2023 was a remarkable year for scholarship on one of the most renowned Byzantine authors, Theodoros Prodromos. Two long-awaited editions were published. The first is the edition of Prodromos’ epistles and speeches by the late Michiel Op De Cul.Footnote ¹ The second is the volume by Nikos Zagklas reviewed here. For the Miscellaneous Poems, Z. has edited 76 poems from 87 different manuscripts. The book is well thought out and addresses the most significant issues underlying the published poems. Originating in Z’s. PhD thesis, the book reconsiders the material in light of his current intellectual and research trajectory (pp. 43–71).

The Introduction addresses the question of authorship, reviewing the possibilities and showing the perils involved in attributing poems to authors who were much read and copied during the Middle Ages (pp. 11–15). Z. offers a considered justification of his choice of poems to publish and titles to give them. The result is a composite corpus comparable to other editions, with a title that explicitly refers to the title στίχοι διάφοροι of the eleventh-century poetry books by Christophoros Mitylenaios and Ioannes Mauropous. This rests on a resemblance between Z’s. corpus and the two medieval collections, particularly in terms of the variety of content and narrative cycles. The translation of στίχοι διάφοροι as Miscellaneous Poems clearly hints at Z’s. selection criteria (Section 1.2, p. 10). What emerges is a collection of poems once scattered and now gathered – rather than diverse yet interconnected, as in the case of the collections of Christophoros and Ioannes – reflecting Z’s. decision to foreground texts often overlooked by modern philologists. Section 1.1 provides a comprehensive status quaestionis on previous Prodromic studies. This proves particularly helpful for the following chapters and sections, as Z. consistently engages with the views of other scholars, often presenting their arguments at length to place his ideas in dialogue with theirs. Frequent cross-referencing throughout the book serves to foreground Z’s. own interpretations and conclusions alongside those of others.

In general, Z. carefully examines the challenges in determining the original function of some poems, given the absence of contextual information beyond the text itself (pp. 15–30). Particularly interesting is his argumentation in Sections 1.2.1 and 1.2.3. Since the poems he published and studied vary in content, style, metre, and possibly original function, they exhibit diverse features, prompting Z. to study Prodromos’ entire corpus and review the related scholarship. Particularly interesting is the overview of the relationship between Prodromos’ poetry and the twelfth-century school, and the social status of a Byzantine writer of that period (pp. 43–71). This is part of a much broader research endeavour by the author, and reflects a general conception of Byzantine literature shared by many scholars of Z.’s generation (e.g. Floris Bernard, frequently mentioned in the book).

Chapter 3 Formal Features concisely presents statistics and interpretations of the various metres used by Prodromos in the examined corpus. This chapter integrates data from the Miscellaneous Poems into what we know about Prodromos’ prosody, metres, and rhythms. Z. draws attention to intriguing phenomena, such as the use of disyllabic words between C5 and C7 in dodecasyllables – a feature which, I believe, carries artistic significance and can be observed in earlier poets too, notably Ioannes Mauropous – as well as the deployment of similar sounding words in pentameters. Z. appropriately contextualizes the metrical data from the Miscellaneous Poems (see e.g. p. 74) and reflects on the role of original functions in metrical and rhythmical choice. Nonetheless, due to the diverse nature of the functions and transmission of the poems included, Z. is confronted with the challenge of comparing data taken from these poems with those drawn from other collections of Prodromic poetry, some gathered by modern scholars. A comprehensive study of the poetics of metre and rhythm in one of the most significant Byzantine poets, however, remains unwritten. A section on the language of Prodromos is missing from the book, despite the section on clitics (Section 5.2.1) and some references in the commentary.

Section 4.1 adheres to the standard practice of brief manuscript descriptions preceding a critical edition. Sections 4.2 and 4.3 are among the most engaging in the book (together with Section 1.2.3), and Z.’s views on two crucial aspects of Prodromos’ corpus are convincing and confidently articulated. Z. examines the collection in MS Vaticanus Graecus 305 [diktyon 66936; siglum V] and its impact on the Nachleben of Prodromos’ of prose and verse (pp. 122–30); V is also the most important manuscript for Z.’s edition (pp. 140–6, 162). He then investigates the initial dissemination of Prodromos’ writings in the twelfth century and beyond (pp. 130–9). From these two sections, it becomes clear why Z. refers to Prodromos as ‘the “superstar author” of the entire Komnenian period’ in the opening page of the Introduction (p. 1). Like all those who rise to superstar status across centuries, Prodromos understood and shaped the literary tastes of his age, profiting from a favourable context for his literary works. Given their relevance, I would have placed these important sections separately from the brief manuscript descriptions and between Chapters 2 and 3, as they would have served well to conclude the introduction to Prodromos, his corpus, and his place in Byzantine literature, before moving on to the more strictly philological section through Chapter 3 on metres and rhythms. Section 4.5 presents Z.’s philological assessment of the text of V (Section 4.4.1) and the relationships between manuscripts transmitting the same poems (Section 4.4.2). Chapter 5 surveys previous editions and introduces editorial choices, including matters of clitic accentuation and punctuation.

The edition offers a reliable critical text; the translations are literal and straightforward. The concise commentary provides explanations of certain aspects of the poems, which, notably, showcase the full artistic range of Prodromos as a poet. From the deep yet plain poems dedicated to Paul the Apostle, Gregory of Nazianzus, Basil of Caesarea, John Chrysostom, Gregory of Nyssa, and St Nicholas (Poems 1–6) to Saint Barbara’s cycle (Poems 11–20 + 21; for similarly structured clusters, cf. e.g., the poetry book of Ioannes Mauropous), from the distichs on virtues and vices (Poems 29–54, interestingly closed by rhetoric and grammar) to the moving dialogue bidding farewell to Friendship (Poem 76); on the authorship of the last poems, see pp. 11–14. Rich learned language; content and solid rhetoric; ancient metres and new rhythms; single poems and cycles. Whilst reading such verses, we understand the enthusiasm of the Monk Ioannikios for the great Prodromos.

Z. has produced a well-grounded philological and literary study, making these seventy-six poems available in a contemporary critical edition, framed in the broader socio-cultural context of twelfth-century Byzantine literature. The Miscellaneous Poems constitutes a small treasure house of Byzantine poetry, making it available for future studies. The book is dedicated to the memory of Wolfram Hörandner, author of the monumental edition of the Historische Gedichte by Prodromos (Vienna, 1974) and of many studies on Prodromic poetry. Miscellaneous Poems is the achievement of a Viennese scholar of the current generation, who has continued and sustained a well-established tradition of scholarship with his own ideas on literature. Thanks to Z., we are close to a complete contemporary re-edition of Prodromos’ (p. 6–7); yet, if we move to a metaphorical world, we are not at all at the end of summer in Prodromic studies, but rather at the beginning of spring. Much like Hörandner in his time, Z. highlights further fruits yet to be fully savoured from the still blossoming garden – most notably, the σχέδη on the one side and the poetics of Prodromos on the other.