Античная древность и средние века (Jan 2019)
Dreams of Demetrios Cydones, or literary fiction of a retired courtier
Abstract
The article is dedicated to the analysis of two letters written by the eminent Byzantine statesman and intellectual Demetrios Cydones (ca. 1324–1397). Pretending to expose his night dreams Cydones depicts the everyday life of imperial court, the customs of courtier, as well as etiquette of the court ceremonial. However the genre of fiction permits him to introduce also some fantastic details in his description of an imperial reception. The author of the article studies these fragments and reveals there the elements of «Kaiserkritik», as well as detects traits of similarity of these «dream-letters» with the Renaissance literature.
