ABSTRACT
The brightest intellectual light of Byzantium in the eleventh century, Michael Psel los, was the best read scholar of his era, a prolific author, a versatile thinker, and a genuinely creative writer. To date the most complete analysis and appreciation of Psellan prose style is the big valuable work of E. Renauld published more than three quarters of a century ago1. The third book of Renauld’s opus, after the first two which examine morphology and syntax, offers a wide ranging study of Psellos’ “art of writ ing”, covering everything from the use of the article to prose rhythm. In between there are pioneering discussions of features like metaphor, antithesis, and ecphrasis. His section on metaphor2 — a device which he says “apparaît dans Psellos comme le plus beau et le plus fécond des tropes”3 — illustrates with numerous examples the Byzantine author’s skills, whether it be in drawing on classical sources (such as the tragedians, Lucian, and above all Plato) or in using his own ingenuity to create fig ures based on single terms or on whole series of words4. The French scholar also indicates briefly a sampling of the subject areas in Psellos’ repertoire of figures: the elements (air, wind, waves, etc.); rivers, the sea, storms, swimming; festivals, games; plants, flowers, gardens.
