Orality in Medieval and Modern Greek Poetry: Introduction

Abstract

A colloquium under the above title was held in Oxford on May 12–13, 1989, under the auspices of the British association of university teachers of Modern Greek studies known as SCOMGIU (Standing Committee on Modern Greek in the Universities). The following articles represent a selection of the papers given at this colloquium, some printed with minimal alterations (thus preserving some traces of their oral performance) and others extensively rewritten.     

Modern Greek in the European Union: Language,Economy and Culture

Abstract

For those teaching and researching in Modern Greek Studies outside Greece, discussion of the eighties and nineties is characterised by reference to changes in Greek political life, as well as in the Greek educational system and policy making directly connected with Greece's entry into the European Union. Greece became a member of the EU as recently as 1981. PASOK, viewed membership as temporary but these claims were dropped after 1985. In the same period changes introduced into the linguistic system of the Greek language led to discussions of educational and cultural interest. More recently, however, certain developments concerning the role of strong languages in the European Union have brought to the fore issues concerning weak languages, those spoken by less people in the European Union, and their related cultures. This has once again opened the forum of discussion regarding matters of linguistic survival and cultural variety.     

Encountering the Epistemological Challenge or,beyond Humanism: Contemporary Greek Criticism and the Languages of Theory

Abstract

It has been a common assumption that the great number of existing Histories of Modern Greek Literature reflects the growing maturity and sophistication of Greek literary studies. Specialists in the field argue that the variety of approaches and perspectives used in these surveys, while establishing a sense of tradition and achievement, has also stimulated both significant research and major reappraisals. If one adds to this scholarly labour the anthologies, the dictionaries, the encyclopaedias, as well as the studies on particular periods and schools, the picture of a thriving critical industry emerges clearly. It is then very difficult to try and reconcile these promising signs with the pervasive scarcity of meta-theoretical work, beginning with the embarrassing absence of a History of Modern Greek Criticism itself. For how can a field develop without introspection? How can a discipline refine its methods or advance its causes without undergoing vigilant self-examination? The lack of theoretical reflexivity on the part of contemporary Greek literary studies gives often the alarming impression that Greek criticism does not even know its history …     

On some recent views concerning the development of the Greek future system

Abstract

Researchers of the historical grammar of Modern Greek agree in general terms that the particle θ? derives from an older construction which included the verb θ?λω. In the past years, however, there has been some disagreement about the exact point of departure, and, consequently, the exact route (or routes) of the development of θ?. In this article we present a straightforward account of θ?, explicating several of the disputed aspects of its development, and comparing our account to other, recently published, views. In this way we try to set the record straight with respect to the history of this important element of the Greek verbal system.     

The Influence of Katharevousa on the Phonology of Modern Greek

Abstract

Much has been written on Greek diglossia and the language struggle (between katharevousa and dhimotiki ). Defenders of katharevousa have emphasized the importance of the language's roots in ancient Greek, opponents of katharevousa have emphasized the idea that the Greek language should be first and foremost ‘the language of the people’. More recently, the focus of the discussion has shifted to what constitutes ‘true’ dhimotiki and the extent to which certain katharevousa elements are acceptable to the modern language; see for instance G. Babiniotis, <inline-graphic href="splitsection5_in1.tif"/><inline-graphic href="splitsection5_in2.tif"/>(Athens 1979) and A Linguistic Approach to the ‘Language Question’ in Greece (BMGS 5, 1979), E. Kriaras' reactions to Babiniotis' views in his ‘<inline-graphic href="splitsection5_in3.tif"/><inline-graphic href="splitsection5_in4.tif"/>(Athens 1979) and Mesevrinos' H <inline-graphic href="splitsection5_in5.tif"/><inline-graphic href="splitsection5_in6.tif"/>(Nicosia 1973). All of these writers are more concerned with determining what should be considered correct or acceptable to the modern language than with analysing actual usage. In general, very little of the discussion is concerned with the spoken language. M. Setatos' article (<inline-graphic href="splitsection5_in7.tif"/><inline-graphic href="splitsection5_in8.tif"/>1973) is particularly interesting because it sets out to analyse the place of katharevousa in the modern language (both written and spoken) rather than arguing for or against katharevousa. Setatos has also written the most detailed analysis of modern Greek phonology (<inline-graphic href="splitsection5_in9.tif"/>, Athens 1974). Other interesting articles on katharevousa elements in the spoken language have been written by Philippaki-Warburton, Tsopanakis, and Petrounias. However, there has in fact been scarcely any empirical research on modern Greek phonology and the extent to which spoken Greek has been influenced by katharevousa. It is perhaps understandable, given the social and historical context, that there has been so much emphasis on theory; the priority has been establishing norms on an acceptable theoretical basis, in the midst of the confusion caused by diglossia, and the question ‘what is actual practice in spoken Greek now, at the end of the twentieth century?’ has had to wait.     

