A Journal for Greek Letters Crisis, Criticism and Critique in Contemporary Greek Studies

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Vol. 16-17 B 2013 - 2014 Introduction a Journal for Greek letters Crisis, Criticism And Critique In Contemporary Greek Studies

Editors Vrasidas Karalis and Panayota Nazou

Vol. 16-17 B 2013 - 2014 a Journal for Greek letters Crisis, Criticism And Critique In Contemporary Greek Studies

Editors Vrasidas Karalis and Panayota Nazou The Modern Greek Studies Το περιοδικό φιλοξενεί άρθρα στα Αγγλικά και τα Ελληνικά Association of Australia and αναφερόμενα σε όλες τις απόψεις των Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών New Zealand (MGSAANZ) (στη γενικότητά τους). Υποψήφιοι συνεργάτες θα πρέπει να υποβάλλουν κατά προτίμηση τις μελέτες των σε δισκέτα και σε President - Anthony Dracopoulos έντυπη μορφή. Όλες οι συνεργασίες από πανεπιστημιακούς έχουν Vice President - Elizabeth Kefallinos υποβληθεί στην κριτική των εκδοτών και επιλέκτων πανεπιστημι- Treasurer - Panayota Nazou ακών συναδέλφων. Secretary - Panayiotis Diamadis

The Modern Greek Studies Association of Australia and New Published for the Modern Greek Studies Association of Zealand (MGSAANZ) was founded in 1990 as a professional Australia and New Zealand (MGSAANZ) association by those in Australia and New Zealand engaged in Modern Greek Studies. Membership is open to all interested Department of Modern Greek, University of Sydney NSW in any area of Greek studies (history, literature, culture, tradi- 2006 Australia tion, economy, gender studies, sexualities, linguistics, cinema, T (02) 9351 7252 F (02) 9351 3543 Diaspora etc.). [email protected] The Association issues a Newsletter (Ενημέρωση), holds conferences and publishes two journals annually. ISSN 1039-2831 Editorial board Copyright Vrasidas Karalis (University of Sydney) Copyright in each contribution to this journal belongs to its Maria Herodotou (La Trobe University) author. Panayota Nazou (University of Sydney) © 2014, Modern Greek Studies Association of Anthony Dracopoulos (The University of Sydney) Australia Panayotis Diamadis (University of Technology) Elizabeth Kefallinos (Maquarie University) All rights reserved. No parts of this publication may be repro- duced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form Membership and subscriptions or by any means electronic, mechanical or otherwise without (including annual subscription for 2 issues) the prior permission of the publisher. Individual: AUS $50 US $50 Editors EUR €40 Vrasidas Karalis Institutions: AUS $100 Panayota Nazou US $100 Cover Image EUR €80 Full-time students/ source: National Gallery of Athens website Pensioners AUS $30 artist: Κωνσταντίνος Παρθένης Πλαγιά US $40 , 1908 EUR €30 Design Correspondence and payments Marietta and Martin Buikema Two Minds Department of Modern Greek A18, University of Sydney, NSW 2006 Australia Printing T (+612) 9351 7252 Blink Print E-mail [email protected] Typeface Please send submissions in Times New Roman 12pt, 1.5 spac- Museo Sans, ing, single inverted commas for quotes, with endnotes rather Chaparral Pro and than footnotes. Scotch Modern The periodical welcomes papers in both English and Greek on all aspects of Modern Greek Studies (broadly defined). Prospective contributors should preferably submit their papers on disk and hard copy. All published contributions by academics are refereed (standard process of blind peer assessment). This is a DEST recognised publication. The editors would like to express their gratitude to the Estate of the late Nicholas Anthony Aroney for its generous assistance

Dedicated to the memory of Professor Manuel James Aroney AM, OBE 31st August 1932 - 15th February, 2011 Contents / Part B

Part A - Addressing the Lemnos Heritage of Gallipoli and its forgotten foundations Cinema / p.105 John N. Yiannakis Theo Angelopoulos and the Cinema of Contemplation / p.11 Investigating the Death of a Legend / p.127 Andrew Horton Martyn Brown

‘Whose Is This Song?’ The invasion of Greece in 1941 and the Nazi Nationalism and Identity through the lens hordes that never were.... / p.147 of Adela Peeva / p.21 Craig Stockings and Eleni Elefterias-Kostakidis Eleanor Hancock

From the archives of Oblivion: the first female Greek director Maria Plyta Re-imagining nationhood during the Second (1915-2006) / p.45 World War / p.165 Vrasidas Karalis Anna Efstathiadou

Money, Sovereignty and the modern Greek History state / p.185 Peter Prineas ‘A brief and personal account’: the evidence of Charles Dobson on the destruction of the city of Smyrna in Migration September 1922 / p.69 Joanna Hyslop The first Greek-Australian Review: re-organisation in the Greek-Australian Κυθήριοι ομογενείς στην Αυστραλία communities of the post-mass migration era και στην Τασμανία. / p.201 Προσωπικές αφηγήσεις και Toula Nicolacopoulos and αναπαραστάσεις σε έναν George Vassilacopoulos παγκοσμιοποιημένο κόσμο (20ός-21ος αι.) Tales of glory boxes, suitcases and dreams: An Kytherian Emigrants in Australia and investigation of cultural and social changes in Tasmania: personal narratives and the dowry practices of Greek and Italian post- representations in a globalized world war migrants in South Australia / p.215 (20th-21st c.) / p.91 Maria Palaktsoglou, Daniela Cosmini-Rose, George N. Leontsinis Diana Glenn, Eric Bouvet Migration, Integration, Acculturation: Contemporary Greek Philosophy at the Greek-Australian women across Crossroads: generations / p.237 Neokantianism – Existentialism – Elizabeth Kefallinos Phenomenology / p.345 Golfo Maggini Greek, Australian, Greek-Australian or something else? Alexandros Papadiamantis: Alternative identities and communities in A Passionate Saint / p.369 John Charalambous’ Furies (2004) Nicolas Evzonas / p.253 Catalina Ribas-Segura Who is Kazantzakis’ God? / p.387 Nick N. Trakakis Greek Embroidery and the Making of Heritage / p.275 Επιθυμία, Έρωτας, Συναισθήματα: Cheryl Simpson Μια Φιλοσοφική Ανάγνωση του Κίτρινου Φακέλου του Μ. Καραγάτση Part B - Desire, Love, Emotions: A Philosophical Reading of M. Karagatsis’ Language Kitrinos Fakelos / p.419 Eleni Leontsini Commemorating the decipherment of Linear B and the discovery of Mycenaean Αυτοαντίληψη και αυτοπαρουσίαση: η Greek / p.295 Αυτοβιογραφία της Μελίνας Μερκούρη, Stavroula Nikoloudis Γεννήθηκα Ελληνίδα Self-perception and Self-presentation: The acquisition of grammatical gender in Melina Mercouri’s Autobiography I Was Greek / p.307 Born Greek / p.457 P. P. Koromvokis and Panayota Nazou I. Kalaitzidis

C. P. Cavafy: Anthonism / p.485 Michael Tsianikas Culture

Hume’s Lucianic Thanatotherapy /p.327 The Body of a Political Masochist: George Couvalis Torture, Performance and Power in Elias Maglinis’ The Interrogation / p.505 Tatjana Aleksic

continues next page Contents (continued)

Η Περιπέτεια του Αντρέα Κορδοπάτη και ο Ενδιάμεσος Χώρος του Θανάση Βαλτινού The Adventure of Andreas Kordopatis and the Interstitial Space of Thenanis Valtinos / p.525 Anthony Dracopoulos

Parody and National Crisis: Thanasis Valtinos’ Three Greek One-Act Plays and its critical reception / p.545 Dimitris Paivanás

Greece in Italy, or, A Great Silence Sections X-XVII Piero Bigongiari On the Sacred Way / p.563 Eugenio Montale Translated with introduction and notes by Theodore Ell

Contributors / p.596 Introduction a Journal for Greek letters Vol. 16-17 B 2013 - 2014

Language

Commemorating the decipherment of Linear B and the discovery of Mycenaean Greek / p.295 Stavroula Nikoloudis

The acquisition of grammatical gender in Greek / p.307 P. P. Koromvokis and I. Kalaitzidis

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St Cecilia 2Κωνσταντίνος 9 4 Παρθένης, 1938 Language

Stavroula Nikoloudis The University of Melbourne

Commemorating the decipherment of Linear B and the discovery of Mycenaean Greek

Abstract Linear B is the writing system used by the Mycenaean Greeks during the Late Bronze Age, roughly between 1450 – 1200 BCE. Clay tablets inscribed in the Linear B script had been unearthed at the excavations of Knossos, Crete, in the early 1900s and subsequently at Pylos and Mycenae on the mainland of Greece,1 but they had remained largely unreadable for decades, until a British architect by the name of Michael Ventris, who had always had a keen interest in languages, announced on a BBC radio programme, that was aired on 1st July 1952, that he had deciphered Linear B and that it represented the earliest surviving form of the Greek language.2 This was a major breakthrough, complementing the archaeological investigations of the time by giving scholars access to the textual information recorded in the Linear B tablets about the socio-political, economic and religious facets of life in the Mycenaean world. This paper commemorates the 60th anniversary of this important achievement in two ways: first, it outlines the unique contributions of the four main pioneers involved in the decipherment (Michael Ventris, Alice E. Kober, Emmett L. Bennett, Jr. and John Chadwick); second, it focuses on a small section of Linear B tablet PY Ep 704 in order to illustrate the detailed information contained in these texts and to consider the diachronic development of the Greek language by pointing to several key similarities and differences between Mycenaean and Modern Greek.

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The decipherment revealed that the Linear B tablets were economic documents. They include landholding and taxation information, they indicate what was coming into the central administrative centres, usually called ‘palaces,’ in the form of raw materials and what was going out as finished products or as material to be worked into finished products. They include lots of inventories of items such as vessels, chariot equipment, animals, gar- ments, food and drink, as well as personnel. They were the Mycenaeans’ accounting records, used for administrative purposes. The term ‘Linear’ in the name ‘Linear B’ refers to the linear shape of the signs inscribed on to the clay tablets (not wedge-shaped like the cunei- form of Mesopotamia) and the ‘B’ distinguishes this script from the Linear A script, found on Crete, which shares some features but is distinct and remains undeciphered. The Linear B clay tablets were intended only as temporary storage devices.3 Once the information they contained was no longer required, the clay itself would be moistened and re-moulded to create new writing surfaces. The tablets were preserved by being baked accidentally in the fires that destroyed the Mycenaean administrative centres at the end of the Bronze Age. For a long time, Ventris was convinced that the language behind Lin- ear B was Etruscan, a non-Indo-European language, later spoken in Italy (768-264 BCE), possibly originating in western Anatolia.4 Sir Arthur Evans, excavator of the palace at Knossos, also believed that the writing of the tablets from Knossos on Crete was not Greek. In his view, since the material culture of the Minoans on Crete was different from that of the Greek mainland at Mycenae, the language of the Knossos tablets also had to be different. However, in 1939, when Carl Blegen discovered Linear B tablets on the Greek mainland site of Pylos, the idea that the Linear B writing system was the exclusive prerogative of the Minoans on Crete had to be abandoned.5 Michael Ventris became a qualified architect in 1948, but he never gave up his love for languages or his interest in the puzzle of Linear B. During his architectural training (1946-1948), he practised a method of architectural design that proved very useful in his approach to the decipherment. This was the concept of ‘group working,’ popular at the time, which involved a group of architects collaborating and exchanging ideas with one another, instead of following the instructions of a single, inflexible employer. Further- more, Ventris encouraged clear and thorough note-taking and said that an

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architect’s thought processes during the design process should be recorded as concisely and as accurately as possible. Everything should be transparent and open to critique by colleagues and, if necessary, should be modified ac- cordingly.6 Research on Linear B during the 1940s was difficult. This was partly due to World War II. The tablets were generally inaccessible, in storage in Athens and Crete, so their study was usually based on unclear photographs or Evans’ personal drawings of them. In Oxford, Sir John Myres was examining the unpublished Knossos tablets entrusted to him by Evans (who died in 1941). In London, Ventris could only work with the relatively few published tablets. In the USA, Alice Kober in New York similarly focused on the published texts until she started to help Myres with the Knossos tablets, while Emmett Bennett in Cincinatti and then Yale University had the unpublished Pylos material left to him by Blegen. There was very little in terms of scholarly exchange between these individuals. Eventually, in 1949, Bennett was shown the Knossos tablets in return for showing the Pylos tablets to Kober. Despite these obstacles, both Bennett and Kober carried out independent analyses that became crucial elements of Ventris’ own work on the decipherment.7 Emmett Bennett contributed to the decipherment in two major ways: he worked out the Linear B fractional system of measurement, and he produced an impressive sign list of about 89 signs which he believed (but could not yet prove) were phonetic in function.8 This involved studying the individual signs thoroughly, trying to distinguish between scribal variation and actual, distinct signs. As Chadwick later remarked: “How difficult the task is only those who have tried can tell.”9 The number of 89 phonetic signs suggested that Linear B was a syllabic script (where one sign represents a syllable), since syllabic scripts typically have more signs than alphabets. Ventris immediately incorporated Bennett’s impressive sign list into his own work. Using a statistical technique of frequency analysis of signs and sign combinations, Bennett also noted that if a particular sign occurred only with numerals and was iconic in nature, it was almost certainly an ideogram –i.e., not a phonetic sign used to write words, but a picture-like sign that represented an object or an idea. So, it seemed that Linear B included both phonetic signs and ideograms. These were invaluable insights at this time.10

