Books by Tassos A. Kaplanis
A new book on the Cretan Renaissance masterpiece 'Erotokritos' by Vitsentzos Kornaros, divided in... more A new book on the Cretan Renaissance masterpiece 'Erotokritos' by Vitsentzos Kornaros, divided into two parts: Part A is dedicatory to the former Associate Professor of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Komnini D. Pidonia and contains her bio and list of published work, a laudatio by S. Stavrakopoulou and a short response and acknowledgements by the honoured professor. Part B consists of 12 research papers covering various aspects of Kornaros' Erotokritos, namely its edorial problems and perspectives (contributions by K. D. Pidonia and G. Kechagioglou), studies of personages, their function in the romanzo and possible correspondents to historical persons (contributions by D. Phillipides, W. Bakker and A. Vincent), linguistic and stylistic aspects of the text (contributions by D. Holton, S. Stavrakopoulou and M. Apostolidou), narratological issues (contribution by G. Poimenidis), comparative and cultural studies (contributions by K. Yavis, M. Paschalis, G. Kallinis and T. A. Kaplanis).
A full list of contents is displayed below:
Part A
Greeting by the Mayor of Sieia [Sponsor of the volume]............................ 5
T. A. Kaplanis, T. M. Markomichelaki, S. Stavrakopoulou, Preface........... 7
Appendix of Plates .......................................................................................... 11
K. D. Pidonia, Short Biographical Note ........................................................ 17
K. D. Pidonia, List of Published Work........................................................... 19
S. Stavrakopoulou, Laudatio of K. D. Pidonia............................................. 25
K. D. Pidonia, Response Speech/Acknowledgements............................. 33
Part B
K. D. Pidonia, Observations on Erotokritos' text........................................ 35
G. Kechagioglou, Modern philological editions of Erotokritos: evaluations, questions, hypotheses, suggestions............................................................................... 45
D. Philippides and W. F. Bakker, New trends in the analysis of Erotokritos: the contribution of the nurse in Erophili and Erotokritos ............................... 71
A. Vincent, In search of Charidemos: the Cretan in his historican and cultural context............................................................................................................... 87
D. W. Holton, The adjective in Erotokritos................................................... 111
S. Stavrakopoulou, Vocative adresses in V. Kornaros' Erotokritos......... 129
G. Poimenidis, ʻI do not wish and I am scared to tell you in lettersʼ: investigation of narrative economization in Erotokritos........................................................ 141
M. Apostolidou, The colours in Erotokritos................................................. 153
K. Yavis, Erotokritos and 'Aretusa'................................................................. 173
M. Paschalis, Fiction and history in Erotokritos ........................................ 191
G. Kallinis, The image of a lost empire or Byzantium in Erotokritos...... 205
Τ. A. Kaplanis, Visual versions of Erotokritos: a first investigation........ 217
“His Words were Nourishment and his Counsel Food”: A Festschrift for David W. Holton brings toget... more “His Words were Nourishment and his Counsel Food”: A Festschrift for David W. Holton brings together essays on Greek literature from medieval romances to postmodern fiction. It provides an illuminating first insight into the variety of Modern Greek literature for the general reader, while also catering to more specialised students and scholars with new research findings and close studies of individual texts. The editors and authors, all former doctoral students of Professor Holton at Cambridge, conceived this volume as a thanksgiving present to him on the occasion of his retirement and as a collection which reflects the high quality and significance of Modern Greek studies at the University of Cambridge. The essays explore themes ranging from the erotic gaze and nightingales to cannibalism and dictatorships. Individual contributions discuss the relationship of Greek works with French and Persian medieval romances, the Italian Renaissance and German expressionism, and the influence of Shakespeare on the best-known Modern Greek poet, C. P. Cavafy. Others explore the interrelation of architecture and literature in the Cretan Renaissance masterpiece Erotokritos, the influence of religious texts on Roidis’s Pope Joan, and the assimilation of Byzantium into Greek historiography by intellectuals of Greek Romanticism. On a more personal level, the reader will learn about the experiences of a British Victorian woman translator in 1880s Athens, and the friendship between George Seferis and Sir Steven Runciman. Cretan cities figure in three essays which investigate the literary and historical context of the long Ottoman siege of Chandax in the seventeenth century and issues of identity in the modern-day lives of Chania’s Greek and Turkish inhabitants. Shifting notions of identity are further explored in the contemporary Greek novels of an Albanian immigrant author. His Words were Nourishment demonstrates the remarkable capacity of Greek literature to thrive within the context of cultural exchange and shifting historical boundaries.
FOREWORD by Emmanuel Kriaras
It is a great pleasure to be able to contribute a Foreword to... more FOREWORD by Emmanuel Kriaras
It is a great pleasure to be able to contribute a Foreword to this book; firstly, because the edited text, Ioakeim Kyprios’ Pali, is an interesting and important work of vernacular literature that I had promised to edit in the 1960s – an edition that for various reasons was not completed – and, secondly, because the edition was finally produced, I would say in an exemplary manner, by a dear colleague and former member of the editorial team of the 14th vol. of my Dictionary of Medieval Greek Vernacular Literature (1100-1669), Dr. Tassos A. Kaplanis, who is currently an assistant professor of modern Greek literature at the University of Cyprus.
With this book Dr. Kaplanis makes available to scholarship for the first time a long poetic text on the Cretan War (1645-1669) written by a Cypriot author, the Archimandrite Ioakeim Kyprios. The text is entitled Pali [= Struggle]. Kaplanis decided to write his book in English, a decision that will definitely make it accessible to a wider international audience. His richly annotated edition of Ioakeim’s text is a significantly extended versionof his 347-page doctoral thesis Ioakeim Kyprios’ Struggle (mid-17th century): A Study of the Text with an Edition of Selected Passages which was submitted at the University of Cambridge in 2003. The complete edition of the text published here is based on the Greek manuscript 37 of the Library of the Romanian Academy in Bucharest and consists of 10,240 fifteen-syllable political verses. Thus, the book in hand provides us with the editio princeps of one of the longest surviving poems of late medieval/early modern Greek literature.
The editor has aimed at presenting a reliable and modern edition of this long poem for the scholarly public and it must confidently be stated that he has succeeded. His book is divided into three parts: ‘Part A: A study of the text’, ‘Part B: The editio princeps of Struggle’ and ‘Part C: A complete word index of the edited text’. The edition is also accompanied by an extensive glossary of over 1,000 entries, a useful index of proper names, 24 illustrations, bibliography and a general index.
