Narrate and describe: ékphrasis, story and image in the cento Christus Patiens

Abstract

The era of the Comneno emperors (1081-1204) was characterized by a predominance of narrative prose, embodied in the novel, in hagiographic stories and in historical chronicles. During the aforementioned period, thanks to the influence of 11th-century intellectuals such as Mauropous or Psellos in the Constantinopolitan court, there is a revival of artistic and literary activity, especially related to the classical tradition. Today, several specialists from Byzantine studies place the writing of the Christus Patiens cento in this period. Although attached to the dramatic genre, the text admits the application of theoretical guidelines around narration and description. The objective of this paper will be to focus on the narratological and iconographic analysis in the double scene of the wound on the side, located at the time of Christ’s death and at the beginning of the burial scene. The reading hypothesis states that the repetition of the reason for the injury indicates, in our opinion, the desire to highlight a paradoxical conjunction between the somatic and the dogmatic, sustained in turn by an intertextual network from the Euripidean tragedy. To this end, among other objectives, we will highlight some resources –such as focalization– that alternate between narration and ekphrasis. In the conclusions of our analysis we maintain that these procedures are revealed as producers of image of great relevance within the poetics of the cento.