsequent parts, the article takes a closer look at the so called Methodius’ Canon to St Demetrius of Thessaloniki and notes on various relationships between irmoi, troparions and biblical canticles, identifying forms of intratextual and intertextual references – quotations, paraphrases, refrains, common motives and identical lexical elements. The study analyses the the role they play in the semantic construal of the text. Exact wordings of biblical texts and of Slavic and Greek irmoi often have bearing on the interpretation of the text and a critical edition of the canon and of its translation should therefore contain full texts of the irmoi in their original languages or in the language of the translation. Similarly, such an edition should contain critical commentaries providing the key textual variants.

Keywords

• canon
• hymnography
• irmos
• biblical canticle
• critical edition
• critical translation