Part A contains an introduction and three main chapters. In his introduction, Kaplanis presents the contributions of previous scholarship to our knowledge of Struggle (D. Russo, N. Tomadakis, E. Kriaras, Α. Vincent, M. Vlassopoulou, P. Kitromilides, G. Mavromatis). He criticizes Tomadakis’ hasty opinion that the work lacks any historical value and that its author could not have been contemporary to the events of the Cretan War. At the same time, the views expressed by Kriaras in the 1960s regarding the linguistic value of Struggle are confirmed, while the matter of the work’s literary value remains open. The editor then reviews both older and more recent scholarly contributions, as well as shortcomings concerning the main topic of the Cretan War and its history. The introductory chapter brings to light new facts about the primary sources of the text and many unknown elaborations of the theme of the Cretan War – most importantly, concerning the work of Girolamo Brusoni. In this introductory part, it is also suggested that the Cretan War should be examined in relation to various interpretative theoretical schemes which could be used in the future for the composition of a modern synthetic historical narrative of the War.
The first chapter entitled ‘The manuscript’ provides a detailed description of Greek manuscript 37 and examines, among other matters, how it ended up in the Library of the Romanian Academy. Under the title ‘Scribal characteristics’ the editor also provides in this chapter much useful information regarding linguistic features of the text. Finally, in this chapter the authorship of the text is also examined and it is convincingly argued that what we have here is an autograph manuscript which contains corrections and improvements made by the author himself.
In the chapter entitled ‘The author’ the editor reconstructs the life and work of Ioakeim Kyprios based on information found in the text itself as well as in other sources. He argues and proves that the author can be identified with the scribe of manuscript ΜΠΤ 27 (today in the National Library of Greece) as well as with the scribe of RAIK 130 (of the Library of St. Petersburg). Furthermore, the editor suggests the identification of the author of Struggle with the scribe of yet another manuscript, Patr. Jer. 173 (of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem). If he is right, all three identifications extend our knowledge of both the authorand his work. For this reason, the editor believes that in Ioakeim’s case we are not dealing with a simple-minded vernacular author but with a literate writer who also copied andread manuscripts of his time.
The third chapter entitled ‘The text and the context’ discusses the terms text, paratext and context and presents the paratextual elements of Struggle. It also usefully attempts to elucidate many obscure points concerning the relation of the text to its sources and to the historical events described in it. Finally, this chapter successfully places the text in the literary and cultural context of its time and concludes by identifying the desiderata for future research.
In Part B of the book, one finds the editorial principles that have been applied in the present edition, followed by the edition itself which is accompanied by an apparatus criticus. The editorial process benefited from the use of a contextual index of the text(which is not published here) prepared with the aid of modern technology.
The use of modern technology has also enabled the editor to prepare a complete word index of Struggle which constitutes the third part of the book (Part C). This index contains all 12,814 word-forms found in the text (excluding και for obvious reasons) and it will certainly facilitate the work of scholars interested in the text’s language.
The same purpose is also well served by the extensive glossary that accompanies the edition. This glossary consists of 1,127 entries and has been compiled with the use of the principles applied in my Dictionary of Medieval Greek Vernacular Literature, as the editor states. Kaplanis here makes full and successful use of the experience he acquired during his work at the Dictionary and this glossary not only facilitates the reader’s understandingof the text, but also enriches medieval Greek vernacular lexicography with many new entries, especially words of Turkish provenance, that appear for the first time in Ioakeim’swork.
Equally useful is the index of proper names which contains 489 entries and is particularly enlightening as regards Ottoman and Muslim prosopography. The 24 illustrations that accompany the edition elucidate matters discussed mainly in Part A, and,at the end of the book, one finds the bibliography that was used for its composition, as well as a useful general index.
Dr. Kaplanis’ book that has been presented here allows us to familiarize ourselves with an interesting text of the modern Greek past. The text and its problems are critically presented and scrupulously commented on. I think it is obvious that the editor has used the text as an opportunity to offer us a general overview of many of the problems regarding the Cretan War of 1645-1669 and its time, and, most importantly, he has accompanied this overview with plausible hypotheses and solid conclusions. I believe that his book may serve as a model for all similar scholarly enterprises in the future.
Prof. Emmanuel Kriaras
Thessaloniki, July 2011
Other Books by Tassos A. Kaplanis
![Research paper thumbnail of Tassos A. Karanastassis (1955-2010), Office of the Unholy Goat-Bearded Spanos. Its Character and Dating: An Interpretative Approach, Thessaloniki: Byzantine Research Centre, 2010 [2011]. (Posthumous edition by Tassos A. Kaplanis, in Greek)](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/50318304/thumbnails/1.jpg)
The Akolouthia tou anosiou tragogene spanou (Office of the Unholy Goat-bearded Spanos) is an anon... more The Akolouthia tou anosiou tragogene spanou (Office of the Unholy Goat-bearded Spanos) is an anonymous, obscene and mostly scatological parody of an office in commemoration of a saint. The office includes vespers and orthros, with troparia etc., and even an epitaphios threnos which alludes to the lament for the Burial of Christ procession at the Holy Saturday orthros. The text survives in three versions dating to the first half of the 16th century. Karanastassis’s book deals with the character and the dating of the original text. The author convincingly argues that it is a ritual collective reproach connected with the old custom of the "burning of Judas-Jew" on the evening of Good Friday in some places of the south coast of Eastern Thrace. He proposes that the original text was produced in this area after 1492, date on which the arrival of Spanoi = Spaniards (Sephardim) Jews in Constantinople and the Ottoman Empire began, after their expulsion from Spain.
Papers by Tassos A. Kaplanis
Σύγκριση, 2017
Ο Καισάριος Δαπόντες υπήρξε η σημαντικότερη ελληνική ποιητική μορφή του 18ου αιώνα. Το έργο του, ... more Ο Καισάριος Δαπόντες υπήρξε η σημαντικότερη ελληνική ποιητική μορφή του 18ου αιώνα. Το έργο του, που αγαπήθηκε ιδιαίτερα στην εποχή του, είναι σήμερα παραμελημένο· σύγχρονες κριτικές εκδόσεις, κατά κανόνα, δεν έχει γνωρίσει, ενώ ποικίλα προβλήματα της δαποντικής εργοβιογραφίας παραμένουν ανερεύνητα και ανεπίλυτα. Το άρθρο συνοψίζει τα πορίσματα της μέχρι τούδε έρευνας για το δημιουργό και εστιάζει την προσοχή του στον Καθρέπτη Γυναικών (Λιψία, 1766). Το έργο εξετάζεται στο γενολογικό πλαίσιο του ομώνυμου και ανθηρού στον όψιμο Μεσαίωνα λογοτεχνικού είδους, καθώς και σε σχέση με τη λογοτροπική παράμετρο του μισογυνισμού. Συζητείται η εικόνα της γυναίκας έτσι όπως αναδεικνύεται μέσα από τον Καθρέπτη, καθώς και η θέση του έργου μέσα στην προηγούμενη λογοτεχνική παράδοση. Για άλλη μία φορά επιβεβαιώνεται ότι ο Δαπόντες είναι «άνθρωπος-γέφυρα»: παρά τις πολλαπλές οφειλές του στη μεσαιωνική παράδοση, πάνω στην οποία βασίζεται, καταφέρνει πάντα να απομακρύνεται από αυτήν ή, καλύτερα, να τη...
