Transforming Paramythi in Diasporic Literature: Five Greek Australian Writers
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Transforming Paramythi in Diasporic Literature: Five Greek Australian writers by Anna Dimitriou B. Arts (Honours) Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Deakin University June, 2013 Acknowledgements I am indebted to all of my supervisors who have mentored, guided, inspired, criticised and patiently directed me on this journey. I acknowledge the initial direction that I had from Dr Wenche Ommundsen, who was my first principal supervisor, while at the School of Communication and Creative Arts at Deakin University. I thank Associate Professor Frances Devlin-Glass, who accepted to be my principal supervisor after Professor Wenche Ommundsen undertook new responsibilities at the University of Wollongong. I am especially grateful that Frances remained with me even after she retired. Without her guidance and commitment, I could not have completed this thesis. I am indebted to Dr Ron Goodrich, who was an associate supervisor in the initial phase of this journey, and then became my principal supervisor. For his invaluable direction, advice, encouragement and mentoring, I am truly grateful. I acknowledge associate supervisors Dr Lynette McCredden and Associate Professor Sudesh Mishra, and thank them for their initial observations. I acknowledge the support of the Higher Degree Research team of the School of Communication and Creative Arts at Deakin University. My trips to Melbourne were i always positive ones. I am truly indebted to the staff of the off-campus services of Deakin University for their prompt and tireless service. I would also like to thank all those who have listened to me and encouraged me throughout this journey. Especial thanks go to my sister Helen Magdas, Helene Abougiannis, Effie Williams. Eight years has been a long time but my family, my husband John, my children and six grandchildren, Bill, and my aging mothers have kept this journey real. Dedicated to my mother, who taught me the Greek letters, and to the memory of my late fathers, Kosmas and Dimitris who told many paramythia. I also dedicate this work to my mentors in the Greek letters, Chrysoula Gotis-Graham and Vasili Stavropoulos, who inspired me with their enthusiasm for literature, translation and the rhythms of Byzantine Hymnology. ii Abstract This thesis investigates the different ways in which paramythi, a Greek oral traditional practice of storytelling, has been used by contemporary, diasporic Greek Australian writers Stylianos Charkianakis, Dean Kalimnios, Antigone Kefala, Fotini Epanomitis and Christos Tsiolkas in their literary texts. Paramythi is the specific framework that I have used to compare how these writers negotiate cultural identity and conflicting cultural influences. I have had to compare how my chosen diasporic writers diverge or differ from the mainland Modern Greek writers, who also drew upon elements of paramythi in their texts. I draw upon Bakhtin’s idea of ‘outsidedness’ and Homi Bhabha’s concept of cultural translation, as well as insights from feminist and cultural theorists Sneja Gunew, Smaro Kamboureli and Stuart Hall to explore how my chosen set of writers use their outsider position to negotiate their past and present. Paramythi in this thesis is not examined as an ethnographical narrative trope, but as a sub-literary strategy employed by literary writers. So, after my initial investigation into how paramythi has been creatively used and transformed in its place of origin, my main focus is to translate the diasporic writers’ uses of paramythi, and to interpret the varied ways in which its traditional role has shifted. The main aspects that I focus on chapter by chapter are: the different ways in which the writers use language; how the anti- iii traditional writers blend or distort the boundaries of genre; how the traditional poets and the anti-traditional prose writers negotiate the idea of home; and how each writer represents their emerging sense of selfhood. The varied ways that each writer is positioned in relation to their heritage indicates that paramythi represents Greekness in contestatory ways iv Table of Contents GLOSSARY viii CHAPTER ONE Introduction: How do Greek Australian writers use and transform the paramythi and why? 1 What is significant about this research? 3 Towards a methodology for studying the use of paramythi in Greek Australian texts. 12 How did I come to this research? 31 CHAPTER TWO Defining paramythi 34 Features of Greek myth 51 What is paramythi? 62 CHAPTER THREE Deployment of Paramythi by Modern Greek Writers 74 George Seferis 81 Odysseus Elytis 96 George Sarantaris 102 The non-traditionalists: Nikos Gatsos, Miltos Sachtouris and Andreas Embirikos 108 v CHAPTER FOUR Searching for One’s Voice through Paramythi 119 The language question in the Antipodes 123 Charkianakis and Kalimnios: their relationship to language and Hellenism 126 Charkianakis’ relationship with his predecessors 139 Kalimnios’ relationship with his predecessors 151 Antigone Kefala’s relationship to language 165 Concluding remarks on language use 176 CHAPTER FIVE Blending and Distorting Genre: The Anti-traditionalists Christos Tsiolkas and Fotini Epanomitis 181 What genres are these writers using? 