Grammar, Literature, and Hermeneutics in Byzantium: from the Commentaries on Dionysios Thrax to Eustathios

Among the language disciplines, rhetoric has received much attention as providing the framework for literary composition in Byzantium, while grammar has predominantly been studied for the methods of language teaching and the standards of Greek taught in the Byzantine classroom. This paper will instead explore the broader foundational role that grammar played in establishing the essential parameters of Byzantine textual culture. Beyond linguistic rules and instructions for correct usage, grammatical education inculcated in students habits of reading and writing central to Byzantine literary culture, thereby sustaining—and defining—the culturally determined literacy of the period. At the same time, grammar, along with rhetoric, shaped the hermeneutical approaches underpinning the Byzantine engagement with the authoritative texts of the literary canon, both pagan and Christian, providing principles of interpretation and criticism. Throughout the Byzantine period, a wealth of material was produced related to the teaching of grammar and the interpretation of ancient authorities. While a comprehensive discussion of the subject thus lies well beyond the scope of this paper, it will use various works of scholarship and exegesis from the early and middle Byzantine periods, including the commentaries to Dionysios Thrax’s influential Art of Grammar and various exegetical works related to the Bible, Christian hymnography, and ancient poetry, to explore the literary and textual objectives of grammar teaching as well as its impact on Byzantine hermeneutics. These texts give insight into Byzantine conceptions of the nature of language and literature while also demonstrating how grammar served as a means of deriving meaning and knowledge from earlier literature.