Antiquity and Modern Greek Culture, 2014
The myth of the Amazons has been one of the most potent and popular of all Greek myths from its i... more The myth of the Amazons has been one of the most potent and popular of all Greek myths from its inception to the present day. In the first part of this paper, a presentation of its basic elements is attempted. This presentation takes into account the transformations of both the myth and the means by which it is presented (from ancient Greek narratives and depictions to present day comics and graphic novels), as comprehensively as possible. The second part focuses on major Amazon appearances in early modern Greek literature and provides an analysis, much indebted to feminist criticism and Bakhtin, of the inverted world of the Amazons in the Chapbook of Alexander (late 17th century), which constitutes its central theme. Additionally, it briefly examines the duel of the last epic hero of Greek literature, digenis Akritis with the Amazon maximou, as presented in the 15th-century escorial version of the text. * This paper has benefited from the criticism of colleagues and friends, namely Profs marc lauxtermann and Alfred vincent, drs Charilaos Avgerinos, eftychia Bathrellou and nick nicholas, mss maria Akritidou, marjolijne Janssen and Athina valdramidou, to all of whom I am grateful. my due thanks also to the co-editor of this volume, dr marietta rossetto, for all her work and help. 1 see e.g. the opening remarks in lefkowitz, 1990:15 and rothery, 1995:1-3. The very expression "the most potent of all Greek myths" is used to advertise rothery, 1995 on its back-cover. 2 Contemporary accounts retelling the story of the ancient Amazons range from illustrated popularised
When does modern Greek lterature begn? Modern Greek and Byzantne scholarshp have used varous term... more When does modern Greek lterature begn? Modern Greek and Byzantne scholarshp have used varous terms n the past n order to descrbe the same texts of the so-called vernacular Greek lterature. Thus, the Epc of Dgens Akrts, the Chroncle of Moreas, the Paleologan Romances, the poems of Sachlks, Kornaros, Chortatss, to name but a few, have all been descrbed as "Byzantne", "late medeval/protoneohellenc", "medeval", "late Byzantne, Renassance and post-Byzantne", "modern", "early modern", even "Neograeca Medii Aevi". Although most of these terms can easly be proved a-hstorcal anachronsms ("modern Greek" but also "medeval" and "Byzantne" were completely unknown to the peoples/cultures they am to descrbe), one can argue for ther necessty, provded that they at least descrbe accurately lterary and related phenomena. In ths paper, I wll advocate the use of the term "early modern" as the best and most accurate descrpton for ths "vernacular" Greek lterature n all related contexts (lngustc, hstorcal, socal) and I wll also reshape ts boundares, gesturng both forward and backward (12th-early 19th c.). "The lngustc hstory of a people keeps pace wth ts poltcal hstory"; 1 ths s how an emnent Greek lngust, Stylanos Kapsomenos (1906-1978), began hs account of the hstory of the Greek language from Hellenstc to modern tmes. And t was on ths axom that Kapsomenos based hs thess on the orgns of modern Greek 2 and ts * I would lke to thank Professors Alfred Vncent and Dmtrs Angelatos for ther useful remarks n the dscusson that followed the presentaton of ths paper, the co-edtor of ths volume, Dr. Elzabeth Close, for her careful edtoral work and thoughtful suggestons, and my wfe, Athna Valdramdou, for her love, care and patence. 1 Kapsomenos, 1985:3; all translatons of quotatons are my own. 2 As ths paper focuses on termnology, readers must keep n mnd that the Greek term "νεοελληνικά" (lterally, "new" as opposed to "old", .e. "ancent", Greek) has no mplcatons of "modernty". Its renderng n Englsh ("Modern Greek") abolshes the contrast between "old" [= "ancent"] and "new" and the sense of the word "modern" s consderably dfferent. Stll, I found t napproprate to ntroduce Kaplanis, Tassos A. 2009. 'Modern Greek' in 'Byzantium'? The notion of 'early modern' in Greek studies. In E. Close, G. Couvalis, G. Frazis, M. Palaktsoglou, and M. Tsianikas (eds.
Estudios Neogriegos Revista Cientifica De La Sociedad Hispanica De Estudios Neogriegos, 2012
In: T. A. Kaplanis, T. M. Markomichelaki, and S. Stavrakopoulou, eds., Erotokritos by V. Kornaros: Research Proposals and Perspectives. Proceedings of an International Conference Dedicated to K. A. Pidonia..., Thessaloniki: Grafima, 2017., Jul 2017
This paper attempts to collect, organize in groups and categorize the various visual versions of ... more This paper attempts to collect, organize in groups and categorize the various visual versions of the Cretan Renaissance masterpiece Erotokritos by V. Kornaros, starting from 18th-c. illustrated manuscripts and reaching up to present-day transfers to comics/graphic novels. The various visual artistic versions of the text are categorized as follows: a. illustrated manuscripts and printed books containing the text by Kornaros (in its original form or in translations), b. illustrated adaptations of the text (e.g. in children books), full intermedial transfers (comics/graphic novels), d. separate visual representations, mainly frescos and paintings, by eponymous artists and e. other artistic material (posters, diaries, programmes of events, LP and CD covers, etc.). In the paper, evidence is provided for all but the last categories of preserved material, but the focus of the presentation and the analysis is placed on comics/graphic novels, i.e. the version included in the Greek series of Classics Illustrated (Klassika Eikonografimena) of the 1950s by Synadinos and Savramis, and the recently published (2016) graphic novel by Gousis, Papamarkos, Rangos and Pantazis. The paper presents and emends data (e.g. concerning the notoriously hard to define publication dates of Klassika Eikonografimena), focuses on the reception of Kornaros's Erotokritos by other artists and creators, lays particular emphasis on the issue of the text's generic reception (epic or novel), while also pointing out at other related issues (Greekness, relations to the concept of people and popular/naive art) - mainly in the work of the famous popular/naive art painter Theofilos. The paper is a first attempt at dealing with the rich visual material related to Erotokritos, has no claims to completeness, and opens up new paths and poses many new questions that may be answered by future research.
This paper presents and discusses Greek and Romanian literary chapbooks from their first appearan... more This paper presents and discusses Greek and Romanian literary chapbooks from their first appearances to the early 19th c. (Alexander Romance/Alexandria, War of Troy/Istoria Troadei, Aesop Life and Fables/Esopia, Bertoldo, Archirie și Anadan, Skinder, Sindbad/Sindipa, Arabian Nights and 1001 Days/Halima, Imperios/Imberie, Erotokritos/Erotocrit and Filerot, Aethiopica/Ethiopica, Polițion, Porikologos/Poricolog, Anthos Chariton/Floarea darurilor, Barlaam/Varlaam și Ioasaf) in an attempt to scrutinize their interrelations. It offers a critical overview of earlier scholarship, both Greek and Romanian, emphasizes the advances and shortcomings of research as regards the most important ones of these texts (especially Erotokritos/Erotocrit/Filerot), and also offers suggestions and poses questions that may be useful to future research and facilitate a better understanding of both separate texts and the field as a whole.