194 Epanomitis’ feminist magical realism 202 Tsiolkas’ blending of the oral into literary form 212 Epanomitis’ and Tsiolkas’ use of the Carnivalesque 220 How Tsiolkas and Epanomitis differ in the way they bend and blend paramythi 226 Conclusion 233 vi CHAPTER SIX Home, Belonging and Not-Belonging 236 Nostalgia for the ancestral homeland 238 Women writers: shifting boundaries representing home 246 ‘Non-territorial, essentialised belonging,’ or ‘the desire for somewhere else’ 250 The anti-traditionalists: differences and points of intersection between them 260 CHAPTER SEVEN Representation of Identities Through Paramythi 276 Changing modern Greek Identity politics and Diaspora 284 The diasporic identity: the poets and Hellenistic continuity 293 The female writers: journeys towards self-consciousness 311 Tsiolkas’ anti-traditional tale 317 CHAPTER EIGHT Conclusion 324 BIBLIOGRAPHY 343 vii Glossary Akathistos Hymnos: The Akathistos hymn is the most famous Byzantine hymn to the Virgin Mary (Panagia). It expresses devotion to the Mother of God, and had become a central expression of identification in Constantinople in the sixth century, when Panagia was given the attribute of being the protector of the city. The entire service is either sung or chanted to traditional Byzantine melodies. Aphanisis: Long-term absence of someone, without an explanation of their disappearance, resulting in the presumption that she or he is dead; not being known or famous. Chronos: The time span which is realised as a consequence of events happening in one’s consciousness. Demotic: The ordinary, everyday current form of vernacular language which is used in writing by the majority of the Greek people; it is the common neo-Hellenic language which was enriched with symbolic words and is therefore the preferred form of language used by most Modern Greek poets, in antithesis to katharevousa which was the official language of the Greek State. Erotokritos: A romance written during the seventeenth century in the Cretan dialect by Vikentios Kornaros. It is made up of 10,012 fifteen-syllable rhymed verses which explore the themes of love, honour, friendship and courage. Estia: Open space inside the family home where there was fire. It was a place of warmth and often where the cooking took place; Estia was also a national newspaper published daily in Athens. It was considered as conservative and followed the purist language katharevousa, which was abandoned as the official administrative language in 1976. Estia is the only daily newspaper that continues to employ a simplified polytonic accentuation system, which was officially abandoned in 1982. Kairos: The right time, epoch; usually a long span in time. Klephtic: Songs associated with the resistance groups during the War for Greek Independence during the colonial period of Ottoman rule. These songs have a viii distinctive rhythm that is also associated with the tsambiko (a lively and war-like) folk dance. Katharevousa: An archaic, purist form of the Greek language, which was used as the ‘official’ language, as opposed to the spoken and literary demotic language, by the newly formed Modern Greek State during the nineteenth and twentieth century. Laiko: Belonging to the people and referring to the people and often associated with the lower rungs of society; based upon popular and folk traditions, which express the common sentiments of Greek rural and communal society. Mythistorima: A literary work that is written mainly in prose and rarely in meter. It is a narrative about people who experience fantastical adventures. It explores the emotions and passions of its characters and often has a complex but linear narrative plot. Moiroloi: A song sung for the dead; a song of lament. Paramythi: In the Greek context paramythi is understood by folklorists and philologists as a folk or popular narrative, mainly to please and teach children which always tells an imaginative or fantastical story filled with mythic/supernatural/irrational/magic motifs mainly from the lives of people, and animals and plants. In this study paramythi acts as a literary trope, and its meaning is closer to the definition first introduced into English Rhetoric Studies by Henry Peacham (1577) in The Garden of Eloquence where he refers to paramythia (παραμυθία in Greek) operating through the folk-tale (or its equivalent) as an expression of consolation and encouragement.1 This trope becomes the lens through which the negotiation of cultural identity will be explored. Rebetika: Urban Greek folk music associated with particular sub-cultures. Often it is a short, romantic café song with an Eastern influence and played to the accompaniment of various instruments: the violin, laouto, lyra, clarinet, accordion, mandolin, finger cymbals, tambourine, and the bouzouki. Synaxarion: Historical synaxarions are a collection of biographical narratives on the lives of saints and accounts of the events for which they are remembered. 1 Henry Peacham, The Garden of Eloquence, http.rhetoric.byu.edu/primary%20texts/Peaham.htm.