Everything about Syriac Literature totally explained
Syriac literature is
literature written in the
Syriac language, an eastern
Aramaic language. The majority of classical Syriac literature is of a
Christian religious nature. However, the corpus witnesses a wide range of literary forms, and much of its literature is quite different from European Christian literature.
The earliest Syriac inscription comes from
Edessa, and is dated to AD
6. There are, all told about eighty inscriptions from the region of
Osrhoene dating from the first three centuries AD. All of these early inscriptions are non-Christian or pre-Christian. From the
third century, Syriac was adopted by much of the church in upper
Mesopotamia.
The earliest Christian literature was biblical translation, the
Peshitta and the
Diatessaron. The
fourth century is considered to be the
golden age of Syriac literature. The two giants of this period are
Aphrahat, writing
homilies for the church in
Persia, and
Ephrem the Syrian, writing
hymns, poetry and prose for the church just within the
Roman Empire. The next two centuries, which are in many ways a continuation of the golden age, sees important Syriac poets and theologians:
Jacob of Serugh,
Narsai,
Philoxenus of Mabbog,
Babai the Great,
Isaac of Nineveh and
Jacob of Edessa.
The advent and spread of
Islam throughout the
Middle East generally proved to be good for Syriac culture. The process of hellenization of Syriac, which was prominent in the sixth and seventh centuries, slowed and ceased. Syriac entered a
silver age from around the
ninth century. The works of this period were more encyclopaedic and scholastic, and include the biblical commentators
Ishodad of Merv and
Dionysius bar Salibi. Crowning the silver age of Syriac literature is the
thirteenth-century polymath Bar-Hebraeus.
The conversion of the
Mongols to
Islam began a period of retreat and hardship for Syriac culture. However, there has been a continuous stream of Syriac literature from the
fourteenth century through to the present day. This has included the flourishing of literature from the various colloquial Neo-Aramaic languages spoken by Christians. This
Neo-Syriac literature bears a dual tradition: it continues the traditions of the Syriac literature of the past, and it incorporates a converging stream of the less homogeneous spoken language. The first such flourishing of Neo-Syriac was the
seventeenth century literature of the School of
Alqosh, in northern
Iraq. This literature led to the establishment of
Chaldean Neo-Aramaic as a written literary language. In the
nineteenth century,
printing presses were established in
Urmia, in northern
Iran. This led to the establishment of the 'General Urmian' dialect of
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic as the standard in much Neo-Syriac literature. The comparative ease of modern publishing methods has encouraged other colloquial Neo-Aramaic languages, like
Turoyo and
Senaya, to begin to produce literature. Composition in the classical
Syriac language still continues, especially among members of the
Syriac Orthodox Church, where students in the church's monasteries are taught living, spoken Syriac, or
Kṯoḇonoyo.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Syriac Literature'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://syriac_literature.totallyexplained.com">Syriac literature Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