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Alice Kober, a Classicist from Columbia University, who taught at Brooklyn College, was an instrumental driving force behind the decipherment with her focus on searching for patterns in the Linear B documents, which she believed could assist in determining the nature of the script and its underlying language. She demonstrated that there was evidence of inflection in Linear B (a suggestion originally made by Evans).11 She identified five particular groups of words in the published tablets from Knossos on Crete, each group containing three slightly different endings (dubbed ‘Kober’s triplets’), which suggested to her the presence of Declension. She did not know what the words meant, but their contexts in the tablets seemed to be the same and they looked to her to be nouns, possibly personal names or place-names. Using these five word groups, Kober developed a tentative phonetic pattern. The actual phonetic values of these signs were still unknown, but she established their interrelationships (e.g., by thinking about how declensions operated in known languages and by pinpointing, according to their relative position in a sign-group, or word, which syllabic signs were likely to contain the same consonant and vowel or the same consonant but a different vowel, and so on). This analytical principle, which Ventris and others called a ‘grid,’ with consonants arranged on one axis and vowels on the other, was critical in helping to organise and make sense of all the signs encountered in the inscriptions.12 At the end of 1949, Ventris sent a questionnaire that he had compiled to about twenty scholars in Europe and the US who had been working on the Aegean writing systems, asking them to exchange their views on the scripts. Based on the replies he received (not everyone responded), he typed up the “Mid-Century Report” which contained very little consensus on the nature of the Linear B script and seems to have left Ventris feeling somewhat disillusioned about the prospect of decipherment.13 However, after meeting Bennett in 1950 and learning of the impending publication of the Pylos tablets and other Knossos material, which would finally give him access to more tablets (more material to analyse and compare), Ventris was inspired to continue working on Linear B. He wrote up 20 Work Notes, almost 200 pages in total, in which he recorded his linguistic analyses, hypotheses, and experimentation, and many references to inscriptions from other ancient languages and neighbouring civilisations, all of which contributed to his success. Ventris explained later that there

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were basically three phases to the decipherment: (1) an exhaustive analysis of the signs, sign-groups (words) and contexts in the available texts to ob- tain every possible clue as to the spelling system and language structure, (2) an experimental substitution phase – in which phonetic values were tested to see if they could give possible words, and (3) a decisive check – with new material.14 So, how did Ventris decipher Linear B?15 To begin with, he employed Kober’s methodology of a grid to record the interrelationships of the (unknown) vowels and consonants in the syllables of Linear B (Work Note 1). Initially, he was also very careful not to identify Linear B signs with Cyp- riot syllabic signs (the Cypriot syllabic script was in use between 800-225 BCE to write a Greek dialect) simply on the basis of superficial resemblances (Work Note 1). He searched the texts for scribal variation, as Bennett had done (Work Note 9), and he continued Kober’s search for patterns of Inflec- tion (Work Note 11), confirming evidence of gender distinction in the texts (which helped to rule out Etruscan as the underlying language16). Gradually, he started to think more seriously about a possible connection between Lin- ear B and the Cypriot syllabic script (Work Note 15). In early 1952, Ventris updated his Grid of syllabic signs and carried out a telling experiment. He too suspected (as had Myres and Kober) that the Knossos tablets contained place-names. Tablets from neighbouring civilisations, especially ones containing lists as many of the Linear B texts seemed to do, often featured the names of the objects that were recorded, the personal names of the contributors or the recipients of those items, and town names that were either the origins or intended destinations of the items. Having now studied the mainland Pylos tablets published by Bennett (1951), Ventris noticed that Kober’s triplets (the five word groups she had isolated that had different endings) occurred only in tablets from Knossos on Crete, and not from mainland Pylos. So, he wondered whether each of those word groups from Knossos, might refer to a town in Crete. If he ad- justed his phonetic values slightly (in some instances by using values for the Linear B signs based on similar-looking signs of the Cypriot syllabic script – something he had explicitly warned against doing earlier on!), the Greek names of well-known cities in Crete emerged, including Knossos (ko-no- so) and Amnisos (a-mi-ni-so). If correct, this meant that Linear B reflected Greek. Ventris titled his final Work Note No. 20, written 1st June 1952:

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“Are the Knossos and Pylos Tablets written in Greek?” He wrote to Bennett, saying: “…I have, I think, great news for you. You must judge for yourself, but I think I’ve deciphered Linear B, and that Kno- sos and Pylos are both in Greek.” 17 As he explained on the BBC: “For a long time I, too, thought that Etruscan might afford the clue we were looking for, but during the last few weeks, I have come to the conclusion that the Knossos and Pylos tablets must, after all, be written in Greek – a difficult and archaic Greek, seeing that it is 500 years older than Homer and written in a rather abbreviated form, but Greek nevertheless.”18 After several months, Myres and Bennett accepted Ventris’ conclusion. It took several years for other scholars, while a few never accepted it. Some of the resistance may have had to do with the fact that Ventris, only 30 years of age at the time, was not a professional academic and had never attended university. He was an outsider to their field. To convince the experts, Ventris needed to explain (1) how he had arrived in a logical way at his phonetic values for the Linear B signs – but some of his steps were simply guesses that turned out to be correct, and (2) how this Mycenaean Greek was related to Classical Greek and where it belonged in the broader context of Indo-European linguistics.19 On this second point, he received the help of John Chadwick, a Clas- sical philologist from Cambridge University, who had the linguistic background required to make sense of Ventris’ results. When Ventris explained to Chadwick his concern that there was still much that he could not satis- factorily explain, such as the absence of the definite article in Mycenaean Greek, Chadwick replied: “… The definite article ought not to be present, as it is not yet fully developed in Homer... I should have been much more worried if you had found an article.”20 The fruitful collaboration between Ventris and Chadwick led to the publication of Documents in Mycenaean Greek (1956),21 still considered the ‘Bible’ of Mycenaean Studies, with an explanation of the script and an analysis of about 300 tablets. An example of the rich and detailed information that the decipherment made instantly accessible to researchers is offered by Linear B tablet PY Ep 704.22 This tablet belongs to the E-series of texts from the mainland site of Pylos recording the landholdings of the damos (this entity is discussed below) that were leased out to various groups and individuals.

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The tablet contains several entries, each with the following information listed in a fixed order: (a) the name of the landholder, (b) his or her occupational title, (c) the kind of plot he or she holds, and (d) a numerical figure that is considered to indicate the amount of seed grain needed to sow that particular parcel of land, used as a way of measuring and recording its relative size / surface area. The landholding documents of the E-series were found stored in the Archives Complex of the Palace of Pylos, suggesting that the Palace administrators expected a tax or contribution from these landholders, possibly in the form of agricultural produce based on the size of the plots or service of some kind (e.g., human labour in the industrial activities that the Palace monitored), in return for the use of the land. Lines 5-6 of tablet Ep 704 represent the longest surviving sentence in Linear B. Their transliteration and translation are as follows (note that a syllable in the transliteration represents a distinct sign in the script, so that in line 6, the Greek word toso meaning ‘so much’ is rendered in the Linear B script by two signs, to and so): .5 e-ri-ta , i-je-re-ja , e-ke , e-u-ke-to-qe , e-to-ni-jo , e-ke-e , te-o , da-mo-de-mi , pa-si , ko-to-na-o , .6 ke-ke-me-na-o , o-na-to e-ke-e , to-so pe-mo GRA 3 T 9 .5-.6 Eritha, (the) priestess, has/holds [e-ke: ekhei, 3rd singular verb] and [–qe in the Linear B script meaning ‘and’] claims to hold [e-ke-e: ekhe- hen, Infinitive] an e-to-ni-jo plot (a special kind of plot) for the deity [te-o, theoi Dative singular] but [de: particle de ‘but’] the damos says [pa-si: phasi, 3rd singular verb] that she [mi: anaphoric pronoun min] holds a (regular) o-na-to lease of communal plots, so much seed: 374 litres WHEAT. The word da-mo, damos, is certainly related to the later Classical demos, but it does not seem to have developed yet the wider, more inclusive, meanings of ‘citizen body’ or ‘people’ of later times. In the Mycenaean period, the term damos appears to refer to a local group of landowners and administrators involved in the distribution of land (cf. its Indo-European verbal root *deh2- ‘divide, distribute’).23 The terminology used in these tablets suggests that leases of land were generally thought of as benefits in the Mycenaean world (the key word o- na-to, onaton, possibly related to a verb /oninemi/ meaning ‘to profit’ is understood to denote ‘a portion (of land) enjoyed’ or a land plot given as a

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benefit, for which some kind of tax or contribution was nevertheless probably expected in return. In contrast, an e-to-ni-jo plot, hetonijon, seems to have been a special kind of landholding associated with a divinity, potentially related to the word etos ‘true’, suggesting that it was a ‘truly beneficial’ landholding in the sense, perhaps, of being tax-exempt.24 If so, the priestess is claiming that she has a tax-exempt parcel of land, while the damos is arguing, on its own behalf or on behalf of the Palace, or both (this particular point continues to be debated), that she holds a regular parcel of land and needs to pay the tax due on it. From tablet PY Ep 704 we learn that some women held positions as priestesses in the Mycenaean period and that a complex landholding system was at work. Moreover we observe the interplay between three major coex- isting bureaucratic powers: the religious sector, represented by the priestess Eritha, the damos (local land administrators) and the Palace, in whose archives the E-series was stored. Such information, made available by the decipherment, instantly enhances our picture of Mycenaean society, even if we do not learn how the dispute about the legal status of Eritha’s land was eventually settled. This tablet also contributes to our understanding of the diachronic development of the Greek language. Proto-Indo-European features preserved in Mycenaean Greek include the labiovelar phonemes: q-series to denote *kw, etc:25 for example, the Mycenaean enclitic particle kwe (rendered by the script as –qe, as in line 5 of PY Ep 704) becomes te in Classical Greek, whereas it remains –que in Latin (e.g., in the phrase Senatus Populusque Romanus ‘the Senate and the people of Rome’). It has already been noted that Mycenaean Greek lacks the definite article, which seems to have developed gradually over time (note the absence in Ep 704 of the feminine definite article before the priestess Eritha’s name and occupational title). Interestingly, Mycenaean Greek does not correspond exactly to any of the historical Greek dialects [West Greek (=Doric), Aeolic (including Boeo- tian, Thessalian and Lesbian), Attic-Ionic, Aeolic, Arcado-Cypriot]. Of these, it has most in common with Arcado-Cypriot. This is probably due to events following the breakdown of the Mycenaean palace system, when Mycenaean speakers are believed to have congregated in areas such as Arcadia and Cy- prus, retaining some elements of the Mycenaean dialect in those regions.26

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This phenomenon is reflected in PY Ep 704, where the Present Medio-Pas- sive form e-u-ke-to, eukhetoi, ‘(she) claims,’ has the Arcadian ending -toi (indicated in the script, without the final iota, as –to) instead of the Attic ending -tai (which would be rendered in the script as –ta).27 Tablet PY Ep 704 also provides a glimpse of the remarkable similarity between the core vocabulary of Mycenaean and later Greek,28 as in the case of common verbs such as ‘to have, hold’ (3rd singular ekhei) and even terms related to state organisation although, given changing political and historical contexts, it is reasonable to expect some degree of evolution in the meaning of these, as with Mycenaean damos, Classical and Modern Greek demos. Some words pertaining to family (‘father,’ ‘mother,’ ‘son,’ ‘daughter’), personal names (including ‘Achilleus,’ ‘Theodora’), clothing (‘sandals’) and food (‘cheese,’ ‘honey’), to mention just a few examples from other tablets, are identical in Mycenaean and later Greek and testify to a long and enduring linguistic legacy. The decipherment of the Linear B script was the result of group work: Emmett Bennett, with his thorough analysis of the Linear B signs, and Al- ice Kober, with her identification of patterns, laid the methodological foundations for the decipherment, while John Chadwick, with his philological training, later helped to confirm its validity. Michael Ventris saw the potential in the work of Kober and Bennett, immersed himself in their work, questioned some of it, adopted most of it and, in the end, succeeded in demonstrating that the language behind the Lin- ear B script was an early form of Greek. The decipherment allowed scholars to penetrate deeper into the Mycenaean world by revealing the language spoken by the Mycenaeans, thereby making accessible their administrative documents and the complex bureaucracy that lay behind them. It is this achievement that this paper has sought to celebrate on the 60th anniversary of the decipherment of Linear B.

Notes 1 Since then, Linear B has been found at a number of other sites. To date, Linear B tablets have been discovered at Knossos and Chania on the island of Crete, and on mainland Greece, at the sites of Pylos, Mycenae, Tiryns, Thebes, Midea, Iklaina, and Aghios Vasileios. 2 Andrew Robinson, The Man Who Deciphered Linear B. The Story of Michael Ventris (New York: Thames and Hudson, 2002), 104-106.

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3 This is evident from references in the texts to ‘last year’ or ‘this year.’ Such references would not be meaningful beyond the span of a year. John Chadwick, The Decipherment of Linear B. The Key to the Ancient Language and Culture of Crete and Mycenae (New York: Vintage Books, 1958), 128. 4 On the Etruscans originating in western Anatolia, see Herodotus, The Histories 1. 93- 94; on the enigmatic Lemnian inscription that might be written in a language related to Etruscan, see Robinson, The Man Who Deciphered Linear B, 37. At the age of eighteen, Ventris had published an article outlining his thoughts on this matter: “Introducing the Minoan Language,” American Journal of Archaeology 44 (1940): 494-520. 5 Robinson, The Man Who Deciphered Linear B, 33, 63. 6 Ibid., 48-51. 7 Ibid., 63-64. 8 Ibid., 64; Chadwick, Decipherment, 44-45. 9 Chadwick, Decipherment, 39. 10 Robinson, The Man Who Deciphered Linear B, 65-66; Chadwick, Decipherment, 44. 11 Alice Kober, “Evidence of Inflection in Linear Class B: I - Declension,” American Journal of Archaeology 50 (1946): 268-276; Robinson, The Man Who Deciphered Linear B, 68. Inflection is the change a word undergoes in form to express different grammatical categories such as Case, Number and Gender in Nouns, and Person, Number and Tense in Verbs, as occurs in Greek and Latin. 12 Robinson, The Man Who Deciphered Linear B, 69-71; Chadwick, Decipherment, 57-59. 13 Robinson, The Man Who Deciphered Linear B, 74-76. 14 Ibid., 76-79. 15 Ibid., 81-101. 16 The Etruscan language features gender distinction in its proper names but not in common nouns. Ibid., 90. 17 In Robinson, The Man Who Deciphered Linear B, 104. 18 Ibid., 105-106 19 Ibid., 107 20 Ibid., 112. 21 Michael Ventris and John Chadwick, Documents in Mycenaean Greek (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: First Edition 1956; Second Edition 1973). 22 The abbreviation ‘PY’ in the tablet’s label refers to its findspot (Pylos) and ‘Ep’ indicates its subject matter (a set of landholdings). A discussion of this tablet is contained in Ventris and Chadwick, Documents 1973, 252-254; Relevant linguistic features and interpretative difficulties are further examined in Yves Duhoux, “Mycenaean Anthology,” in A Companion to Linear B: Mycenaean Greek Texts and their World, Vol. 1, ed. Yves Duhoux and Anna Morpurgo Davies (Louvain-la-Neuve: Peeters, 2008), 300-302. 23 Michel Lejeune, “Le dāmos dans la société mycénienne,” in Mémoires de philologie mycénienne. Vol. III (Rome: Edizioni dell’Ateneo, 1972), 146; Carl Watkins, ed. The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2000), 14. 24 Duhoux, “Anthology,” 301. 25 Duhoux, “Anthology,” 293, 300. 26 John Chadwick, “Mycenaean Greek,” in A History of Ancient Greek. From the Beginnings to Late Antiquity, ed. Anastassios-Fivos Christidis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 401-402.

