Papadiamandis and Homer: A Note

Abstract

Meaningful allusion to the classics in Papadiamandis's work is not a matter of the text's being stuffed with overt classical references. In his early novels we find a large number of, as it were, classical one-liners: essentially undigested – or at best opportunistic – allusions. The technique is a less focused form of Roidis's in Pope Joan; perhaps a closer comparison is Kalligas's Thanos Vlekas, which is replete with Homeric allusions and puns, none of them integral to the narrative. Similarly, we find in early Papadiamandis a disorderly collection of allusions: Byron, Milton, Aesop, Sophocles, Juvenal, Homer et al.; and sometimes we see his allusiveness to be a mere tic of style rather than fully purposive. In other words, .it is as true here as elsewhere in Greek literary tradition that we need to sift meaningful from more or less chance allusion.