The Poem "Christus patiens" and the Poiesis of Greek Cento Poetry

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The project will be the first to explore the emergence, development, and reception of Greek cento-poetry as well as its different functions in the course of its progression from a style of writing into a literary form. We will focus on the cento-drama about the death and resurrection of Christ, which has been referred to as "Christus patiens" since the editio princeps (1542). This text, which dates from either the Late Roman or Byzantine Empire, stands out because of its poiesis, which is characteristic of Greek centos. Unlike Latin cento-poems, which, following the so called "Rule of Ausonius", use existing poetic material to create new content, the "Christus patiens" uses the compositional method of parody insofar as it alters citations and borrows phrases from other poets, mingling them with its own poetry. This poetic method intensifies the reader's involvement in the production of meaning, raises questions concerning the specific intended effects of the poetry of this work, and opens up an arena for metaisations, which reveals its own poetics of hybridity. This poetics will be further explored with regard to both its role in ancient genre theory its productive reception. The project proposed will provide the first comprehensive commentary of the "Christus patiens" and will examine its influence on later medieval Passion- and Resurrection Plays as well as on Jesuit Drama. The open-access online edition of the Greek Centos constitutes an appropriate tool for an innovative kind of commentary which makes intertextual relations visible, provides its readers with all relevant intertexts and reveals the creative combination of literary tradition and poetic innovation.