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27 Ventris and Chadwick, Documents 1973, 253; Duhoux, “Anthology,” 301. 28 Chadwick, “Mycenaean Greek,” 400.

References Bennett, Emmett L. “The Landholders of Pylos.” American Journal of Archaeology 60 (1956): 103–133. Chadwick, John. The Decipherment of Linear B. The Key to the Ancient Language and Culture of Crete and Mycenae. New York: Vintage Books, 1958. Chadwick, John. “ Mycenaean Greek.” In A History of Ancient Greek. From the Beginnings to Late Antiquity, edited by Anastassios-Fivos Christidis, 395-404. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Christidis, Anastassios-Fivos, ed. A History of Ancient Greek. From the Beginnings to Late Antiquity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Duhoux, Yves. “Mycenaean Anthology.” In A Companion to Linear B: Mycenaean Greek Texts and their World, Vol. 1, edited by Yves Duhoux and Anna Morpurgo Davies, 243-393. Louvain-la-Neuve: Peeters, 2008. Duhoux, Yves, and Anna Morpurgo Davies, eds. A Companion to Linear B: Mycenaean Greek Texts and their World, Vol. 1, Louvain-la-Neuve: Peeters, 2008. Kober, Alice E. “Evidence of Inflection in Linear Class B: I – Declension.” American Journal of Archaeology 50 (1946): 268-276. Lejeune, Michel. “Le dāmos dans la société mycénienne,” in Mémoires de philologie mycénienne. Vol. III, 137-154. Rome: Edizioni dell’Ateneo, 1972. Palaima, Thomas G., Elizabeth I. Pope and F. Kent Reilly, III. Unlocking the Secrets of Ancient Writing. The Parallel Lives of Michael Ventris and Linda Schele and the Decipherment of Mycenaean and Mayan Writing. Catalogue of an Exhibition. Austin: Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory, 2000. Robinson, Andrew. The Man Who Deciphered Linear B. The Story of Michael Ventris. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2002. Ventris, Michael. “Introducing the Minoan language.” American Journal of Archaeology 44 (1940): 494-520. Ventris, Michael and John Chadwick. Documents in Mycenaean Greek, Second edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973. Watkins, Carl. ed. The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots. Boston: Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2000.

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la temperanza woman holding a knife 3Κωνσταντίνος 0 6 Παρθένης, 1938 Language

P.P. Koromvokis Macquarie University I. Kalaitzidis The Nottingham University

The acquisition of grammatical gender in Greek

Abstract Greek is a language with rich gender system. Greek nouns are classi- fied into three genders (masculine, feminine and neuter) and there are three possible clues (semantic, syntactic and morphological) that speakers can use to determine the gender of a noun and the agreement of other variable elements accompanying it. In this study 120 monolingual Greek-speaking children participated. They were tested in their ability to recognize the gender of a noun upon hearing it in a particular frame and, consequently, to establish the agreement of adjectives accompanying it. The aim of this study was to determine the relevant importance of intralinguistic (morphology and syntax) and extralinguistic (semantics) cues as evidence by the ability of Greek children to use these cues. The materials that were used in this experiment were non-words and coloured drawings of imaginary beings, animals or things. The experiment was a (3X2X2) factorial three way mixed analysis of variances. The findings indicate that Greek children pay far more attention to intralinguistic information than to extralinguistic, giving support to the theoretical view claiming that grammatical gender is based on the characteristics of the language and not on a more general understanding of the natural gender.

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Introduction Studies that have been carried out on the acquisition of gender and gender agreement in different languages oscillate two theoretical positions. According to the first position the gender differentiation is established on the basis of semantic features coming from extralinguistic information (natural gender theory). Children will primarily attribute the gender of words on the basis of information given by semantic features. Therefore, the child will first recognise the linguistic distinctions as relevant to non- linguistic gender distinctions (semantic features) (Mulford, 1985) (Pinker, 1982) (Mills 1986). The natural gender theory is based on a more general position that language consists of establishing correspondences between forms and meanings (Mulford, 1983, 1985). The alternative position considers that gender is a phenomenon of the internal laws of language. When establishing the gender of the words, children do not rely on extralinguistic reality (semantics), but on information coming from the linguistic context (syntax/morphology) in which words appear (Karmiloff-Smith 1979). The child discovers grammatical gender as an organising principle by noting regularities in the intralinguistic properties of the linguistic system. The child comes to recognise, for example, that nouns with particular endings always co-occur with particular articles or pronouns. Such regularities serve as a basis for the child’s developing gender system even before the child is able to make natural gender distinctions. This strategy almost dominates the children’s gender classifications. This account has been argued by Maratsos & Chalkley (1980) and it has been supported by studies in many languages (Levy, 1980, 1983) (Perez-Pereira, 1991) (MacWhinney, 1978). On the area of gender acquisition two types of studies have been carried out, longitudinal or cross sectional and experimental (Perez-Pereira, 1991). Longitudinal studies consist on observations of children’s speech in natural situations. The strengths of those types of studies are the des- ignation of time of acquisition and the analysis of children’s errors. The main difficulty on these researches lies on the aspect of generalisation. On the other hand experimental studies consist on testing the importance of extralinguistic and intralinguistic clues on children’s gender acquisition. The weaknesses on these studies lie on their methodology. Different- ex perimental manipulations can produce different and questionable results. Levy (1988) has pointed out methodological problems in some studies.

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Research on the acquisition of Modern Greek as a native language started in the early 1970s. Children at the age of 2;6 have acquired gender identity, they are capable to identify an animate as a man or a woman, also at this age they are capable to classify themselves in one of those categories (Paraskevopoulos, 1985). Therefore they can extract information about gender from sexual dimorphism from this age (2;6) (Lopez, 1988). This ability is greater when the child acquire the knowledge that sex is a permanent condition and that does not change over time and according to the context that someone appears (Paraskevopoulos 1985). Therefore children can and do pay attention to extralinguistic gender information from very early on. In languages with complicated morphology morphological elements can be found very early on (Stephany, 1981). Especially in Greek all of the grammatical categories inflectionally expressed begin to emerge before the end of the second year (Stephany, 1997). Due to the dependence of case inflection on gender, case marking establishes gender distinctions (Theoph- anopoulou-Kontou, 1973). Also, Tucker, Lambert & Rigault (1977) have demonstrated the capability of French-speaking children to identify the gender of nouns on the basis of their morphological endings. Also it has been proved that children pay attention to the distributional patterns of the words. Greek children use systematically the correspondence between noun and article gender from the age of 2;3 (Stephany, 1997). In longitudinal studies it has been observed that Greek children make the adjective agree with its referent noun (Stephany 1997). Syntactic gender cues and, specifically, gender agreement between the definite determiner and the noun appear to be the strongest factor for gender assignment to novel nouns (Mas- tropavlou, 2006). Other studies have showed that the lexical route may be predominant since learners have built their lexicon on the basis of gender classifications of noun stems (Tsimpli, 2011). Therefore children are able to use morphological and syntactic (intralinguistic) information from very early on. However the most interesting question is the importance of these clues and especially in Greek (concerning the issue that morphology and syntax are very important in Greek). As the Indo-European language family is concerned, there are no entirely uniform semantic classificatory criteria, which would make it possible to predict the gender of more than a handful of lexical groups (Lyons 1968).

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However studies like Mulford’s (1983, 1985) provide strong support for the natural gender theory. She studied Icelandic children on the comprehension of pronouns. Mulford assumes that the availability of the cognitive notion of gender is independent of language; the prediction of the early formal learning is that differences in the time and rate at which gender is acquired should be the result of the complexity and predictability of the formal aspects of the system. Therefore children appear not to succeed in figuring out a stable formal basis for gender categorization before their non-linguistic cognitive development has led them to attend to natural gender distinctions (Mulford, 1985). However, Levy (1988) pointed out that Mulford’s study has methodological problems. There is sometimes a mismatch between formal gender and natural gender, for example in German “mouse” is feminine gender but may be male in the context of a story. Where this occurs, there is a general tendency to switch to the natural gender (Mills, 1984). It is obvious that the concept of natural gender distinctions must be acquired before the linguistic system in the cases where it directly reflects those distinctions. There is evidence that the concept of natural gender may precede the acquisition of the linguistic system but that it does not facilitate it. Also languages have different re- quirements as to the elements that must have syntactic gender agreement and which can have natural gender agreement. Mac Whinney (1978) tested gender assignment in children. He found that age affects positively children’s performance; also he claimed that Ger- man children made little use of semantic information and were mainly using formal features of the noun ending to determine syntactic gender. Also Bohme and Levelt (1979) in an experimental study about the acquisition of gender forms in German, found that the participants made extensive use of intralinguistic information and did not attend to the obvious sex of the proper names. For example suppose children are shown a new type of person or animal which is clearly masculine or feminine, but which is referred to by a conflicting grammatical determiner. They apparently produce other combinations with the noun on the basis of its grammatical gender, rather than its conceptual gender. Both studies (Mac Whinney and Bohme & Lev- elt) showed that children, even at the age of 4, tend to use intralinguistic information even when there is in conflict with semantic information (Levy, 1983 a).

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In Hebrew Levy (1983 b) showed the importance of morphological information rather than semantic information, also she has pointed out that morphological regularities in Hebrew nouns may serve as the basis for the child’s gender system even before the child is able to make natural gender distinctions. An experimental study with Czechoslovak children (Henzl, 1975) confirms the saliency of phonological endings in gender attribution. The children tend to assign gender to noun according to the morphological information and not according to semantic information. In Polish while gender in inanimate is semantically arbitrary, the sex of the referents of animate nouns fully determines their linguistic gender. Therefore Polish seems to be the most sex-biased of all Indo-European languages. However, other studies have showed that the child fails to use the necessary semantic distinction, (Levy, 1983a). Popova (1973) argued that in places where the formal marker on the noun did not correspond to the sex of referents, the children were acting predominantly on the basis of the formal properties of the noun, ignoring the natural gender of their referent. In French, Karmiloff-Smith (1979) showed the predominance of morphological information up to the age of nine. Wherever a morphological clue is available, it tends to override both natural gender clues and clues from the gender of the article. She also found that the importance of morphological information is gradually replaced by the natural gender and by syntactic information. Furthermore, the morphological information is the last to become explicit and the last to be exploited when children create words. Perez-Pereira (1991), found that Spanish children pay far more attention to intralinguistic information than to extralinguistic information in order to recognise the gender of a noun and to establish gender agreement with adjectives, even in cases where the information is conflicted. Regarding the acquisition of gender in Greek morphology represent one of the language learner’s major challenges. In spite of this, all of the Greek grammatical categories inflectionally expressed begin to emerge before the end of the second year (Stephany, 1997). Although Greek nominal inflection is by far less complex than verbal inflection, there is a considerable number of noun suffixes types to be mastered. Theophanopoulou-Kon- tou (1973) found that the adult system is not fully mastered by 6;6 years.

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The reason for this low input frequency and complicated stress shift rules. In Greek, children tend to use the definite article with at least some nouns from 2;3 years on and, a month later, there are instances of the article in all singular case forms of all genders, even in younger children (1;10 years) article gender is mostly correct, and some apparent gender errors are probably best explained by vowel harmony. Longitudinal studies showed that gender errors in articles don’t necessarily mean that the child does not know the noun’s gender because in other cases the use of noun’s gender was correct. From the age of 2;4 years the child can use the three way gender distinction of the indefinite article in the nominative. Also longitudinal studies showed that article form might serve as a kind of rescue in the absence of case while the same children don’t tend to use articles (Stephany, 1997). Theophanopoulou-Kontou (1992) found that gender inflection of the adjective occurs only at 2;4 and by the age of 2;10 the three genders of adjective are in use. Although most adjectives agree with their referents in gender this occurs systematically only after the age of 2;10. Overall these studies in Greek indicate that children pay attention to gender suffixes and syntax agreement by early on but they are not so useful in identifying the relevant importance of extralinguistic and intralinguistic clues in the acquisition of the linguistic gender system. The aim of this study is to determine the relative importance of intralinguistic (morphology and syntax) and extralinguistic clues (semantic), by the ability of Greek children to recognize the gender of a noun upon hearing it in a particular frame and to establish agreement adjectives accompanying it. This study examined the acquisition of grammatical gender in children and the effect of gender variation.

Method Design The experiment was a (3X2X2) factorial three way mixed analysis of variances, for the within groups the first factor had 3 levels (type of clue: syntactic, semantic and morphological information), the second factor had 2 levels (gender variation: masculine, feminine) and for the between groups, the factor had 2 levels (age: group of younger and group of older). Therefore each participant was examined in 6 conditions and in each

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condition there were four items. The dependent variable was the number of participant’s correct answers on the noun’s gender; the range of the scale was 0 (none correct answer) up to 4 (all correct answers). The criteria which the children used to determine the attribution of noun gender were made apparent by the gender agreement they used on the adjectives they themselves produced in order to accompany each given noun. The first and the second group received the same material.

Participants In this study 120 monolingual Greek-speaking children participated. All of them were students of schools in the Attica County. The 120 participants were divided into two groups. The first group was constituted by the young ones (first grade students), the mean age at this group was 6 years. The old ones constituted the second group (fifth grade students), the mean age at this group was 10 years. There were an equal number of boys and girls (60-60). The students in each group were selected randomly. None of the participant had any learning difficulties related to language (e.g. dyslexia). At the pilot study, which carried out, 10 children participated.