Η Εκδοτική των Κειμένων της Νεοελληνικής Γραμματείας. Ημερίδα αφιερωμένη στη μνήμη της Ε. Παχίνη-Τσαντσάνογλου και του Γ. Π. Σαββίδη Θεσσαλονίκη, 27.4.2015, Dec 2016
This paper offers a review of the digitized and digital textual material regarding modern Greek l... more This paper offers a review of the digitized and digital textual material regarding modern Greek literature that is available online (or at least was in September 2015 when the paper was submitted for publication), as well as suggestions on the tools used, the problems that exist and the future perspectives of digital editing. The existing material is categorized as follows: A. Collections of digitized texts and B. Collections of digital texts - the latter with subdivisions a. Anthologies, b. Complete Works, and c. Dynamic Websites with Textual Corpora. It also offers an introduction useful to non-initiates to the world of w3, xml and digital editing.
Επετηρίδα Κέντρου Επιστημονικών Ερευνών 37 (2015) 283-310, Aug 2015
This paper deals with the two most important Cypriot authors of the 17th c., Neofytos Rodinos and... more This paper deals with the two most important Cypriot authors of the 17th c., Neofytos Rodinos and Ioakeim Kyprios, and focuses on their most important works, the On Heroes by Rodinos (published in 1659) and Struggle by Ioakeim Kyprios (composed between 1648 and 1665/7) in an attempt to scrutinize the ways in which they depict their homeland Cyprus and their fellow Cypriots.
Recent criticism has discerned in Rodinos' On Heroes the formation of a 'Modern Greek identity defined by history and language but not by religion'. The paper challenges this view and suggests that Rodinos' historical treatise --best described as an 'anthropography' of Cyprus-- lays emphasis on regional and religious identities which are still quite far from a Modern Greek (national) identity and also proposes its reading in a generic (De viris illustribus) and pedagogical (Jesuit Ratio Studiorum) context which casts a quite different light on its 'peculiarities' and innovations. For a better understanding of the text and its features, On Heroes is compared with the contemporary historical narrative poem Struggle by the Greek orthodox monk Ioakeim Kyprios. The latter offers a more detailed view of (mostly religious, but also regional and ethnic) identities in 17th-c. Cyprus that may share some features with the later developed national identities in 18th-19th-c. Europe but should not be mistaken for a clearly formed national Greek identity.
K. A. Dimadis (ed.), Proceedings of the 5th European Congress of Modern Greek Studies: Continuities, Discontinuities, Ruptures in the Greek World (1204-2014): Economy, Society, History, Literature (Thessaloniki, 2–5 October 2014), European Society of Modern Greek Studies, 2015/2, 743-764, 2015
The history of early modern Greek literature in general and of Cretan literature in particular is... more The history of early modern Greek literature in general and of Cretan literature in particular is a history of “multiple temporalities” that are often perceived as discontinuities and ruptures. Literary historians in an effort to address the(ir) need for periodization do not hesitate to pull vertical dividing lines and to expel poets and works from the modern Greek literary “canon” based on prefabricated (and arbitrary) chronological schemes (e.g. the end of the “Middle Ages” must be installed in 1453 or at the end of the 15th century). In other cases, they attempt legitimate aesthetic evaluations based on stylistic characteristics of literary works, but at the same time they tend to suppress their contemporaneity or even worse to reverse data concerning these works: e.g. the romance Erotokritos and the tragedy Erofili, both written in Crete around 1600, most likely in the late 1590s, are considered examples of "Renaissance" and "Baroque" literature respectively, but their literary styles cannot lead to any safe conclusion as regards their chronological order nor can they be used as a conclusive argument to support that the "Baroque" Erofili follows chronologically the "Renaissance" Erotokritos. Unfortunately, early modern Greek literature comprises many undated works often accompanied with authors’ names for whom we actually lack biographical information. This increases the confusion of literary historians and often leads to colossal chronological errors: one telling example is the older placement of Stephanos Sachlikes in the late 15th or 16th century, based on the existence of rhymes in his work, while archival research has proved beyond any reasonable doubt that he is an author of the 14th century. Yet, one rarely finds Sachlikes (who is the first eponymous author of early modern Greek literature) in discussions of periodization of modern Greek literature, for his mere existence in the 14th c. undermines internalized organization schemes that many researchers are not willing to abandon with ease.
In my paper, I discuss the notion of "early modern" in juxtaposition with notions like the "Middle Ages", the "Renaissance", "Baroque", etc., and I attempt to cast some light on the "asynchronicities of the contemporaneous" by borrowing terms and ideas from relevant theories on time and periodization by theorists like E. Bloch, B. Giesen and R. Koselleck (mostly, the notion of "multiple temporalities" and the distinction between “natural” and “historical” time). I examine three pairs of contemporaneous Cretan poets, Stephanos Sachlikes and Leonardos Dellaportas (14th c.), Petros Bergadis and Ioannis Pikatoros (15th c.), and Vitsentzos Kornaros and Georgios Chortatsis (16th c.). Each pair involves authors who acted at the same time in the same place, addressing to the same society and the same people, authors who were also often inspired by the same themes/subjects and developed an evident intertextual dialogue in their works. Nonetheless and despite their contemporaneity, their approaches, as reflected in these works, are so different (sometimes abysmally different) that oblige us to rethink not the dating of their works, but our own prejudices and prefabricated organization schemes. What is ultimately suggested is the need to avoid the schematization of the vacuum linear time of periodization and start to accept what existing data has been pointing to for many years: that historical time is not linear and homogenous, but rather complex and multilayered, consisting of various temporalities that each has different origins, different duration and moves at different speeds. This may underline the futility of our organizational efforts as regards the historical and literary past, but at the same time it offers a great advantage; for it can lead us to fairer evaluation of works and events alike, and may also protect us from frequent until recently prejudices and errors.
