Origini della letteratura greca volgare ai confini orientali dell'impero bizantino: alcune riflessioni

The article analyses a barely known aspect of literary history in Greek language, a fragment that corresponds to the development of a new reality, which rose in the Byzantine historical context under pressure of the Muslim advance. In the marginal areas of the Eastern Roman Empire, thanks to the mutation of historical, political and religious circumstances, even the way of expression and feeling changes: here, a linguistic register which is different from the atticizing Greek that is employed by the institutions of the State and the Church is actively used. In this language that is not codified by writ-ten grammatical rules, the heroic accomplishments of the defenders of the borders against infidels were celebrated. Manuscripts and material records belong to a further period. It is not possible to define with certainty the linguistic peculiarities of the literary works that went through an oral phase too, but the origins of this cultural phenomenon date probably to 9th-10th centuries and the language does not respect the rules of ancient grammar. The heroes analysed are Armuris and Andronicus’ son (with the Italian translation of the Akritic songs where they are protagonists).