Apparatus and Materials The materials that were used in this experiment were 24 non-words and 24 pairs of identical but different coloured drawings of imaginary beings, which accompanied each noun. Therefore 24 items were produced (each item was constituted by one non-word noun and a pair of drawings). Eight of the represented beings had secondary sexual features and the rest sixteen lacked natural gender. The colours of the twenty-four pairs of drawings had a clear morphological differentiation for masculine and feminine gender. The twenty-four non-word (examples of the invented nouns are presented in Table 3.) nouns obeyed the phonemic combinations in Greek, all had the same number of syllables and the children had not heard them before. The non-sense noun endings were either typically masculine, typically feminine, or had a suffix, which gave no indication of gender. For the syntactic information (provided in eight items) indefinite articles were used instead of definite articles because children are more capable to do finer gender distinctions with indefinite articles (Teophanopoulou-Kontou,

3 1 3 colours of the twenty-four pairs of drawings had a clear morphological differentiation colours of the twenty-four pairs of drawings had a clear morphological differentiation for masculine and feminine gender. The twenty-four non-word (examples of the for masculine and feminine gender. The twenty-four non-word (examples of the invented nouns are presented in Table 3.) nouns obeyed the phonemic combinations invented nouns are presented in Table 3.) nouns obeyed the phonemic combinations in Greek, all had the same number of syllables and the children had not heard them in Greek, all had the same number of syllables and the children had not heard them before. The non-sense noun endings were either typically masculine, typically before. The non-sense noun endings were either typically masculine, typically feminine, or had a suffix, which gave no indication of gender. For the syntactic feminine, or had a suffix, which gave no indication of gender. For the syntactic information (provided in eight items) indefinite articles were used instead of definite information (provided in eight items) indefinite articles were used instead of definite articles because children are more capable to do finer gender distinctions with articles because children are more capable to do finer gender distinctions with indefinite articles (Teophanopoulou-Kontou, 1973). From the total number of the indefiniteLanguage articles (Teophanopoulou-Kontou, 1973). From the total number of the twenty-four items, eight of them had an indefinite article typically masculine (four of twenty-four items, eight of them had an indefinite article typically masculine (four of them) or feminine (four of them), they had no natural gender (the imaginary being in them) or feminine (four of them), they had no natural gender (the imaginary being in each picture had no sexual dimorphism information) and no typical masculine or each1973). picture From had theno sexual total numberdimorphism of the information) twenty-four and items, no typical eight masculine of them hador feminine suffix. In eight of the items, each picture had a natural gender but there was femininean indefinite suffix. In article eight oftypically the items, masculine each picture (four had of athem) natural or genderfeminine but (fourthere wasof notthem), any syntactical they had or no morphological natural gender information. (the imaginary At the being other in eight each items, picture had not any syntactical or morphological information. At the other eight items, morphologyno sexual (suffix)dimorphism was the information) only information and forno typicalthe noun’s masculine gender discrimination. or feminine morphologysuffix. In(suffix) eight ofwas the the items, only informationeach picture for had the a noun’snatural gender gender discrimination. but there was The clues of selected items at random are described in Table 4. Thenot clues any of syntactical selected item or smorphological at random are describedinformation. in Table At the 4. other eight items,

Morphologically Morphologically Syntactically Syntactically Unmarked Morphologicallmarked y Morphologicallymarked Syntacticallymarked Syntacticallymarked Unmarkedgender markedmasculine markedfeminine markedmasculine markedfeminine gender masculinegender femininegender masculinegender femininegender genderπιφάρος genderπικόβα genderένας τενάτεν genderμία τερέλεκ κεκατέμ πιφάροςκατάλος πικόβατεράβα έναςένας τενάτενκεπάκερ μίαμία τερέλεκκοπίτερ κεκατέμκαρατέμ κατάλος τεράβα ένας κεπάκερ μία κοπίτερ καρατέμ

Table 3.Table Examples 3. Examples of invented of invented nouns nouns. Table 3. Examples of invented nouns.

Syntactical Semantically Morphological Invented noun Syntacticalinformation Semanticallyinformation Morphologicalinformation Invented noun informationO informationO informationM πιφάρος OO OO MF πιφάροςπικόβα OM OO FO έναςπικόβα τενάτεν MF OO OO έναςμία τερέλεκτενάτεν FO OM OO μίακαρατέμ τερέλεκ OO MF OO καρατέμβοπολέκ O F O βοπολέκ

Table 4. Gender clues presented in selected items at random (M=masculine, F=feminine and TableO=absent) 4. Gender clues presented in selected items at random (M=masculine, Table 4. Gender clues presented in selected items at random (M=masculine, F=feminine and O=absent). F=feminine and O=absent). morphology (suffix) was the only information for the noun’s gender dis-

crimination. The clues of selected items at random are described in Table 4. Procedure Procedure Procedure The procedure was inspired by Karmiloff-Smith (1979). The experimenter presented a picture giving syntactic, semantic or morphological information. The experimenter presented a picture with the following instruction pattern: “τι βλέπουμε εδώ;” “What’s this?” “να ένας ταλάζος” “ here a talazos” or “ονομάζεται ταλάζος” “his name is talazos”. After that, another picture exactly the same, but in different colour, was presented, and the child was asked “να μία άλλη φωτογραφία” “here you have another picture” “τι βλέπουμε εδώ;” “What’s this?” at this stage the child

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named the imaginary being specifying also its colour (e.g. “ένας κόκκινος ταλάζος” “a red talazos”). Prior to the experiment, and in order to introduce the technique, some existing nouns with their corresponding pictures were used;

Results The analysis of the results was done on the statistical programme for social sciences (SPSS). Analysis of variances (ANOVAs) was carried out. In Table 5. the descriptive statistics are presented for all the participants performance in the six conditions: syntactic information with masculine

Table 5. Descriptive statistics for all the participants in the six conditions

Graph 1. Means of participants' performance in the six conditions

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Table 6. Descriptive statistics for the average performance of the two age groups

Graph 2. Means of performance in each age group

Table 7. Descriptive statistics for the general performance in the factor of information

Graph 3. Means of performance in the type of information

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gender (SYNT.M), syntactic information with feminine gender (SYNT.F), semantic information with masculine gender (SEM.M), semantic information with feminine gender (SEM.F), morphological information with masculine gender (MOR.M) and morphological information with feminine gender (MOR.F). Also theses means are presented in Graph 1. The descriptive statistics for the general performance of the tow age groups (young and older) are presented in Table 6 and in Graph 2. Table 7 contains the descriptive statistics for the general performance in the factor of information (syntactic, semantic and morphological) con- trolling for both age groups and for both masculine and feminine gender variation. This information is presented also in Graph 3. Because the factor of information had more than two levels, it had to be ensured that there was not violation of the assumption of sphericity (Mauch- ley test of sphericity was interpreted). Therefore assumptions of normality, homogeneity of variance and sphericity were met. The ANOVA revealed that the main effects due to type of information factor (F(1,118)=16.407 MSe=8.008 p<.001), age factor (F(1,118)=6.98, MSe=7.606, p<.05) and the interaction between the factor of type of information and the factor of gender variation (F(1,118)=11.824, MSe=5.208, p<.001) were unlikely to have arisen due to sampling error. The main effect of the age group suggesting that the older children perform better than the young (Means 3.1 and 2.6 respectively and partial Eta Squared=.2) this shows 20% of the overall variance was attributed to the influence of the age. The main effect of the type of information had a partial Eta Squared=.36, thus 36% of the overall variance was due to the information manipulation. Finally the interaction between gender variation and type of information had a partial Eta Squared=.29 thus it accounts for 29% of the overall variance. Also ANOVA showed that there was not a significant main effect of the factor of gender variation (F(1,118)=3.451). There was no significant interaction between the factors of gender and age group (F(1,118)= .059), also no significant interaction between the factors of information and age group (F(1,118)= .154). Finally there was not a significant interaction between the factors of gender, information and age group (F(1,118)= .473). Because the factor of information had more than two levels a post-hoc test had to be carried out. Pairwise comparisons were carried out between all types of information (syntactic information Vs semantic) (syntactic Vs

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morphological) and (semantic Vs morphological). There was a significant difference between the conditions of syntactic information Vs semantic (means 3.6 and 1.9 respectively, the effect size was (d)=1.99 p<.001) syntactic Vs morphological (means 3.6 and 3.1 respectively, the effect size was (d)=.75 p<.001) and semantic Vs morphological (means 1.9 and 3.1 respectively, the effect size was (d)=1.03 p<.001). Thus the children have a better performance when they deal with syntactic information than semantic or morphological and they perform better when they deal with morphological information than with semantic. The interaction between gender variation and type of information was further investigated using t-tests. The simple effects analysis showed that the effect of gender variation in morphological information was unlikely to have arisen due to sampling error (t(119)=3.096 p<.05 2-tailed). Thus the children perform better when they deal with morphological information and masculine gender (mean= 3.5) than when they deal with morphological information and feminine gender (mean=2.7). There was no significant difference between masculine semantic information and feminine semantic information (t(119)=.31). Also there was no significant difference between masculine syntactic information and feminine syntactic information (t(119)=.63).

Discussion The comparisons between studies in English (a language with very poor gender system) and German (with richer gender system) indicate that English children acquire the gender of pronouns later than German children (Mills, 1986). This seems to indicate that the more extensive and productive the system of gender marking in a language, the easier is the learning of the gender notion in language, since it furnishes more frequent and concordant information to be used by children. Therefore the nature of Greek language (language with rich gender system) must facilitate its learning. Cross-linguistic comparisons of the stage at which children master gender-marking suffixes give support to Slobin’s claim (1985). Slobin argued that the acquisition of gender marking system depends in a high degree on the nature of the language. Therefore, children who are learning systems with three genders, and with ambiguous, barely transparent and scarcely predictable morphological markings appear to learn later than

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those children learning languages with two genders, and with clearly differentiated and systematic marking of gender. Greek children although acquire and use very early the gender system, they have problems with morphological markings. This is due to different categories of noun inflections and the overlapping of cases. From the analysis of the results, it appeared that children take into account and process morphological, syntactical and semantic information but with different salient. As it was expected older children performed better than younger. The mean age at the group of young was six years old; Theophanopoulou-Kontou (1973) found that the adult system is not fully mastered by the age of 6;6, therefore it was expected and proved that the younger group will not perform as good as the older in all conditions and especially in the condition of morphological information. Similar results had all the experimental and longitudinal studies on gender acquisition in other languages and in relevant studies to Greek. Young children face problems with articles and they do not pay much attention to semantic information, as do older children (Karmiloff-Smith, 1979). It is also important that the older children use better the language and they do less mistakes, it is always possible to consider a response as a mistake not because the child do not know the gender of the noun but because he/she cannot express properly his/her knowledge. This possibility is not impossible in Greek (Theophanopoulou-Kontou, 1973). Restricted experience with language and ensuing limits of inflectional knowledge are most likely to become evident when, in an experimental situation, learners are obliged to express a given category of a given noun. However, the strain of such situation may also cause artificial linguistic behaviour. Thus, Theophanopoulou-Kontou (1973) found that, in the picture test she admin- istered, some children created inflectional forms by analogy or “overgener- alization,” whereas the same children used standard forms in free conversation with her. Regarding the relevant importance of clues, the results of the present study indicate that children pay far more attention to intralinguistic clues (morphology and syntax) than to extralinguistic (semantics). These findings seem to oppose the natural gender theory (Mulford, 1985). It is clear that Greek children not only make more use of intralinguistic elements but they face problems with extralinguistic clues. They do not use semantic

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information as a reliable factor and because of this; they make mistakes by ignoring this type of information. Therefore the outcome of this study sup- ports the theoretical position that considers that gender is a phenomenon of the linguistic system. Relevant results revealed studies in different languages such as Spanish, French, Hebrew, Russian, Czechoslovakian (Perez- Pereira, 1991), (Karmiloff-Smith, 1979), (Levy, 1983 b), (Popova 1973), (Henzl, 1975). The results of this experimental study revealed that Greek children rely more on syntactic clues than to morphological ones from the age of five years old. Perez-Pereira (1991) found that this is observed also in Spanish children, even though Spanish nouns present less variety of gender suffixes for nouns and adjectives than in Greek where there are many exceptions and types of inflections. Karmiloff-Smith (1979) found that the same predominance of semantic clues exists in French; the difference only exists on earlier ages. In French children, there is a developmental trend towards an increasing importance of the determiner while that of the word ending is decreasing. This case seems to exist also in the case of Greek children but not so clearly observational data (Stephany, 1997) suggest that gender is first marked on the noun ending in the earlier stage of inflectional development; children do not rely on the determiner for distributing gender. This study has not participants from small ages, therefore it is difficult to discuss any similarities or differences with these studies, although these longitudinal studies have methodological problems and they did not clearly and experimentally examined the relevance importance between syntactic and morphological information. This tendency of Greek children toward syntactic information could easily be explained by the nature of Greek gender system. There are exceptions in noun endings and overlapping cases, therefore morphology is not an exclusive factor for the noun gender distinction as it is the syntax, also despite the frequent exceptions to the phonological rules, there are patterns in the exceptions since they co-occur with other gender marked words. Older children know that there are exceptions, they are in some extend familiar with these and because of this they tend to use more reliable factors such as syntactic information (e.g. article). Young children especially before the age of 6;5 have not fully mastered the adult inflectional system (Theophanopoulou-Kontou, 1973), also they tend to use an avoidance strategies in cases where they face problems with noun endings

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(Mackridge, 1985), in other words they use survival techniques using reliable and well mastered elements of the language. The combination of those two findings can easily explain this tendency toward syntactic information. The quantitative analysis of this study revealed that there is significance difference between the two levels of gender variation (masculine and Feminine) only in the condition of morphological information. This indicates that natural gender theory cannot explain how children recognize the gender of a noun. It is mostly a matter of the characteristics of the language. The statistical analysis of the errors in the condition of morphological information with feminine gender revealed that when older children make a mistake concerning gender attribution, they tend to attribute masculine gender to nouns more often something that does not happen with younger children (57.7% of the wrong attributed nouns at the group of older were attributed as masculine nouns, this percentage for the young children is 18.9%). Older children tend to perceive wrongly the suffix of the feminine noun as a suffix typical for masculine. Therefore they produced adjectives, which could co-occur with the specific noun (they do not violate rules of gender agreement) but not in the specific context. On the other hand when young children make a mistake concerning gender attribution, they tend to attribute neuter gender to nouns more often than older children. The suffix “-α” of the singular nominative case of the feminine nouns is the same with the plural nominative case of the neuter. Therefore old children are aware that at any case the adjective should agree in gender and case with the noun and they do use this rule even when this conflict with syntactical rules. They follow the linguistic rules even when the sentences they produce have no meaning. On the other hand young children do not use the rule of agreement. This might happens because they do not have yet mastered the adults’ inflectional system (Theophanopoulou-Kontou, 1973).