Recovering Republican Eloquence: John Cheke versus Stephen Gardiner on the Pronunciation of Greek

Abstract

The controversy over Greek pronunciation at Cambridge University in 1542, principally between university chancellor Stephen Gardiner and regius professor of Greek John Cheke, marked the emergence of not only the linguistic but also the political agenda of the mid-Tudor Cambridge humanists. This important group included future statesmen and political thinkers such as William Cecil, later Elizabeth's famous minister, Thomas Smith, author of De republica anglorum, and John Ponet, leading exponent of ‘resistance theory’. In the 1542 Greek controversy Cheke and his allies advocated the restoration of an ancient pronunciation they saw as having been the medium of eloquence in the Athenian republic. Their concepts of language provide a template for their political concepts: both language and political structures are generated by the community, reflective of the community's particular character, susceptible to change and capable of improvement. Throughout their subsequent careers and especially in the reign of Edward VI, when their influence was at its height, these humanists fostered a ‘monarchical republican’ politics; it involved rhetorical persuasion as the main mode of political action, programmes of religious and economic reform, and popular consent as an important factor in the good governance of the commonwealth.     

The Constantinopolitan Greek Factor during the Greco-Turkish Confrontation of 1919–1922

Abstract

The traditional Greco-Turkish antagonism culminated in the bitter military confrontation which took place in Anatolia immediately after the First World War. While the Greeks fought for the establishment of a foothold in western Anatolia and Thrace, the nationalist Turks resisted vigorously the invasion of what they considered to be their indisputable fatherland. The crux of the problem lay in the Greek determination to bring the entire Hellenic race under a single Greek state. This Hellenic Megali Idea (Great Idea) envisaged a future Greater Greece which was to include Epirus, Macedonia, Thrace, western Anatolia and the Aegean islands. The ultimate fulfilment of the Megali Idea would be achieved with the incorporation of Constantinople (istanbul), the most important administrative, religious, commercial, and cultural centre in the Near East, into the future Greek state. According to Greek nationalists, such a state was to materialise with the final dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, a process which they regarded as inevitable. Deeply rooted in Greek national and religious consciousness, the Megali Idea had for one hundred years inspired official Greek foreign policy.     

Milton,drama, and Greek texts: preface

ABSTRACT

This collection of essays explores the connection between Milton’s approach to drama and his engagement with Greek antiquity. Paying attention to early Christian and early modern interpretive traditions as well as Greek literature, it situates the power of this conjunction for Milton within the larger project of the northern Renaissance.     

On Martinus Crusius's collection of Greek vernacular and religious books

Abstract

The importance of Martinus Crusius's collection of Greek chapbooks for our knowledge of 16th century vernacular Greek literature can hardly be over-emphasised. Most copies of his collection are either extremely rare or even unique. Valuable and often unique is also the information about the texts and their authors, which Crusius collected and published in his Turcograecia (Basel 1584) or elsewhere.     

Greek Workers in the Intermountain West: The Early Twentieth Century

Abstract

The Greeks were among many national and racial groups to inundate the Intermountain West at the turn of the century and in many parts of it were the largest group of workers. Payrolls and newspaper reports, the many self-sufficient ‘Greek Towns,’ large chapters of Panhellenic Unions, and the early establishment of Greek Orthodox churches give us cause to believe that the 1910 Census represented only a portion of Greek immigrants. The men were constantly moving and census-taking was haphazard.     

On historical linguistics,linguistic variation and Medieval Greek

Abstract

This article focuses on two questions: the application of current historical linguistic methodologies to vernacular Medieval Greek in comparison to similar research in other medieval languages, and the notion of linguistic variation in Medieval Greek, in parallel with the possible methods for its fruitful investigation.     