D. Tziovas (ed.), Re-imagining the Past: Antiquity and Modern Greek Culture, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014, 81-97., Jun 2014
It has long been established that Modern Greek popular culture perceived Hellenes as mythical peo... more It has long been established that Modern Greek popular culture perceived Hellenes as mythical people with supernatural powers who did not make part of the core of the Romaic identity. Recent studies confirm that the formation of an ethnic Romaic identity must be placed around the time of the Frankish conquest of Constantinople in 1204, which encouraged the growth of an identity with cultural/ethnic characteristics that became detached and eventually replaced the political/imperial Byzantine Roman identity (Page 2008). This new ethnic identity, in the long period from the thirteenth (when it was decisively formed) to the nineteenth century (when it was officially replaced by the Hellenic national identity), was not static, but developed in response to major political changes in different times and different places, and one can argue that its many transformations allow us to speak of not only one but many Romaic identities (ethnic, religious, political, linguistic, cultural). On the other hand, some people in this long period described themselves as Graikoi and this leaves us with at least three ‘competing’ names Hellenes, Graikoi and Romaioi, all of which have an ancient pedigree and were discussed in the context of the Greek Enlightenment as possible options for the name of the new emerging nation that created the Greek nation-state in the nineteenth century.
The names and the discussion are well-known, but modern and contemporary scholarship usually ignores the details: what was the actual dissemination of these names, what were their weight and components, were they all used as markers of ethnic identities in pre-modern times and by whom? This chapter presents and discusses the various appearances and perceptions of Hellenes, Graikoi and Romaioi in the pre-modern period from late Byzantium to the Greek nation-state, in both quantitative and qualitative terms. With the use of modern technology (TLG), separate indexing of primary sources, and secondary bibliography, it offers an overall picture that differs significantly from the one usually provided by the modern Greek national narrative. This difference is so striking that inevitably calls for a discussion of the ways in which generations of modern and contemporary scholars have imagined, negotiated and treated pre-modern terms of self-designation and identities, something that is attempted at the end of the chapter. The case made in the chapter regarding Hellenes, Graikoi and Romaioi is so strong that it may hopefully change the customary approaches of how late- and post-Byzantine Greek-speaking people perceived or imagined their ancient past and how our contemporary scholarship explores the relationship between antiquity and modern Greece.
C. Camatsos, T. A. Kaplanis and J. Pye (eds.), ‘His Words Were Nourishment and His Counsel Food’: A Festschrift for David W. Holton, Apr 1, 2014
The study in sixteenth-century Italy was a room designed by an individual for her/his private use... more The study in sixteenth-century Italy was a room designed by an individual for her/his private use—usually a room with a distinct character which reflected the character of its owner. Renaissance studies or studioli were in many respects spatial realisations of the ideas that defined the ideal uomo universale and Renaissance as a whole. They were created not only by princes and high-ranking churchmen and other officials, but also by scholars, university teachers and artists. Their representations in Western art and literature have undergone scholarly investigation, but the depictions of study-rooms in early modern Greek art and literature is virtually an unexplored subject. In this paper, I will try to shed some light on this distinctive feature of Italian Renaissance culture by focusing on the most important literary work of the Cretan Renaissance, Erotokritos by Vitsentzos Kornaros (ca. 1600). The paper aims to explore the ways in which Erotokritos’s studiolo is constructed, furnished and used in the Cretan romance, as well as its explicit engagement with and/or implicit allusion to its Italian counterpart.
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Books by Tassos A. Kaplanis
A full list of contents is displayed below:
Part A
Greeting by the Mayor of Sieia [Sponsor of the volume]............................ 5
T. A. Kaplanis, T. M. Markomichelaki, S. Stavrakopoulou, Preface........... 7
Appendix of Plates .......................................................................................... 11
K. D. Pidonia, Short Biographical Note ........................................................ 17
K. D. Pidonia, List of Published Work........................................................... 19
S. Stavrakopoulou, Laudatio of K. D. Pidonia............................................. 25
K. D. Pidonia, Response Speech/Acknowledgements............................. 33
Part B
K. D. Pidonia, Observations on Erotokritos' text........................................ 35
G. Kechagioglou, Modern philological editions of Erotokritos: evaluations, questions, hypotheses, suggestions............................................................................... 45
D. Philippides and W. F. Bakker, New trends in the analysis of Erotokritos: the contribution of the nurse in Erophili and Erotokritos ............................... 71
A. Vincent, In search of Charidemos: the Cretan in his historican and cultural context............................................................................................................... 87
D. W. Holton, The adjective in Erotokritos................................................... 111
S. Stavrakopoulou, Vocative adresses in V. Kornaros' Erotokritos......... 129
G. Poimenidis, ʻI do not wish and I am scared to tell you in lettersʼ: investigation of narrative economization in Erotokritos........................................................ 141
M. Apostolidou, The colours in Erotokritos................................................. 153
K. Yavis, Erotokritos and 'Aretusa'................................................................. 173
M. Paschalis, Fiction and history in Erotokritos ........................................ 191
G. Kallinis, The image of a lost empire or Byzantium in Erotokritos...... 205
Τ. A. Kaplanis, Visual versions of Erotokritos: a first investigation........ 217
It is a great pleasure to be able to contribute a Foreword to this book; firstly, because the edited text, Ioakeim Kyprios’ Pali, is an interesting and important work of vernacular literature that I had promised to edit in the 1960s – an edition that for various reasons was not completed – and, secondly, because the edition was finally produced, I would say in an exemplary manner, by a dear colleague and former member of the editorial team of the 14th vol. of my Dictionary of Medieval Greek Vernacular Literature (1100-1669), Dr. Tassos A. Kaplanis, who is currently an assistant professor of modern Greek literature at the University of Cyprus.
With this book Dr. Kaplanis makes available to scholarship for the first time a long poetic text on the Cretan War (1645-1669) written by a Cypriot author, the Archimandrite Ioakeim Kyprios. The text is entitled Pali [= Struggle]. Kaplanis decided to write his book in English, a decision that will definitely make it accessible to a wider international audience. His richly annotated edition of Ioakeim’s text is a significantly extended versionof his 347-page doctoral thesis Ioakeim Kyprios’ Struggle (mid-17th century): A Study of the Text with an Edition of Selected Passages which was submitted at the University of Cambridge in 2003. The complete edition of the text published here is based on the Greek manuscript 37 of the Library of the Romanian Academy in Bucharest and consists of 10,240 fifteen-syllable political verses. Thus, the book in hand provides us with the editio princeps of one of the longest surviving poems of late medieval/early modern Greek literature.
The editor has aimed at presenting a reliable and modern edition of this long poem for the scholarly public and it must confidently be stated that he has succeeded. His book is divided into three parts: ‘Part A: A study of the text’, ‘Part B: The editio princeps of Struggle’ and ‘Part C: A complete word index of the edited text’. The edition is also accompanied by an extensive glossary of over 1,000 entries, a useful index of proper names, 24 illustrations, bibliography and a general index.