Conclusion Generally the results of the present study indicate that Greek children rely on intralinguistic clues (syntax and morphology) than extralinguistic information (semantics) to recognize the gender of the noun and to establish gender agreement. The relevant importance of the clues is syntax > morphology > semantics (starting from the most important). This predominance of the intralinguistic information and especially the syntactic

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clues seems to exist from early on and continue latter. Features such as regularities, lack of exceptions and reliable information seems to facilitate the early and correct acquisition of the Greek gender system. Natural gender theory cannot explain the results of the present experimental study. It is clear that children pay attention to and work on the linguistic information in their effort to master language. The theoretical position that is defended by Karmiloff-Smith (1983), Perez-Pereira (1991) Levy (1988) et al. seems to give a better explanation about the acquisition of the noun gender system. The result of the present study may give a clear view of the acquisition of gender but much of the serious foundation-laying for grammatical gender must go on at younger ages, especially between two and four years old. Also it would be very useful to examine the awareness of gender problems, the children’s awareness of the differences between phonological, semantic and syntactic clues.

References Fodor, I. (1959). The origin of the grammatical gender. Lingua 8, 1-41. Henzl, V. M. (1975). Acquisition of grammatical gender in Czeck. Papers and reports on child language development 10. 188 – 198. Karmiloff-Smith, A. (1979). A functional approach to child language. A study of determiners and reference. Cambridge: C.U.P. Koyli-Kavoukli, K. (1998). My grammar. Athens. Patakis Levy, Y. (1983a). The acquisition of Hebrew plurals: the case of the missing gender category. Journal of Child Language 10 107-121. Levy, Y. (1983b). It’s frogs all the way down. Cognition 15 75-93. Levy, Y. (1988). On the early learning of formal grammatical systems: evidence from studies of the acquisition of gender and countability. Journal of Child Language 15 179-187. Lopez, F. (1988). Adquisicion y desarrollo de la identidad sexual y de genero. In Charvillat and Kail (ed). Journal of Child Language 18 591 – 608. Lyons, J. (1968). Introduction to theoretical linguistics. Cambridge: C.U.P. Lyons, J. (1968). Introduction to theoretical linguistics. Cambridge: C.U.P. Mac Whinney, B. (2008). The acquisition of morphophonology. Research in child development 43 No 1 – 2.

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Maratsos, M. P. (1980). The internal language of children’s syntax: the ontogenesis and representation of syntactic categories. In Charvillat and Kail (ed). Journal of Child Language 18 591 – 608. Mastropavlou M. (2006). The role of phonological silence and feature interpretability in the grammar of typically developing and language impaired children. In Tsimpli, I. M. (Eds). The role of suffixes in grammatical gender assignment in Modern Greek a psycholinguistic study. Journal of Greek Linguistics. 11, 27-55. Miguel Perez-Pereira (1991). the acquisition of gender: what Spanish children tell us. Journal of child language 18. 571-590. Mills, A. E. (1985). The acquisition of German. In Slobin D. I. (ed) The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition. Vol. 1. The Data. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Mills, A. E. (1986). Acquisition of the natural – gender rule in English and German. Linguistics 24, 31 – 45. Mumford, R. (1983). Semantic and formal factors in the comprehension of Icelandic pronoun gender. Papers and reports on Child Language Development 22, 83-91. Mumford, R. (1985). Comprehension of Icelandic pronoun gender: pronoun versus formal factors. Journal of Child Language 12 443 – 453. Paraskevopoulos I. N. (1985). Εξελικτική Ψυχολογία. Ελληνικά Γράμματα. Αθήνα. Popova M. I. (1973). Grammatical elements of language in the speech of pre-school children. In Slobin D. I. (ed) The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition. Vol. 1. The Data. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Porpodas, K. (1998). Introduction to the psychology of language. Patras. University of Patras. Stephany, Ursula (2001.Revised 2006). Brief Introduction to the CHILDES Project: CHAT Transcription and Clan Analysis, with Special Reference to Greek. Dept. of Linguistics, University of Cologne. Ms. Theophanopoulou-Kontou, D. (2002).Γενετική Μετασχηματιστική Σύνταξη. Το Πρότυπο της Κυβέρνησης και Αναφορικής Δέσμευσης. Kardamitsas. Athens. Tsimpli, I. M. (2011). The role of suffixes in grammatical gender assignment in Modern Greek a psycholinguistic study. Journal of Greek Linguistics. 11, 27-55. Tucker, G. R., Lambert, W. E. and Rigault, A. (1977). The French speaker’s skill with grammatical gender: an example of rule – governed behavior. The Hague: Mouton.

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virgin mary with a book 3Κωνσταντίνος 2 4 Παρθένης Culture a Journal for Greek letters Vol. 16-17 B 2013 - 2014

Culture

Hume’s Lucianic Thanatotherapy /p.327 George Couvalis

Contemporary Greek Philosophy at the Crossroads: Neokantianism – Existentialism – Phenomenology / p.345 Golfo Maggini

Alexandros Papadiamantis: A Passionate Saint / p.369 Nicolas Evzonas

Who is Kazantzakis’ God? / p.387 Nick N. Trakakis

Επιθυμία, Έρωτας, Συναισθήματα: Μια Φιλοσοφική Ανάγνωση του Κίτρινου Φακέλου του Μ. Καραγάτση Desire, Love, Emotions: A Philosophical Reading of M. Karagatsis’ Kitrinos Fakelos / p.419 Eleni Leontsini

Αυτοαντίληψη και αυτοπαρουσίαση: η Αυτοβιογραφία της Μελίνας Μερκούρη, Γεννήθηκα Ελληνίδα Self-perception and Self-presentation: Melina Mercouri’s Autobiography I Was Born Greek / p.457 Panayota Nazou

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C. P. Cavafy: Anthonism / p.485 Michael Tsianikas

The Body of a Political Masochist: Torture, Performance and Power in Elias Maglinis’ The Interrogation / p.505 Tatjana Aleksic

Parody and National Crisis: Thanasis Valtinos’Three Greek One-Act Plays and its critical reception / p.545 Dimitris Paivanás

Greece in Italy, or, A Great Silence Sections X-XVII Piero Bigongiari On the Sacred Way / p.563 Eugenio Montale Translated with introduction and notes by Theodore Ell

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George Couvalis Flinders University

Hume’s Lucianic Thanatotherapy

Abstract The eighteenth century philosopher David Hume was much influenced by Greek philosophy and literature. His favourite writer was the satirist Lu- cian. What is David Hume’s thanatotherapy (therapy of the fear of death)? Is he an Epicurean or Pyrrhonian thanatotherapist? I argue that, while he is in part an Epicurean who is sceptical about his Epicureanism, he is primarily a Lucianic thanatotherapist. A Lucianic thanatotherapist uses self and other deprecating irony as a form of therapy. He also ruthlessly satirises religious consolations. I use Hume’s deathbed allusions to Lucian’s Kataplous (floating downwards) and the Dialogues of the Dead to explain my view.

Introduction It is the year 1776. The British philosopher David Hume is on his deathbed. He is a major intellectual and is regarded as the chief enemy of Chris- tianity. Theists, atheists and agnostics alike are interested in his manner of death. Everything he does and says will be quickly reported to the salons. The dogmatic Christian critic Dr Johnson sends his biographer Boswell to Hume, hoping for a last minute recantation (Fieser 2005, 288-291). Hume composes his autobiography, My Own Life for publication (Hume 1980). Soon after his death, Hume’s friend Adam Smith writes a letter for publication. In it, he stresses Hume’s cheerfulness and reports that Hume has been reading Lucian’s Dialogues of the Dead (Fieser 2005, 296-302).

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According to Smith, Hume said that he could find no excuses he could give to Charon, the ferryman of the dead, for not going to Hades. “He had no house to finish, no daughter to provide for, he had no enemies upon which he wished to revenge himself”. Nevertheless, he diverted himself by inventing excuses to present to Charon. “ ‘Good Charon, I have been correcting my works for a new edition. Allow me a little time, that I may see how the public receives the alterations’”. After quoting Charon politely rejecting this excuse saying “ ‘when you have seen the effect of these, you will be for making other alterations. There will be no end of such excuses’”, Hume presented his final excuse, saying “[H]ave a little patience, good Charon, I have been endeavouring to open the eyes of the public. If I live a few years longer, I may have the satisfaction of seeing the downfal of some of the prevailing system of superstition”. Smith reports that Hume said Charon “would lose all temper and decency” and say “[Y]ou loitering rogue, that will not happen these many hundred years. Do you fancy I will grant you a lease for so long a term? Get into the boat this instant, you lazy loitering rogue” (Fieser 2005, 299-300). Hume’s doctor William Cullen tells of having heard a similar or the same story from one of Hume’s friends. The friend is perhaps Smith. How- ever, his version of Hume’s remarks differs from what Smith reports in two important ways. First, he says that Hume’s excuse was that he “had been very busily employed in making his countrymen wiser, and particularly in delivering them from the Christian superstition, but that he had not completed the great work”. Second, he reports that the dialogue Hume was reading and imitating was Kataplous (floating or sailing downwards), in which the tyrant Megapenthes (great suffering) gives his excuses for not going to Hades (Fieser 2005, 294). Annette Baier has shown that Hume was indeed imitating Megapen- thes in Kataplous and not something from the Dialogues of the Dead (Baier 2008, 100-110). Further, she points out that Smith, unlike Cullen, was timid about offending the religious establishment. It is likely that Hume referred explicitly to his project of delivering his countrymen from the Chris- tian superstition. Indeed, in a letter he did not intend for publication, Smith quotes Hume as saying “[G]ood Charon, I have been endeavouring to open the eyes of people; have a little patience only till I have the pleasure of seeing the churches shut up, and the clergy sent about their business...”1.

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The scene in Kataplous Hume was imitating is one in which Megap- enthes gives a series of excuses for not going into Charon’s boat which are rejected in succession by Clotho, one of the fates. Megapenthes’ excuses are that he has to finish a house, to give his wife directions about buried money, to build a town wall and set of docks for his town, and, finally, “to live only long enough to subdue the Pisidians and subject the Lydians to tribute, and to build myself a huge mausoleum and inscribe on it all the military exploits of my life”. Each excuse is more hubristic than its predecessors. Comment- ing on the final excuse, Clotho says “[W]hy, man, you are no longer asking for this one day, but for a stay of nearly twenty years!”. (Lucian 1915, 21) Despite the plausibility of Baier’s argument, Hume’s remarks do not fit the scene in Kataplous closely. Cullen reports Hume excusing himself to Mercury (Hermes, not Charon), but in Kataplous Megapenthes excuses himself to Clotho. However, in one of Lucian’s Dialogues of the Dead, Hermes is involved in a discussion with two philosophers. We will see that aspects of that dialogue help us understand Hume’s behaviour better. Hume may well have had in mind both Kataplous and the Dialogues of the Dead.

Epicurean or Pyrrhonian Thanatotherapist? The dying days of important intellectuals were imbued with significance in eighteenth century Europe, as indeed they were in antiquity. The dying person was meant to be setting an example through word and deed (Miller 2001). Much that has been published about Hume makes clear that he con- formed to his role. Various people noted his remarkable composure and his attempt to calm his friends in the face of his impending death. He clearly was trying to imply that being dead is of no great importance. It is also clear that he would have expected his behaviour and his words to be widely reported. What was he trying to say by imitating characters in Lucian? Hume was a central figure of the enlightenment. He is now known as a philosopher. However, in his time he was known principally as the author of a popular History of England. Through much of his work Hume criticised religious, and in particular, Christian claims. Recently, Paul Russell has argued that Hume was in part a modern Lucretian; a follower of the Greek philosopher Epicurus, whose views are best known via his Roman disciple Lucretius. Epicurus is well known for his criticisms of the role of pagan

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religion in human life. For Russell, Hume’s philosophy and history were intended as part of an Epicurean style program of liberation from Christian- ity (Russell 2008). Martha Nussbaum and others have shown that Epicurus thought that philosophy is a form of therapy by means of rational argument - it aims to liberate us from troubled emotional states of mind by helping us attain ataraxia, mental tranquillity (literally absence of emotional disturbance). Indeed, Epicurus declares that “Empty are the words of that philosopher who offers therapy for no human suffering. For just as there is no use for medical expertise if it does not give therapy for bodily diseases, so too there is no use in philosophy if it does not expel the suffering of the soul” (Epi- curus 1987, 155). On Epicurus’ account, an irrational fear of death blights our lives and leads us into religious belief that empowers priests to terrify us and manipulate us. Epicurean philosophy aims to liberate us from the dangerous influence of religion principally via making us see that the fear of death is irrational. Thanatotherapeia is a central element in Epicureanism (Nussbaum 1994; 13-15, 195-238). A striking feature of Epicureanism is its reversal of common judgements about materialism. It is common to believe that the religious person is in a more hopeful situation than the materialist as she believes in a life after death. By contrast, in a letter he wrote shortly before his death, the materialist Epicurus argued that “that most frightful of evils, death, is nothing to us, seeing that when we exist death is not present, and when death is present we do not exist” (Epicurus 1987, 150). That is, as we have ceased to exist when we are dead, death cannot be bad for us. Indeed, nothing can be good or bad for us when we have ceased to exist. On the Epicurean story, once we realise this we can begin the process of liberating ourselves from religion. This means that we can re-organise our lives to enjoy the present rather than organising it around a non-existent future. It is also common to believe that religious people will be better people, but Epicureans try to reverse this judgement. They think that fear of death not only allows us to be manipulated by money-grubbing and fanati- cal priests - it can also lead us to engage in a senseless and dangerous desire to pile up enormous wealth and to conquer others to leave absurd posthu- mous monuments to ourselves (Lucretius 1999; 5, 71-2). Epicureans claim that, by contrast, they pursue only very moderate wealth and power as they