A Greek Lexicon of the middle Byzantine period

Abstract

Greek lexicography of the Byzantine period is a thorny subject, indeed an almost thankless task, if efforts end merely in a collection of inaccessible and unpublished handwritten' material. I would like to call to mind the case of Emmanuel Miller in the last century, who showed a continuous interest in lexicography, pouring out new Greek words in the notes to his editions on every occasion. However, those notes are nothing but feeble shadows of his vast collection left to the Bibliotheque Nationale de Paris about ninety years ago. When I inspected this mass of more than 40,000 small slips, I was considerably taken aback, in view of the fact that this collection as well as every other similar to it (for instance the 10,000 Athesaurista gathered by Pezopoulos) are practically of no use for Byzantine studies, since they have never been published.     

Oriental borrowings in Medieval Greek: new evidence from the BnF manuscript Supplément persan 939

Abstract

The topic of this article is the historical evolution of Greek foreign policy in the Middle East over the past thirty-five years. It essentially seeks to explain the broad framework of conditions and objectives within which Greek foreign policy has been made towards the Arab Middle East and Israel. It argues that the amount of involvement of Greek foreign policy in the area was relatively little. Though much has changed in Greece's approach towards the Middle East since the 1990s, there is also a significant continuity of attitude, in the sense that serious attention has not been paid to this part of the world.     

Heirs to Byzantium: identity and the Helleno-Romaic dichotomy amongst the Istanbul Greek migrant community in Greece

Abstract

The Istanbul Greek migrant community resident in Greece exists in the space between two homelands and two identities, expressed in the dichotomy between the Hellenic and the Romaic. The migrants exploit this flexibility and ambivalence in Greek identity to contextually navigate a range of social pressures – diaspora, discrimination, alienation, and even financial collapse. At times they pursue assimilation with their host population as the most Hellenic of the Hellenes, whilst at other times they assume a Romaic identity to distinguish themselves from the mainland Greeks. Deploying an identity rooted in Byzantium, the Istanbul Greeks are able to be Greek but more than simply Hellenic.     

Rentiers,teachers and workers: Greek women in late nineteenth-century Odessa

Abstract

This article sheds light on a neglected aspect of the Greek paroikia of Odessa, its female component, in the late imperial period. By revisiting the 1897 All-Russian Census, it offers an insight into the demographic and social features of Greek women, and depicts their occupational position. It shows that middle-class and working women formed the majority of the Greek female workforce and suggests that their participation or non-participation in the labour market depended on the ability of the male breadwinner to support his household financially.     

Creating the world: the origins of all things in ancient Greek myth and medicine

Abstract

In the sixth and fifth centuries BC, a series of dramatic shifts in science and the arts took place in the Greek world, and history, medicine, philosophy, and science came into being. This paper examines 'the Greek miracle', looking at how new ideas about 'the origin of all things' were rooted in traditional mythic patterns of thought. In particular, it examines how medical writers thought about the origins of the cosmos, and of disease. The multiple creations of the world present in Greek myth, where the origin of all things was seen as a process of differentiation out of original similarity, may have predisposed the Greeks to be open to the new theories of early scientific thinkers.     

Linkage Politics: the Role of the European Community in Greek Politics in 1973

Abstract

The convulsions which began to shake the Greek military regime with the first student protests at the end of 1972 and which reached their climax in 1973 with the uprising at the Polytechnic in November, have been exhaustively analysed and discussed. However, they have always been viewed either through the prism of internal political developments or in the light of events in Cyprus. The international context remains largely unexplored.     

Cavafy in Poland

Abstract

Despite the diversity of Modern Greek poetry available in Polish translation, Cavafy's work has eclipsed the achievements of other poets, just as the shadow of his lifelong translator, Zygmunt Kubiak, has inhibited other attempts only starting to surface in the twenty-first century. While external factors have determined Modern Greek anthologies in Poland, Cavafy translation has been mostly driven by personal passion. Apart from translation, this article reflects on various reasons why the Alexandrian's work should be so attractive to the Polish literary scene. Cavafy's seminal place within Polish literature stimulates further reflection on rewriting Cavafy in Poland.     

'Poverty,prostitution, filthy tavernas': cinephilia and popular Greek film of the fifties

Abstract

The diametrically opposed critical and commercial reception of two Greek films from the early 1950s exposes the contradictions inherent in the project of national cinema formation articulated by Greece's cinephile press. Critics such as Eleni Vlachou and Marios Ploritis sought to locate Greek film within the context of a realist–humanist European art cinema, and denigrated the commercial cinema for its over-reliance on foreign models and popular genres. This cinephile discourse reveals, however, keenly felt anxieties of cultural authority and status, anxieties manifest in the constant shifting between the twin semantic poles of cultural indigeneity and foreign cinematic influence.