Part A contains an introduction and three main chapters. In his introduction, Kaplanis presents the contributions of previous scholarship to our knowledge of Struggle (D. Russo, N. Tomadakis, E. Kriaras, Α. Vincent, M. Vlassopoulou, P. Kitromilides, G. Mavromatis). He criticizes Tomadakis’ hasty opinion that the work lacks any historical value and that its author could not have been contemporary to the events of the Cretan War. At the same time, the views expressed by Kriaras in the 1960s regarding the linguistic value of Struggle are confirmed, while the matter of the work’s literary value remains open. The editor then reviews both older and more recent scholarly contributions, as well as shortcomings concerning the main topic of the Cretan War and its history. The introductory chapter brings to light new facts about the primary sources of the text and many unknown elaborations of the theme of the Cretan War – most importantly, concerning the work of Girolamo Brusoni. In this introductory part, it is also suggested that the Cretan War should be examined in relation to various interpretative theoretical schemes which could be used in the future for the composition of a modern synthetic historical narrative of the War.
The first chapter entitled ‘The manuscript’ provides a detailed description of Greek manuscript 37 and examines, among other matters, how it ended up in the Library of the Romanian Academy. Under the title ‘Scribal characteristics’ the editor also provides in this chapter much useful information regarding linguistic features of the text. Finally, in this chapter the authorship of the text is also examined and it is convincingly argued that what we have here is an autograph manuscript which contains corrections and improvements made by the author himself.
In the chapter entitled ‘The author’ the editor reconstructs the life and work of Ioakeim Kyprios based on information found in the text itself as well as in other sources. He argues and proves that the author can be identified with the scribe of manuscript ΜΠΤ 27 (today in the National Library of Greece) as well as with the scribe of RAIK 130 (of the Library of St. Petersburg). Furthermore, the editor suggests the identification of the author of Struggle with the scribe of yet another manuscript, Patr. Jer. 173 (of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem). If he is right, all three identifications extend our knowledge of both the authorand his work. For this reason, the editor believes that in Ioakeim’s case we are not dealing with a simple-minded vernacular author but with a literate writer who also copied andread manuscripts of his time.
The third chapter entitled ‘The text and the context’ discusses the terms text, paratext and context and presents the paratextual elements of Struggle. It also usefully attempts to elucidate many obscure points concerning the relation of the text to its sources and to the historical events described in it. Finally, this chapter successfully places the text in the literary and cultural context of its time and concludes by identifying the desiderata for future research.
In Part B of the book, one finds the editorial principles that have been applied in the present edition, followed by the edition itself which is accompanied by an apparatus criticus. The editorial process benefited from the use of a contextual index of the text(which is not published here) prepared with the aid of modern technology.
The use of modern technology has also enabled the editor to prepare a complete word index of Struggle which constitutes the third part of the book (Part C). This index contains all 12,814 word-forms found in the text (excluding και for obvious reasons) and it will certainly facilitate the work of scholars interested in the text’s language.
The same purpose is also well served by the extensive glossary that accompanies the edition. This glossary consists of 1,127 entries and has been compiled with the use of the principles applied in my Dictionary of Medieval Greek Vernacular Literature, as the editor states. Kaplanis here makes full and successful use of the experience he acquired during his work at the Dictionary and this glossary not only facilitates the reader’s understandingof the text, but also enriches medieval Greek vernacular lexicography with many new entries, especially words of Turkish provenance, that appear for the first time in Ioakeim’swork.
Equally useful is the index of proper names which contains 489 entries and is particularly enlightening as regards Ottoman and Muslim prosopography. The 24 illustrations that accompany the edition elucidate matters discussed mainly in Part A, and,at the end of the book, one finds the bibliography that was used for its composition, as well as a useful general index.
Dr. Kaplanis’ book that has been presented here allows us to familiarize ourselves with an interesting text of the modern Greek past. The text and its problems are critically presented and scrupulously commented on. I think it is obvious that the editor has used the text as an opportunity to offer us a general overview of many of the problems regarding the Cretan War of 1645-1669 and its time, and, most importantly, he has accompanied this overview with plausible hypotheses and solid conclusions. I believe that his book may serve as a model for all similar scholarly enterprises in the future.
Prof. Emmanuel Kriaras
Thessaloniki, July 2011
Other Books by Tassos A. Kaplanis
Papers by Tassos A. Kaplanis
Recent criticism has discerned in Rodinos' On Heroes the formation of a 'Modern Greek identity defined by history and language but not by religion'. The paper challenges this view and suggests that Rodinos' historical treatise --best described as an 'anthropography' of Cyprus-- lays emphasis on regional and religious identities which are still quite far from a Modern Greek (national) identity and also proposes its reading in a generic (De viris illustribus) and pedagogical (Jesuit Ratio Studiorum) context which casts a quite different light on its 'peculiarities' and innovations. For a better understanding of the text and its features, On Heroes is compared with the contemporary historical narrative poem Struggle by the Greek orthodox monk Ioakeim Kyprios. The latter offers a more detailed view of (mostly religious, but also regional and ethnic) identities in 17th-c. Cyprus that may share some features with the later developed national identities in 18th-19th-c. Europe but should not be mistaken for a clearly formed national Greek identity.
In my paper, I discuss the notion of "early modern" in juxtaposition with notions like the "Middle Ages", the "Renaissance", "Baroque", etc., and I attempt to cast some light on the "asynchronicities of the contemporaneous" by borrowing terms and ideas from relevant theories on time and periodization by theorists like E. Bloch, B. Giesen and R. Koselleck (mostly, the notion of "multiple temporalities" and the distinction between “natural” and “historical” time). I examine three pairs of contemporaneous Cretan poets, Stephanos Sachlikes and Leonardos Dellaportas (14th c.), Petros Bergadis and Ioannis Pikatoros (15th c.), and Vitsentzos Kornaros and Georgios Chortatsis (16th c.). Each pair involves authors who acted at the same time in the same place, addressing to the same society and the same people, authors who were also often inspired by the same themes/subjects and developed an evident intertextual dialogue in their works. Nonetheless and despite their contemporaneity, their approaches, as reflected in these works, are so different (sometimes abysmally different) that oblige us to rethink not the dating of their works, but our own prejudices and prefabricated organization schemes. What is ultimately suggested is the need to avoid the schematization of the vacuum linear time of periodization and start to accept what existing data has been pointing to for many years: that historical time is not linear and homogenous, but rather complex and multilayered, consisting of various temporalities that each has different origins, different duration and moves at different speeds. This may underline the futility of our organizational efforts as regards the historical and literary past, but at the same time it offers a great advantage; for it can lead us to fairer evaluation of works and events alike, and may also protect us from frequent until recently prejudices and errors.