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see that the pursuit of these things is pointless. We will never live to enjoy them, and what happens after our death is of no relevance to our welfare. Now Russell does not claim that Hume strictly followed Epicurean doctrine. Indeed, as he notes, Hume was attracted to ancient scepticism both as a philosophy and as a therapy (Russell 2008, 204-222). The ancient sceptics wanted to attain ataraxia, but they wanted to attain it in a different way to the more dogmatic Epicureans. Our best account of the strategy of ancient sceptics for attaining ataraxia comes from the sceptical disciple of the Greek philosopher Pyrrho, Sextus Empiricus. Sextus says that “scepticism is an ability to place in antithesis, in any manner whatever, appearances and judgements, and thus - because of the equality of force in the objects and arguments opposed - to come first of all to a suspension of judgement and then to mental tranquillity [ataraxia]” (Sextus Empiricus 1985, 32-33). So if he were trying to deal with someone’s fear of death, the Pyrrhonian might put equal arguments for and against a benign afterlife to her until she reached a suspense of judgement, thereby eliminating much of her fear. Hume is, however, critical of Pyrrhonism. In his Treatise he argues that the state of mind “that fantastic sect” want to attain is unattainable (Hume 2007, 123). In an anonymous pamphlet that defends his views, he calls Pyrrhonism “a kind of Jeux d’Esprit”. He declares that, unlike Pyrrhoni- ans, he merely wishes “to abate the pride of mere human reasoners, by showing them, that even with principles which seem the clearest … they are not able to attain a full consistence and absolute certainty” (Hume 2007, 425). The point is elaborated in his first Enquiry (Hume 2000, 119-121). Never- theless, he does seem to want his method of pursuing philosophy to be one which involves something like ataraxia. He describes himself later in the Treatise as wanting to “contribute a little to the advancement of knowledge, by giving in some particulars a different turn to the speculations of philosophers, and pointing out to them more distinctly those subjects, where alone they can expect assurance and conviction”. He notes that if this manner of doing philosophy comes more into fashion, he can avoid both spleen and indolence. He appeals to the reader who finds himself in the “same easy dis- position” to follow his future speculations. He claims that “[T]he conduct of a man, who studies philosophy in this careless manner, is more truly sceptical than that of one, who feeling an inclination to it, is yet so over-whelm’d with doubts and scruples as to totally reject it. A true sceptic will be diffi-

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dent of his philosophical doubts, as well of his philosophical conviction; and will never refuse any innocent satisfaction, which offers itself, upon account of either of them” (Hume 2007, 177)2. Baier points out that when Hume uses “careless”, he does not use it in the sense of not giving a damn, but in the eighteenth century sense of pursuing life and letters without unnecessary cares brought on by an over- wrought imagination (Baier, 1991, 1-27). So it seems as if Hume saw himself as a true sceptic who sees one of the advantages of his scepticism to be the careless pursuit of innocent intellectual satisfaction. The carelessness is not a result of considering opposing arguments, but a way of pursuing philosophy. Despite what I have said in the previous three paragraphs, Hume’s remarks to Boswell are Epicurean. Boswell reports that Hume “said flatly that the morality of every religion was bad, and, I really thought, was not jocular when he said that when he heard a man was religious, he concluded he was a rascal, though he had known some instances of very good men being religious”. In responding to Boswell, Hume also produced a variant of a Lucretian argument, often called the symmetry argument. (The symmetry argument is the argument that if being dead is bad for us, so too is the mere fact that we were not born earlier. The reason is that the loss of life is sym- metrical at both ends of a life. Being born earlier would give us a longer life just as living longer with the same birth date. However, no rational person would be filled with woe at the mere fact of not being born earlier. Hence, it is irrational to fear being dead (Lucretius 1999, 96-97; Nussbaum 1994, 203).) Boswell reports that he “asked him [Hume] if the thought of annihi- lation never gave him any uneasiness. He said not the least; no more than if he had not been, as Lucretius observes” (Fieser 2005, 288-289). Hume stressed that he has no fear of being dead and no belief in an after life. Hume’s making himself into an exemplar also reflects Epicurean practice. Epicurus is well known for having written letters to his disciples that he intended for release to a broader public about how well he was dying. Hume’s composure in the face of death and his attempts to calm his friends fit the Epicurean life style (Long and Sedley 1987, 149-151). Does what I have said above support the view that Hume is a Lucre- tian who pursues Lucretian aims in a “careless” manner? Hume’s remarks to Boswell should be put into context. Hume would have known that Boswell

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was sent by the orthodox Christian Dr Johnson who hoped for a last minute recantation by a man he saw as a dangerous atheist. Playing the role of an extreme Lucretian would have been a way of sending up Johnson. While Lucretians want to eliminate the influence of religious beliefs, we will see that Hume indicates that he thinks that it is unlikely or impossible, even if he feels it to be desirable3. In any case, Hume’s other remarks to Boswell indicate a degree of self- mockery which is not consistent with the serious role of a Lucretian. Epi- curus and his followers converted Epicureanism into a soteriological cult. Their stance was hardly “careless”, and there is nothing of sceptical doubt, let alone humour or self-mockery, in it. Indeed, without a trace of irony, Lucretius goes so far as to say that Epicurus is worthy of being a god (Lucre- tius 1999, 138)4. Boswell reports that he asked Hume “if it is not possible that there might be a future state. He answered it was possible that a piece of coal put on the fire would not burn; and he added that it was a most un- reasonable fancy that we should exist forever…” (Fieser 2005, 288). Careful readers of Hume will understand. Hume struggles through much of book 1 of his Treatise to explain how inductive inferences can be proved. He argues in detail that the fact that every piece of coal we have encountered so far burns cannot prove that a future piece of coal will burn, nor can it be shown to make it probable that a future piece of coal will burn. He also stresses in Book 1 that he cannot show an inductive inference to be even reasonable. Rather, on his account, inductive inferences themselves rely on the imagination, that is, on what he calls “a seemingly trivial property of the fancy” – while objecting to Boswell’s “fancy” he cannot show Boswell wrong by using reason alone (Hume 2007, 174). Boswell failed to understand the irony. So is Hume playing the role of an Epicurean with a whiff of careless scepticism about his Epicureanism? Is that his thanatotherapy? I will argue that this is too simple. He is, rather, a Lucianic thanatotherapist.

Hume and Lucian When talking to his close friend Smith, Hume imitates Lucian. This is not peripheral to Hume’s life and thought. Some years before, the Abbe´ Morellet, a friend of Hume, sent his French translation of one of Lucian’s dialogues to Hume seeking his opinion about the quality of the translation.

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In his letter, he described Lucian as Hume’s favourite author (Grieg 1939; 157-8, footnote 1). There are also many references to Lucian in Hume’s published work. We also know that he admired Jonathan Swift who in turn imitated parts of Lucian5. Nevertheless, Hume’s admiration of Swift was qualified by comparison to his admiration of Lucian. Understanding the ways in which it was qualified gives us a better understanding of the nature and style of Hume’s satire. In one of his essays, Hume describes Swift as the author of “the first polite prose” in English, though the praise is somewhat backhanded, as he makes clear that he thinks French and Classical authors are far superior to many of those writing in English (Hume 1987, 91). In a letter he says that he “can often laugh with” Swift and “can even approve” of his style, but sure- ly “can never admire” it. “It has no harmony, no eloquence, no ornament, not much correctness, whatever the English may imagine” (Grieg 1939, 194). Another limitation Hume sees in Swift is that Swift takes his priestly role far too seriously. In another letter, Hume says “I have frequently had it in my intentions to write a supplement to Gulliver, containing the ridi- cule of priests. Twas certainly a pity that Swift was a parson. Had he been a lawyer or physician, we had nevertheless been entertain’d at the expense of these professions. But priests are so jealous, that they cannot bear to be touch’d on that head; and for a plain reason: Because they are conscious that they are really ridiculous. That part of the Doctor’s subject is so fertile, that a much inferior genius, I am confident, might succeed in it” (Grieg 1932, 153)6. These remarks give us clues as to Hume’s satire. Its object is primarily religion and it is more classical than that of Swift. Lucian is more of a model for him than Swift. Who was Lucian? Lucian of Samosata was an influential second century satirist. He was very much a figure of the so-called second sophistic, a literary movement in the Eastern part of the Roman Empire that wrote in the Attic of the 5th and 4th centuries BCE. It peppered its work with allusions to classical Greek literature and imitated its style. While Lucian knew classical Greek literature well, it has been very plausibly argued that his central concern is contemporary life. One of his central targets is frauds and hypocrites of various kinds, particularly religious frauds and hypocrites (Jones 1986). Hume showed a particular interest in one of Lucian’s critiques of a religious fraud, his Alexander the false prophet (Alexandros i Pseudomantis),

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which is the story of how Lucian exposed the various frauds of the false pagan miracle worker Alexander of Aboneteichos (Lucian 1925). It is useful in understanding Hume’s allusive uses of Lucian to examine his use of Lucian’s Alexander in his “Of Miracles”. Hume points out that it is useful for a religious impostor to start his impostures in a remote and ignorant place. By the time the story arrives at a place with wiser people it will have been magnified and better information will be difficult to find. So it was, according to Hume, that Alexander was able to proceed gradually to Rome itself with his impostures. He now argues “[B] ut had Alexander fixed his residence at Athens, the philosophers of that renowned mart of learning had immediately spread, throughout the Roman empire, their sense of the matter; which, being supported by so great an authority, and displayed by all the force of reason and eloquence, had entirely opened the eyes of mankind. It is true; Lucian passing by chance through Paphlagonia, had an opportunity of performing this good office. But though much to be wished, it does not always happen that every Alexander meets with a Lucian, ready to expose and detect his impostures” (Hume 2000, 90-91). Some readers of these remarks in Hume’s time would have been well aware that Jesus’s miracles were reported from Judaea, a relatively ignorant and backward part of the Roman Empire. Further, as far as we know, there was no Lucian to investigate Jesus’s miracles. Hume has implied that those miracles might well have been fraudulent without mentioning Jesus7. There is, however, a slyer strategy involved in Hume’s remarks on miracles. This becomes clear when we read a part of it that was cut out of some later editions, perhaps because it made the point too obvious. The section says “[I]t may, perhaps, be objected, that I proceed rashly, and form my notions of Alexander merely from the account, given by him of Lucian, a profess’d enemy. It were indeed to be wish’d, that some of the accounts publish’d by his followers and accomplices had remained. The opposition and contrast betwixt the character and conduct of the same man, as drawn by a friend or an enemy, is as strong, even in common life, much more in these religious matters, as that betwixt any two men in the world, betwixt Alexander and St Paul for instance” (Hume 2000, 175). To Hume’s largely Protestant audience, St Paul is a central figure in Christianity. Yet all we have about St Paul is written by himself or by his followers and possible accomplices. We do not have an account by written

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by one of his enemies. Neither do we have an unbiased and rigorously re- searched account. Further, Hume has stressed that had Alexander started his impostures in Athens, he would have been exposed. Readers of Hume’s time would have known that even according to the writings of his acolyte who produced the Acts of the Apostles, Paul’s preaching in Athens before an audience which included Epicurean and Stoic philosophers was hardly received with uniform enthusiasm. Some treated him as a babbler or scoffed at him (Acts, 17.18, 17.32). Although the author of Acts describes many supposed miracles produced by Paul, even he does not describe a Pauline miracle in Athens. Paul, of course, also started his preaching in a relatively ignorant and backward part of the Roman Empire. The implication is obvious. Just as we have no account that defends Alexander from Lucian, we have no account that criticises Paul to place against the account of Paul’s Christian acolytes. Had Paul started his miracle working and preaching in Athens, he would likely have been exposed as a fraud. I should emphasise, however, Hume shows pretty clearly elsewhere that he does not want to totally undermine an established religion, even if it is as preposterous as Christianity. Consider a remark Hume makes in his History of England. In discussing the reformation, he considers the issue of whether there should be state funded established religion. He considers the argument that just as artisans improve their goods in a free market economy, religion would be improved if there were a free market in religious preaching. However, he rejects the claim, arguing that what will happen is that “[E]ach ghostly practitioner, in order to render himself more precious and sacred in the eyes of his retainers, will inspire them with the most violent abhorrence of all other sects, and continually endeavour, by some nov- elty, to excite the languid devotion of his audience. No regard will be paid to truth, morals, or decency, in the doctrines inculcated. Every tenet will be adopted that best suits the disorderly affections of the human frame. Customers will be drawn to each conventicle by new industry and address in practising on the passions and the credulity of the populace. And, in the end, the civil magistrate will find, that he has dearly paid for his pretended frugality, in saving a fixed establishment of the priests; and that, in reality the most decent and advantageous composition, which he can make with the spiritual guides, is to bribe their indolence, by assigning stated salaries to their profession, and rendering it superfluous for them to be farther ac-

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tive, than merely to prevent their flock from straying in quest of new pas- tures. And in this manner ecclesiastical establishments, though commonly they arose at first from religious views, prove in the end advantageous to the political interests of society” (Hume, 1778, 90-91)8. Baier has emphasised the extent to which Hume is willing to praise religious hypocrisy for some greater good. As she notes after a survey of various comments in Hume’s history, he thinks religious sincerity is often more dangerous than religious hypocrisy (Baier 2008, 35-99). Indeed, in his history, Hume is also hypocritical. In his discussion of Charles I of Eng- land, he is wary of explicitly stating that doctrines that make the person of the monarch sacred are false. He states “[T]hat illusion, if it be an illusion, which teaches us to pay a sacred regard to the persons of princes, is so salu- tary, that to dissipate it by the formal trial and punishment of a sovereign, will have a more pernicious effects on the people, than the example of justice can be supposed to have a beneficial effect on princes, by checking their career of tyranny” (Hume 1778a, 545). Careful readers of various works of Hume would conclude that Hume must think that the view that the persons of princes are sacred is an illusion. Indeed, in his essay “Of the Original Con- tract”, Hume quite clearly says that “Almost all governments, which exist at present, or of which there remains any record in story, have been founded originally, either on usurpation or conquest, or both ...” (Hume 1987, 471). He also explains how the illusion of legitimacy and sacredness arises through habituation and various artifices. As we can see from one of his letters, Hume does not apply this praise of religious hypocrisy merely to matters of state. James Edmonstoune wrote to Hume about a Mr Vivian. He says that Mr Vivian may be able to get a good living by taking a Bishoprick. However, Vivian now apparently thinks he ought not to take it because of his religious scepticism. Edmon- stoune describes Vivian as a “sort of disciple” of Hume who has “given him notions not very consistent with his priestly character” (Grieg 1939, 353- 4). He asks Hume to advise Vivian. Hume advises Edmonstoune to tell Mr Vivian to take the Bishoprick because “civil employments for men of letters can scarcely be found...” He continues “It is putting too great a respect on the vulgar, and on their superstitions, to pique one’s self on sincerity with regard to them ... If the thing were worthy of being treated gravely, I should tell him that the Pythian oracle, with the approbation of Xenophon, advised

