Ἡ φωνὴ τῆς ἐξουσίας: Ἡ δομὴ τῆς ἀφήγησης στὰ ποιήματα τοῦ Θεοδώρου Μετοχίτη

The article deals mainly with the narrative structure and the focalization of the Poems of Theodore Metochites. After examining the careful structuring of some of those Poems, the author proceeds to an investigation of the focalization, mainly of Poem 1, trying to distinguish between the voice of the primary narrator focalizer, who is Metochites himself at the time of the composition of this Poem, and the voice of the same person at the time of his experiencing the events described afterwards; however, in the same Poem as well as in Poems 7 and 8, the reader may also hear the voice of Metochites’s patron, the emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos, whose point of view is carefully embedded into the Poems by the poet. In a sense Metochites is interested in reproducing the hierarchical structure of Byzantine society through his Poems, thus creating a monument for his beloved emperor.