The names and the discussion are well-known, but modern and contemporary scholarship usually ignores the details: what was the actual dissemination of these names, what were their weight and components, were they all used as markers of ethnic identities in pre-modern times and by whom? This chapter presents and discusses the various appearances and perceptions of Hellenes, Graikoi and Romaioi in the pre-modern period from late Byzantium to the Greek nation-state, in both quantitative and qualitative terms. With the use of modern technology (TLG), separate indexing of primary sources, and secondary bibliography, it offers an overall picture that differs significantly from the one usually provided by the modern Greek national narrative. This difference is so striking that inevitably calls for a discussion of the ways in which generations of modern and contemporary scholars have imagined, negotiated and treated pre-modern terms of self-designation and identities, something that is attempted at the end of the chapter. The case made in the chapter regarding Hellenes, Graikoi and Romaioi is so strong that it may hopefully change the customary approaches of how late- and post-Byzantine Greek-speaking people perceived or imagined their ancient past and how our contemporary scholarship explores the relationship between antiquity and modern Greece.
A full list of contents is displayed below:
Part A
Greeting by the Mayor of Sieia [Sponsor of the volume]............................ 5
T. A. Kaplanis, T. M. Markomichelaki, S. Stavrakopoulou, Preface........... 7
Appendix of Plates .......................................................................................... 11
K. D. Pidonia, Short Biographical Note ........................................................ 17
K. D. Pidonia, List of Published Work........................................................... 19
S. Stavrakopoulou, Laudatio of K. D. Pidonia............................................. 25
K. D. Pidonia, Response Speech/Acknowledgements............................. 33
Part B
K. D. Pidonia, Observations on Erotokritos' text........................................ 35
G. Kechagioglou, Modern philological editions of Erotokritos: evaluations, questions, hypotheses, suggestions............................................................................... 45
D. Philippides and W. F. Bakker, New trends in the analysis of Erotokritos: the contribution of the nurse in Erophili and Erotokritos ............................... 71
A. Vincent, In search of Charidemos: the Cretan in his historican and cultural context............................................................................................................... 87
D. W. Holton, The adjective in Erotokritos................................................... 111
S. Stavrakopoulou, Vocative adresses in V. Kornaros' Erotokritos......... 129
G. Poimenidis, ʻI do not wish and I am scared to tell you in lettersʼ: investigation of narrative economization in Erotokritos........................................................ 141
M. Apostolidou, The colours in Erotokritos................................................. 153
K. Yavis, Erotokritos and 'Aretusa'................................................................. 173
M. Paschalis, Fiction and history in Erotokritos ........................................ 191
G. Kallinis, The image of a lost empire or Byzantium in Erotokritos...... 205
Τ. A. Kaplanis, Visual versions of Erotokritos: a first investigation........ 217
It is a great pleasure to be able to contribute a Foreword to this book; firstly, because the edited text, Ioakeim Kyprios’ Pali, is an interesting and important work of vernacular literature that I had promised to edit in the 1960s – an edition that for various reasons was not completed – and, secondly, because the edition was finally produced, I would say in an exemplary manner, by a dear colleague and former member of the editorial team of the 14th vol. of my Dictionary of Medieval Greek Vernacular Literature (1100-1669), Dr. Tassos A. Kaplanis, who is currently an assistant professor of modern Greek literature at the University of Cyprus.
With this book Dr. Kaplanis makes available to scholarship for the first time a long poetic text on the Cretan War (1645-1669) written by a Cypriot author, the Archimandrite Ioakeim Kyprios. The text is entitled Pali [= Struggle]. Kaplanis decided to write his book in English, a decision that will definitely make it accessible to a wider international audience. His richly annotated edition of Ioakeim’s text is a significantly extended versionof his 347-page doctoral thesis Ioakeim Kyprios’ Struggle (mid-17th century): A Study of the Text with an Edition of Selected Passages which was submitted at the University of Cambridge in 2003. The complete edition of the text published here is based on the Greek manuscript 37 of the Library of the Romanian Academy in Bucharest and consists of 10,240 fifteen-syllable political verses. Thus, the book in hand provides us with the editio princeps of one of the longest surviving poems of late medieval/early modern Greek literature.
The editor has aimed at presenting a reliable and modern edition of this long poem for the scholarly public and it must confidently be stated that he has succeeded. His book is divided into three parts: ‘Part A: A study of the text’, ‘Part B: The editio princeps of Struggle’ and ‘Part C: A complete word index of the edited text’. The edition is also accompanied by an extensive glossary of over 1,000 entries, a useful index of proper names, 24 illustrations, bibliography and a general index.
Part A contains an introduction and three main chapters. In his introduction, Kaplanis presents the contributions of previous scholarship to our knowledge of Struggle (D. Russo, N. Tomadakis, E. Kriaras, Α. Vincent, M. Vlassopoulou, P. Kitromilides, G. Mavromatis). He criticizes Tomadakis’ hasty opinion that the work lacks any historical value and that its author could not have been contemporary to the events of the Cretan War. At the same time, the views expressed by Kriaras in the 1960s regarding the linguistic value of Struggle are confirmed, while the matter of the work’s literary value remains open. The editor then reviews both older and more recent scholarly contributions, as well as shortcomings concerning the main topic of the Cretan War and its history. The introductory chapter brings to light new facts about the primary sources of the text and many unknown elaborations of the theme of the Cretan War – most importantly, concerning the work of Girolamo Brusoni. In this introductory part, it is also suggested that the Cretan War should be examined in relation to various interpretative theoretical schemes which could be used in the future for the composition of a modern synthetic historical narrative of the War.
The first chapter entitled ‘The manuscript’ provides a detailed description of Greek manuscript 37 and examines, among other matters, how it ended up in the Library of the Romanian Academy. Under the title ‘Scribal characteristics’ the editor also provides in this chapter much useful information regarding linguistic features of the text. Finally, in this chapter the authorship of the text is also examined and it is convincingly argued that what we have here is an autograph manuscript which contains corrections and improvements made by the author himself.
In the chapter entitled ‘The author’ the editor reconstructs the life and work of Ioakeim Kyprios based on information found in the text itself as well as in other sources. He argues and proves that the author can be identified with the scribe of manuscript ΜΠΤ 27 (today in the National Library of Greece) as well as with the scribe of RAIK 130 (of the Library of St. Petersburg). Furthermore, the editor suggests the identification of the author of Struggle with the scribe of yet another manuscript, Patr. Jer. 173 (of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem). If he is right, all three identifications extend our knowledge of both the authorand his work. For this reason, the editor believes that in Ioakeim’s case we are not dealing with a simple-minded vernacular author but with a literate writer who also copied andread manuscripts of his time.
The third chapter entitled ‘The text and the context’ discusses the terms text, paratext and context and presents the paratextual elements of Struggle. It also usefully attempts to elucidate many obscure points concerning the relation of the text to its sources and to the historical events described in it. Finally, this chapter successfully places the text in the literary and cultural context of its time and concludes by identifying the desiderata for future research.
In Part B of the book, one finds the editorial principles that have been applied in the present edition, followed by the edition itself which is accompanied by an apparatus criticus. The editorial process benefited from the use of a contextual index of the text(which is not published here) prepared with the aid of modern technology.
