Focalization and Narrators in the Life of Eustratios of Agauros

This paper examines the Life of Eustratios of Agauros (BHG 645) paying close attention to the different narrators (external or internal) and narrative levels present in the text. Stories and direct speeches in the mouth of secondary characters (and therefore secondary narrators) will also be analysed. The main narrator has an unsettling presence, but his identity is difficult to discern due to the humility characteristic of Byzantine religious writers. Indeed, we sometimes have more information about those responsible for the other narrative levels than about the narrator/author of the work himself. By giving a specific character a voice and speech, the writer allows him to express himself and recount a story in direct speech, offering a direct characterisation of him. This is the case with the prophecies and visions of Ioannikios, which he himself recounts in the first person (Vita Eustratii, chaps. 4 and 10-12) or the later accounts of miracles performed by the saint. Since this hagiography features internal (primary and secondary) narrators, a combined analysis of the narrators and focalization will be undertaken. In the aforementioned cases, for example, does the narrator recount a story or episode from the experiencer’s perspective or the teller’s perspective? The interrelationship between narrators and focalization is a particularly complex and relevant topic since changes in focalisation can dramatically affect the perception of the narrator’s reliability. Therefore, examining the narrators will be combined with studying focalisation (what perspective or point of view does the narrator choose to narrate?). Finally, this paper will also shed light on the corresponding addressees (or internal audiences) of literary narrators and their impact on contemporary (real) readers/listeners of this Life.