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Anna Of Byzantium Essay

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Is power a strength or weakness? Power is defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary as the ability to do something or act in a particular way. My definition of power is being able to uphold responsibility. In chapter 24 page 196 it states, “you choked with the silence of spiritual discipline, and with the streams of your tears, you watered the entire desert”. This refers to how in the Byzantine Empire you are raised to hide your emotions from the world this is a weakness because you suffer internally, this is also a strength because by hiding your emotions you show no weakness to other empires. Tracy Barrett writer of “Anna of Byzantium” has an M.A. and Ph.D. in Medieval Italian Literature from the University of California, Berkeley. She also holds a Bachelor's Degree with honors in Classics-Archaeology from Brown University. Her interest in ancient and medieval worlds led to her become an author of historical books. She received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to study medieval women writers which led to the writing of her first novel, the award-winning Anna of Byzantium. In “Anna of Byzantium” they discuss the interactions of the social classes throughout the book. “Take Maria to our chamber… Sophia nodded… and reached down to Maria… It was not strictly proper for the two of them to be touching ...” (Chapter 8 page 66). In chapter 10 of the textbook they talk about how the military campaigns and expansion of the empire in the 10th century resulted

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