The use of modern technology has also enabled the editor to prepare a complete word index of Struggle which constitutes the third part of the book (Part C). This index contains all 12,814 word-forms found in the text (excluding και for obvious reasons) and it will certainly facilitate the work of scholars interested in the text’s language.
The same purpose is also well served by the extensive glossary that accompanies the edition. This glossary consists of 1,127 entries and has been compiled with the use of the principles applied in my Dictionary of Medieval Greek Vernacular Literature, as the editor states. Kaplanis here makes full and successful use of the experience he acquired during his work at the Dictionary and this glossary not only facilitates the reader’s understandingof the text, but also enriches medieval Greek vernacular lexicography with many new entries, especially words of Turkish provenance, that appear for the first time in Ioakeim’swork.
Equally useful is the index of proper names which contains 489 entries and is particularly enlightening as regards Ottoman and Muslim prosopography. The 24 illustrations that accompany the edition elucidate matters discussed mainly in Part A, and,at the end of the book, one finds the bibliography that was used for its composition, as well as a useful general index.
Dr. Kaplanis’ book that has been presented here allows us to familiarize ourselves with an interesting text of the modern Greek past. The text and its problems are critically presented and scrupulously commented on. I think it is obvious that the editor has used the text as an opportunity to offer us a general overview of many of the problems regarding the Cretan War of 1645-1669 and its time, and, most importantly, he has accompanied this overview with plausible hypotheses and solid conclusions. I believe that his book may serve as a model for all similar scholarly enterprises in the future.
Prof. Emmanuel Kriaras
Thessaloniki, July 2011
Recent criticism has discerned in Rodinos' On Heroes the formation of a 'Modern Greek identity defined by history and language but not by religion'. The paper challenges this view and suggests that Rodinos' historical treatise --best described as an 'anthropography' of Cyprus-- lays emphasis on regional and religious identities which are still quite far from a Modern Greek (national) identity and also proposes its reading in a generic (De viris illustribus) and pedagogical (Jesuit Ratio Studiorum) context which casts a quite different light on its 'peculiarities' and innovations. For a better understanding of the text and its features, On Heroes is compared with the contemporary historical narrative poem Struggle by the Greek orthodox monk Ioakeim Kyprios. The latter offers a more detailed view of (mostly religious, but also regional and ethnic) identities in 17th-c. Cyprus that may share some features with the later developed national identities in 18th-19th-c. Europe but should not be mistaken for a clearly formed national Greek identity.
In my paper, I discuss the notion of "early modern" in juxtaposition with notions like the "Middle Ages", the "Renaissance", "Baroque", etc., and I attempt to cast some light on the "asynchronicities of the contemporaneous" by borrowing terms and ideas from relevant theories on time and periodization by theorists like E. Bloch, B. Giesen and R. Koselleck (mostly, the notion of "multiple temporalities" and the distinction between “natural” and “historical” time). I examine three pairs of contemporaneous Cretan poets, Stephanos Sachlikes and Leonardos Dellaportas (14th c.), Petros Bergadis and Ioannis Pikatoros (15th c.), and Vitsentzos Kornaros and Georgios Chortatsis (16th c.). Each pair involves authors who acted at the same time in the same place, addressing to the same society and the same people, authors who were also often inspired by the same themes/subjects and developed an evident intertextual dialogue in their works. Nonetheless and despite their contemporaneity, their approaches, as reflected in these works, are so different (sometimes abysmally different) that oblige us to rethink not the dating of their works, but our own prejudices and prefabricated organization schemes. What is ultimately suggested is the need to avoid the schematization of the vacuum linear time of periodization and start to accept what existing data has been pointing to for many years: that historical time is not linear and homogenous, but rather complex and multilayered, consisting of various temporalities that each has different origins, different duration and moves at different speeds. This may underline the futility of our organizational efforts as regards the historical and literary past, but at the same time it offers a great advantage; for it can lead us to fairer evaluation of works and events alike, and may also protect us from frequent until recently prejudices and errors.
The names and the discussion are well-known, but modern and contemporary scholarship usually ignores the details: what was the actual dissemination of these names, what were their weight and components, were they all used as markers of ethnic identities in pre-modern times and by whom? This chapter presents and discusses the various appearances and perceptions of Hellenes, Graikoi and Romaioi in the pre-modern period from late Byzantium to the Greek nation-state, in both quantitative and qualitative terms. With the use of modern technology (TLG), separate indexing of primary sources, and secondary bibliography, it offers an overall picture that differs significantly from the one usually provided by the modern Greek national narrative. This difference is so striking that inevitably calls for a discussion of the ways in which generations of modern and contemporary scholars have imagined, negotiated and treated pre-modern terms of self-designation and identities, something that is attempted at the end of the chapter. The case made in the chapter regarding Hellenes, Graikoi and Romaioi is so strong that it may hopefully change the customary approaches of how late- and post-Byzantine Greek-speaking people perceived or imagined their ancient past and how our contemporary scholarship explores the relationship between antiquity and modern Greece.
Στο άρθρο υποστηρίζεται ότι ο ποιητής της διασκευής Ε έχοντας υπόψη του κάποιες συγκεκριμένες ποιητικές (ειδολογικές) συμβάσεις αποφεύγει να περιγράψει την «ερωτική συνέντευξη» των δύο ηρώων, και με αυτό τον τρόπο έρχεται πιο κοντά στην «επική» παράδοση – πράγμα που θα μπορούσε αφενός να διευκολύνει τον ειδολογικό προσδιορισμό του κειμένου, αλλά κυρίως να αποτελέσει ένα ακόμη επιχείρημα για την προτεραιότητα της διασκευής αυτής σε σχέση με όλες τις υπόλοιπες. Επιπλέον, προτείνεται μια ανάγνωση του επεισοδίου που αποδεικνύει ότι η «ερωτική συνέντευξη» δεν εγκαταλείπεται εντελώς, αλλά μεταφέρεται στη σκηνή της μονομαχίας που προηγείται: συγκεκριμένα, καταδεικνύεται ότι το λεξιλόγιο που χρησιμοποιείται στη σκηνή της μονομαχίας είναι τουλάχιστον αμφίσημο –αλλά κάποτε και ξεκάθαρα σεξουαλικό–, πράγμα που συνεπάγεται, σε επίπεδο ποιητικής και παράδοσης πλέον, μια εξαιρετικά ενδιαφέρουσα πραγμάτευση του θέματος του «ανδρόγυνου» (= της «αντρογυναίκας»/«αμαζόνας» Μαξιμούς), αλλά, κυρίως, μια ενδιαφέρουσα και σε μεγάλο βαθμό πρωτότυπη μείξη των δύο κεντρικών θεμάτων της (παγκόσμιας) λογοτεχνίας, του πολέμου και του έρωτα, σε μία μόνο σκηνή, «ερωτικής μονομαχίας».