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everyone to worship the gods - nomo poleos [ie according to the customs of one’s community]. I wish it was still in my power to be a hypocrite in this particular. The common duties of society usually require it; and the ecclesiastical profession only adds a little more to an innocent dissimulation, or rather simulation, without which it is impossible to pass through the world” (Grieg 1932, 439). Citing Apollo’s oracle as an authority to a potential Christian bishop is laced with irony; particularly when coupled with the conditional “[I]f the thing were worthy of being treated gravely”. Neverthe- less, the remarks Hume makes about the place of religion in society indicate that he is ironically serious. As Baier says, “Hume’s attitude to religion and established religion is a mix of realism, irony, despair, and moral satire” (Baier 2008, 96). Lucian may have influenced Hume’s attitude to religion, though there is no sign of despair in Lucian. Hume lived in a world recently devastated by religious fanatics. Lucian did not. Some scholars have been puzzled by Lu- cian’s On the Syrian Goddess (Peri tis Syrihs Theou), in which he apparently quite credulously describes miracles, while elsewhere regarding such stories as absurd. Yet Lucian elsewhere provides a key to the puzzle. In The Lover of Lies, or the Doubter (Filopseudis i Apiston), two characters both marvel at lies, particularly lies told by the superstitious. It turns out that the lies that they think are bad are those that are useless or outright fraudulent. Lies told “to deceive the enemy, or a matter of life and death” are excused (Lucian 1961a, 196). Further, poets who seek to seduce with fables are excused, as are liars who “tell such stories from patriotic motives. Besides if you abol- ished such stories throughout Greece, all the official guides would starve to death, for foreign tourists (xenoi) have no wish to hear the truth about anything, even if they’re not paying for it” (Lucian 1961a, 198). Lucian is a patriotic Syrian who is willing to fudge the truth a little for patriotic motives. In any case, Lucian gives the game away to the intelligent reader by writing On the Syrian Goddess as a parody of Herodotus written in Herodotus’s Ionic dialect9. Literary figures of Lucian’s own time wrote in Attic Greek. (Herodo- tus has been regarded by many as an arch liar (e.g. Plutarch 1965)). Lucian’s strategy in On the Syrian Goddess is similar to the much more explicit strategy that he adopts in A True Story (Alethon Dihgimaton), in which he distinguishes himself from all the other liars by telling the truth that he is lying. He there says “I myself thanks to my vanity, was eager to

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hand something down to posterity, that I might not be the only one excluded from the privileges of poetic licence, and as I had nothing true to tell, not having had any adventures of any significance, I took to lying. But my lying is far more honest than theirs, for although I tell the truth in nothing else, I shall at least be truthful in saying that I am a liar” (Lucian 1913, 253). Nev- ertheless, in a later part of A True Story, he encounters liars on the isle of the damned, including Herodotus, and he comments “[O]n seeing them, I had good hopes for the future, for I have never told a lie that I know of” (Lucian 1913, 337). He thereby damns himself by lying about his earlier admission that he is lying. He also undermines his lying claim to have encountered Herodotus et al in the isle of the damned - in this way, he undermines his claim to having demonstrated that Herodotus is a liar while still asserting it. A shallow reader of On the Syrian Goddess might take it to be an old fashioned patriotic work or perhaps a genuine arcane text. (Lucian seems to have written fake ancient philosophical texts to trap pretentious scholars (Jones 1986, 19).) A subtle reader would get the parody while indulging herself in some harmless patriotism. Lucian shows himself to be sympathetic to Epicureanism. However, there is little sign that he is an Epicurean. The philosopher he presents most sympathetically is the Cynic Menippus, who wrote centuries before Lucian (Jones 1986, 26-32). In the Double Indictment (Dis Kategouremenos) Lu- cian puts into the mouth of Dialogue, one of his two accusers, the claim that on top of his many insults to Dialogue, “he even dug up and thrust upon me Menippus, a prehistoric dog (palaion kynon), with a very loud bark, it seems, and sharp fangs, a really dreadful dog who bites unexpect- edly because he grins when he bites” (Lucian 1921, 147). In his Dialogues of the Dead, Lucian presents Menippus as eager to go to the land of the dead and to satirise villains who want to avoid punishment. Menippus also sends up various human vanities as preposterous in the light of death. Menippus does not appear in Kataplous, but Cyniscus (puppy) appears. Lucian often seems to take up a Menippean role.

Lucianic Thanatotherapy We understand Hume better by understanding his allusion to Kata- plous and his Lucianic techniques. Hume dug up a prehistoric dog in the form of Lucian, though he here uses it in part to bite himself. Let me remind

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the reader: in Kataplous, the tyrant Megapenthes tries to talk Clotho (one of the fates) out of shoving him into Charon’s boat by stressing his important plans. Clotho is outraged that he will want nearly twenty years. In Smith’s published version of the story about Hume’s death, Hume says that he will tell Charon he wants to open up the eyes of the public about the prevailing superstition. Charon annoyedly tells him “that will not happen these many hundred years” and tells him to get into the boat (Fieser 2005, 300). Hume’s tyrannical attempt to hang on to life by bringing about the downfall of the Christian religion is shown to be absurd. First, it is more impossible to complete than Megapenthes’ hubristic projects. It will, at best, take hundreds of years. Second, materialists should not be worried about dying, so it is hypocritical of Hume to hang on to life indefinitely. Third, eliminating religion is something no true sceptic would aim at. Hume plays both the role of Megapenthes and of the god who, by divine intervention, pre- vents him from causing further great suffering. He thereby is forced by literary divine intervention to see through Epicurean soteriology and take up the role of a “true sceptic” who enjoys the advantages of “careless” scepticism. We get a greater insight into Hume’s thanatotherapy by considering the behaviour of Menippus in Lucian. Menippus delights in bringing out the absurd vanities of the vain and powerful. However, Lucian not only does that through Menippus. He also brings out how meaningless the vanities of ordinary people are in Hades by depicting them in their final state. The beautiful are now mere skulls. The strong now have no muscles. And so on. There is a lovely section of Lucian’sDialogues of the Dead in which Menippus is sending up a pompous and corrupt philosopher who has to strip off his vanities. In response, the philosopher tells him to strip off his independence, plain speaking, nobility, laughter and cheerfulness - presumably because they are also meaningless in Hades. Hermes, however, tells Menippus that he should keep these things, as they are useful to us in floating down (kataploun) because they all carry well (eufora) (Lucian 1961, 112-115). Hermes’s speech has a touch of irony; for his praise of Menippus’s character traits is coupled with him calling them koufa - which can mean buoyant, but literally means empty or hollow. So it may be that there is a divine joke here at Menippus’s expense10. Note that, in any case, we are not being told that these character traits are useful when we arrive, for nothing is useful when we arrive. That, however, does not matter for we have ceased to exist.

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Afterword Is Hume right? To decide that question, we would have to engage in further discussion. We would also have to try his thanatotherapy. Will we dare to try it?

Notes 1 In his letter, Smith has Hume saying things that are very close to Kataplous, except that he says that Hume talked about three ghosts in Lucian pleading for more time. In Kataplous, only Megapenthes’s ghost pleads for more time (Mossner and Ross, 1977 203-4). 2 Potkay argues that one of Hume’s primary aims is to be a therapist in the Hellenistic tradition (Potkay 2000, 12-16). However, in a dialogue Potkay quotes, Hume puts into the mouth of “The Sceptic” an argument against the therapeutic power of philosophy. He then puts an argument for its therapeutic power in a footnote correcting “The Sceptic”. Hume was probably ambivalent on the matter (Hume 1987; 169, 177 footnote 17). 3 Perhaps in this respect Hume is closer to Epicurus than the fanatically anti-religious Lucretius. Epicurus, perhaps as a way of deflecting attacks on his supposed atheism, trod a fine line on the existence of the gods and the value of religious ceremonies (Long and Sedley 1987, 144-149). 4 For a jaundiced view of Epicureanism, see Green 1990, 618-630. For a more nuanced discussion, see Mistsis 2003, 467-471. Hume would not have known the details, but would have been aware of Lucretius’s nauseating attitude to Epicurus. 5 The library of Baron Hume, Hume’s nephew, contained a 12 volume edition of Jonathan Swift published in 1736. It had probably previously belonged to Hume (Norton and Norton 1996; 131, number 1227). 6 For a discussion of Hume’s satiric style and his relation to Swift and Lucian, see Ross 1995 and Phiddian 2011. Those authors underestimate the degree to which Hume distances his style and targets from those of Swift. 7 I am using the notion of implying here to mean what Grice, in a wonderful turn of phrase, calls “implicating” (Levinson 1983, 97-118). 8 Hume is careful to say that he excepts the true religion from his remarks, but that is something he had to say to get his work published and read. 9 The arcane style is captured in Harmon’s translation of Lucian into the style of the fake fourteenth century traveller John Mandeville (Lucian 1925a). 10 Lucian’s (and Hume’s?) point here may be similar to one Thomas Nagel makes in a discussion of the absurdity of human life. He says “[I]f sub specie aeternitatis there is no reason to believe anything matters, then that doesn’t matter either, and we can approach our absurd lives with irony instead of heroism or despair” (Nagel 1981, 161). Joel Relihan seems to be correct in arguing that Menippus’s (and Lucian’s?) own vanities are in part the target of the Dialogues of the Dead (Relihan 1987).

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References Baier, Annette. 1991. A Progress of Sentiments: Reflections on Hume’s Treatise. Cambridge (Mass): Harvard University Press. Baier, Annette. 2008. Death and Character: Further Reflections on Hume. Cambridge (Mass): Harvard University Press. Epicurus. 1987. “Letter to Menoecus.” In The Hellenistic Philosophers, vol. 1. Trans. and ed. by A. Long and D. Sedley, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 149-150. Fieser, James (ed.). 2005. Early Responses to Hume’s Life and Reputation, Second Edition: volume 1. University of Tenessee at Martin: Thoemmes. Green, Peter. 1990. Alexander to Actium: The Hellenistic Age. London: Thames and Hudson. Grieg, J. (ed.). 1932. The Letters of David Hume, vol. 1: 1727-1765. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Grieg, J. (ed.). 1939. The Letters of David Hume, vol. 2: 1766-1776. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hume, David. 1778. A History of England, vol. 3. Liberty Press online. http://lf-oll. s3.amazonaws.com/titles/790/Hume_0011-03_EBk_v6.0.pdf. Hume, David. 1778a. A History of England, vol. 5. Liberty Press online. http://oll. libertyfund.org/titles/hume-the-history-of-england-vol-5. Hume, David. 1980. “My own Life”. In Ernest Mossner, The Life of David Hume. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 611-615. Hume, David. 1987. Essays: Moral, Political, and Literary, edited by Eugene Miller. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund. Hume, David. 2000 An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Edited by Tom Beauchamp. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hume, David. 2007. A Treatise of Human Nature, vol. 1. Edited by David Fate Norton and Mary Norton. Jones, C. 1986. Culture and Society in Lucian. Cambridge (Mass): Harvard University Press. Levinson, Stephen. 1983. Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Long, A. and Sedley, D. 1987. The Hellenistic Philosophers, vol. .1 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lucian. 1913. “A True Story.” In Lucian, vol. 1. Trans. A. Harmon. London: Heinemann: 248-357. Lucian. 1915. “The Downward Journey.” In Lucian, vol. 2. Trans. A. Harmon. London, Heinemann: 1-57. Lucian. 1921. “The Double Indictment.” In Lucian, vol 3. Trans. A Harmon. London, Heinemann: 84-151.

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Lucian. 1921a. “The Pathological Liar.” In Lucian, vol 3. Trans. A Harmon. London, Heinemann: pp. 319-381. Lucian. 1925. “Alexander the False Prophet.” In Lucian, vol. 4. Trans. A. Harmon. London, Heinemann: 173-254. Lucian. 1925a. “The Goddess of Surrye.” In Lucian, vol. 4. Trans. A. Harmon. London, Heinemann: 339-411. Lucian. 1961. “Dialogues of the Dead.” In Lucian, vol. 7. Trans. M. MacLeod. London, Heinemann: 1-175 Lucian. 1961a. Satirical Sketches. Trans. Paul Turner Middlesex: Penguin. Lucretius. 1999. On the Nature of the Universe. Trans. Ronald Melville, Oxford: Oxford World’s Classics. Miller, Stephen. 2001. Three Deaths and Enlightenment Thought: Hume, Johnson, Marat. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press. Mitsis, Philip. 2003. “The Institutions of Hellenistic Philosophy.” In Andrew Erskine, A Companion to the Hellenistic World. Oxford, Blackwell: 464-476. Mossner, Ernest and Ross, Ian. 1977. The Correspondence of Adam Smith. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Nagel, Thomas. 1981. “The Absurd”. In E. Klemke, The Meaning of Life. New York: Oxford University Press. Norton, David and Norton, Mary. 1996. The David Hume Library. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Bibliographical Society. Nussbaum, Martha. 1994. The Therapy of Desire. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 195-238 Phiddian, Robert. 2011. “ ‘Strange Lengths’: Hume and Satire in the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion”. In Craig Taylor and Stephen Buckle (eds.) Hume and the Enlightenment. London: Pickering and Chatto. Plutarch. 1965. “On the Malice of Herodotus.” In Plutarch’s Moralia vol. 11. Trans. Lionel Pearson. London: Heinemann: 2-129. Potkay, Adam. 2000. The Passion for Happiness: Samuel Johnson and David Hume. Ithaca (US): Cornell University Press. Relihan, Joel. 1987. “Vainglorious Menippus in Lucian’s Dialogues of the Dead”. Illinois Classical Studies, vol. 12: 185-206. Ross, Ian. 1995. “Hume’s Language of Scepticism.” Hume Studies, 21: 237-254. Russell, Paul. 2008. The Riddle of Hume’s Treatise. New York: Oxford University Press. Sextus Empiricus. 1985. Ed. P. Halle, trans. S. Etheridge. Selections from the Major Writings on Scepticism, Man and God. Indianapolis: Hackett. * I would like to thank Robert Phiddian and various philosophers for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

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virgin mary with a book 3Κωνσταντίνος 4 4 Παρθένης Culture

Golfo Maggini University of Ioannina

Contemporary Greek Philosophy at the Crossroads: Neokantianism – Existentialism – Phenomenology

Abstract During the first two decades of the 20th century, Greece’s philosophical scene was dominated by neokantianism. In the so called “Heidelberg group” of philosophers we come across a company of people educated in post-WW 1 Germany, close to some of the most influential philosophers of their time. Immersed in neokantianism, the triad Theodorakopoulos-Tsatsos-Kanello- poulos served the spirit of this philosophical school not just within the university classroom, but also for a much wider public. Within this dominant framework, what was the role and significance of other philosophical trends, such as phenomenology, in the genesis of contemporary Greek philosophy? The main working hypothesis of our research is that the phenomenological movement in Greece was caught since its beginning in the tension between two dominant philosophical currents, neokantianism and existentialism. A more serious effort to cope with phenomenological thought on a systematic basis began in the 1980s. It was accompanied by the increasing recognition of phenomenology as an autonomous field of European philosophy within the Greek academic community. We will then try to demonstrate that this was contingent to the way in which Greek philosophy evolved in the 20th century, inside as well as outside the academia.

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I Small has been the number of publications on the evolution of 20th century Greek philosophy. This is due to many factors, including the obvious gap between the ex cathedra philosophy teachers, who determined the identity of Greek academic philosophy, and the dynamism and profusion of many “paraphilosophical” occurrences. Those latter are difficult to classify and evaluate, as it is not always easy to draw the line between neighbouring discursive practices, for instance, between philosophy and literature or poetry. Questions related to the intellectual identity of contemporary Greece have been quite often debated on the grounds of literature,1 but not much on the grounds of contemporary Greek philosophy, academic or not. The first two decades of the 20th century have been dominated by Greek university professors, such as Alexander Kotzias, Constantinos Logothetis, Margarites Evanghelidis and Nikolaos Louvaris who have been influenced by German philosophy, mainly by Hegelianism, a remainder of 19th century Greek philosophy.2 But the acknowledgment of the debt to the European tradition of thought could never counterbalance the hellenocentric discourse of intellectuals, poets and literary people, who sought to establish the continuity of hellenism through the centuries, often with a romantic and nationalistic overtone. A whole “paraphilosophical” literature came out of this idealistic discourse, which at the end encouraged the split between Greek and non-Greek culture and thought.

II In the so called “Heidelberg group” of philosophers we come across a group of people educated in post WW 1 Germany, close to some of the most distinguished 20th century philosophers.3 In a 1933 article on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of Heinrich Rickert, his University teacher, Ioannis Theodorakopoulos, one of the leading figures of the “Heidelberg group” wrote: “I found in Rickert whatever a man who came from the South needs in the North, the depth of the ego and the strength of the philosophical orientation within the world”.4 Immersed in neokantianism, the triad Theodorakopoulos-Tsatsos-Kanellopoulos tried to serve the spirit of this philosophical tendency not just within the University classroom, but also to a much wider public, mainly through the Archeion Filosofias and Theorias

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ton Epistimon [Archives of Philosophy and Theory of the Sciences], a trimestrial theoretical review (1929-1941).5 The spirit of the group was strongly idealistic, as its European orientation soon turned into an objective, Plato-inspired, idealism and retained this form till the late 50’s. In his 1929 study on I gnoseologia tou Rickert os eisagogi eis ton neokantianismon [Rickert’s Theory of Knowledge as an Introduc- tion to Neokantianism] Theodorakopoulos pointed out that: “The special culture of Plato which prevails in Germany today has its roots in neokantianism. Neokantianism reposited the problems of Platonism…Pure reason is for Plato, as for Kant, the regulator of philosophical thoughts”.6 Neverthe- less, what is of an even greater interest is the way Theodorakopoulos aligns Plato and the Neokantians with Hegel: “The accusation which was earlier addressed to neokantianism, that it puts aside the rest of the philosophers, especially Hegel, is no longer valid, because neokantianism, after the revival of Plato, turns itself to Hegel, through Natorp, Lask, and Heidegger”.7 Here we come across a clear misreading of a phenomenologist, such as Heidegger, regarded by Theodorakopoulos as a neokantian, a typical misappropriation of the early 20th century Greek reception of phenomenology. Moreover, the idealistic trend of the “Archeion-circle” was coupled with a strong reaction to determinism and historical materialism: “Kant’s philosophy was viewed by this group as a liberating one in relation to Marxism, and Plato’s as a liberating one in relation to Kantianism”.8 Still, even within the “Heidelberg group”, the gnoseological purism was not respected to the same extent by all its members. In the case of Io- annis Theodorakopoulos, the dislike of the philosophy of history and civilization was obvious and expressed in many occasions, e.g. in his essay on Oswald’s Spengler’s philosophy of history, whereas in the case of Panayotis Kanellopoulos, things were different. This was mainly due to Kanellopou- los’ systematic study of sociology along with philosophy, as well as a wider range of intellectual affinities and influences. Even if Theodorakopoulos mentioned the presence and intellectual power of Karl Jaspers in Heidel- berg, his discourse was clearly differentiated from his true philosophical lik- ings. The case was different for Kanellopoulos, who saw the split between the traditional, speculative philosophy - represented by the Neokantian philosophers with their emphasis on pure reason and the priority of science and their dislike for Nietzsche – and the philosophy of existence.9 Kanel-

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lopoulos even generalized the controversy by placing, on the one side, H. Rickert as the main representative of the ‘Professorenphilosophie” and, on the other side, K. Jaspers along with social theorists such as A. Weber and the poet F. Gundolf.10 As early as 1937, he brought Jaspers “psychologically very close” (“psychika poli konta”) to Max Weber, and also to his brother Alfred Weber.11 For Kanellopoulos, Jaspers’ critique of Kant along with his recognition of Nietzsche’s philosophical weight became the trademark of a new philosophical era, where radical philosophers and poets, such as the expression- ists of the Stefan George circle”, coexisted in a harmonious manner. Kanel- lopoulos translated for the Archeion Filosofias and Theorias ton Epistimon the introduction to Jasper’s much influential book on Nietzsche published in 1935 and accompanied his translation with a short but comprehensive comment on Jaspers’ philosophy, where he tried to show its unique place in today’s philosophy.12 Much later in his intellectual journey, Kanellopoulos repeatedly pointed out that he was the first to introduce existentialism in Greece through a series of articles in the framework of the Archeion.13 As it is the case for contemporary Greek philosophers in general, the introduction of a new philosophical current is launched by the critical discussion, or by the annotated translation, of an influential work. In the case of Panayotis Kanellopoulos, the introduction of “ypostasiakh filosofia” is worked out by the review of Karl Jaspers’ Descartes und die Philosophie (1937) in the first issue of the 1938 Archeion. This is the concluding remark of Kanellopoulos’ review: “Jaspers succeeded in opposing to Descartes’ technical construct the lively, veritable man. For that reason Jaspers’ critique is a genuine philosophical critique, a critique which edifies and gives life”.14 The extended book review is followed by the translation of a series of conferences by Karl Jaspers on “ypostasiakh filosofia”.15 Those conferences were published in the Archeion before even being published in their country of origin.16 A first translation of Jaspers’ study on Nietzsche had already taken place in the sixth volume of the Archeion.17 The translation was preceded by a text where Kanellopoulos points out that Jaspers is the most important representative of contemporary German philosophy, because: “Jaspers, by philosophizing “acts”… he does not teach philosophy, he philosophizes.”18

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III Is there a special place for phenomenology in the genesis of contemporary Greek philosophy? Our claim will be that the contemporary reception of phenomenological philosophy by the Greek community of professional philosophers and intellectuals was caught in the dominant tension between neokantianism and existentialism. Consequently, only a few Greek philosophers did follow the work of major phenomenologists, and they most certainly did not produce an original phenomenological philosophy till very recently. We will try to show that this was not accidental, but inherent to the way in which modern Greek philosophy, academic or not, evolved. In fact, the claim that phenomenology has been caught up between the dominant trends of neokantianism and existentialism goes back to the 30s. In his 1938 Necrology in the Archeion Filosofias kai Theorias ton Epistimon19, I. Theodora- kopoulos produces a rather encyclopedic, linear presentation of Husserl’s work, starting from the Logical Investigations, where is already revealed for the first time Husserl’s “fundamental philosophical manner, of which the main feature is that it is subjective and objective at the same time” and concluding with the 1929 Sorbonne lectures entitled Cartesian Meditations. Nevertheless, it is quite clear that Theodorakopoulos views Husserl’s phenomenology in the light of neokantianism. In his 1929 treatise on Rickert’s Theory of Knowledge as an Introduction to Neokantianism, he clearly acknowledges Husserl as one of the founders of neokantianism, in the sense that he, like other Neokantians, aims at continuing and at the same time at correcting the problems of Kant’s critical philosophy.20 Husserl, at different terms than Rickert, also fights against psychologism.21 He thus pursues the goal of saving the validity and truth of scientific consciousness (to kat’epistimon syneidos): “The term phenomenology with the aid of which Husserl characterizes the theory of knowledge should not mislead the reader into believing that what is meant is the simple kind of knowledge or what Rickert designates as the pro-scientific type of knowledge. Husserl’s phenomenology, with the exception of some elements which are also present in the Scho- lastic philosophy, remains a methodology of the natural and mathematical sciences”.22 Theodorakopoulos then reaches a point where he argues that Husserl’s idea of knowledge is far narrower than that of Rickert, because the latter goes against Kant’s priority of scientific knowledge over all other types of knowledge, as he thematizes even the simplest and most rudimen-

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tary types of knowledge.23 He distinguishes between the reason of science (kat’epistimin logos) and the reason of philosophy (kata filosofian logos). He then argues that: “The reason of philosophy, in other words the immediate reference of a conscious being (syneidos) to itself, according to which the categories are considered to be the principle of life and reason of the conscious being, is not a matter of investigation neither for Kant nor for Rickert. The same goes also for Cohen and for Husserl. In them Logic is restricted to the concept of a theory of reason”.24 A far more critical approach to the phenomenological enterprise is the one presented by Theodorakopoulos later on in his philosophical journey. Here Husserl is accused of setting scientific knowledge aside in order to thematize the prescientific field of consciousness. The focus of Theodora- kopoulos’ critique is the status of intuition in phenomenology: “The phenomenologists’ effort to escape the interference of human intellect in his relation to reality is undermined by the phenomenologists themselves, because whatever they claim is nothing but the outcome of the intervention of the human intellect, which they misinterpret, thus presenting it not as intellectual (dianoitikon) but as intuitive (epoptikon). Besides that, the phenomenologists try to turn all the problems of the transcendental critical philosophy into constatations of simple facts. The phenomenologists’ error stems from their exaggerated tendency to limit as more as possible the simple elements of conscious reality, in other words, to reach the primitive state of the states of consciousness. Phenomenology by accepting this denies right from the start what Kant called quaestio juris…”25 Further on in the same essay, Theodorakopoulos complies fully with Rickert’s critique of phenomenology, first, as being devoid of system and, second, as focusing on the primacy of the Schau, thus, proposing nothing more than a revival of the Platonic theory of ideas. For him, the same is true of Heidegger’s phenomenology which starts with the claim to go back to things themselves: “Someone remarked that Heidegger’s word is similar to the catchword of modern European painting, that is turning to the things themselves. Nev- ertheless, what we ought to have in mind is that philosophy’s right to life is valid only from the moment when the concept emerges, which means that it takes place from the point when the human intellect is set to motion”.26 It is thus clear that Theodorakopoulos’ evaluation of phenomenology is thoroughly biased by his debt to Rickert’s neokantianism. In this sense,

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it is also worth noting the distance kept between Husserl and Heidegger. If Husserl is close to Rickert, Heidegger is closer to Natorp due to the way the latter perceives the relation between theory of knowledge and dialectics: “As someone goes through the systematic theses of neokantianism, he notes that its weakest point is the relation between theory of knowledge and dialectics, which it never examines. The few points which we find in Lask are not of decisive importance for determining the relation between theory of knowledge and dialectics. Those who posed in a fecund manner the relation between theory of knowledge and dialectics are Natorp and Heidegger”.27 In this spirit, Theodorakopoulos reaches an arbitrary conclusion - if not a clear-cut misreading of – as to Heidegger’s Being and Time: “The dialectical relation between form and matter is formulated in a creative manner by Heidegger in his work “Sein und Zeit”, where the sensible and the suprasensible world are dialectically related to each other”.28 Nevertheless, if in Theodorakopoulos’ case the treatment of Husserl and Heidegger present similiarities, a different path was followed in the Greek reception of Husserl’s and Heidegger’s phenomenology. This was due mainly to Heidegger being viewed as an existentialist thinker, a thinker of human existence and its historical destiny.29 “Scientific” phenomenology remained at the shadow of the widespread Existentialist movement before and, even more, after WW II. A few exceptions do nothing else than confirm this: Constantinos Georgoulis’ treatment of Husserl’s transcendental phe- nomenology30 as well as Scheler’s phenomenology of values31 was no more than an introductory presentation of their work, with no claim to original- ity. Nevertheless, Georgoulis relates closely Heidegger’s existential anthropology to Husserl’s phenomenology, whereas he clearly distances himself from Theodorakopoulos’ insistence on the priority of scientific knowledge over all other types of knowledge, and the neglect of everyday, prescientific states of conscious life.32 He also brings phenomenology closer to the philosophy of life – Husserl to Bergson – on the grounds that they both elabo- rate on the rudimentary stream of consciousness, emphasizing their anti- Cartesian spirit, their hostility to mentalism and scientism, and their effort to bring philosophy back to the lived conscious experience.33 Finally, what is also present in Georgoulis’ essays is, once more, the hellenocentric trend, as well as a strong Christian spirit which pervades his readings to their very

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core. This is quite apparent in the way Georgoulis treats of Scheler’s axiol- ogy, for which the highest value is divine love. He thus brings together Max Scheler and Dionysios Areopagitis.34

IV A significantly different situation is that of phenomenology from the 60’s on, a fact mainly due to the late first attempt to translate phenomenological texts into modern Greek. Nevertheless, what remains the same is the non-systematic and random way in which those translations take place. It is not Husserl, Heidegger or Scheler who are translated, but texts by the second generation of German, French, or American phenomenologists. A case with a special interest is that of the Greek translation of Jacques Derri- da’s selection from Husserl’s work for the monthly review Epoches published by Angelos Terzakis.35 Except from Derrida’s analysis, his selection of texts rendered into modern Greek by Eleftherios Platis is the first translation of phenomenological texts into modern Greek we dispose of. It is worth mentioning here that Eleftherios Platis (The Erotic Element in Mysticism, 1964; The Aesthetic Society. An Aesthetic Essay, Athens 1976; Hermeneutical Com- ments to Plato’s Criton, Athens 1979), who offered an inspired first translation of phenomenological texts, was an intellectual clearly influenced by the unpronounced existentialism of Panayotis Kannelopoulos, while developing the affinities between existentialism and mysticism as well as orthodox faith. We could claim with no reservations that those are the first translations of original phenomenological texts into modern Greek, next to the rather schematic presentations of phenomenology till then. Once more, it is not the ex cathedra philosophy which paved the way for the reception of European philosophical thought, but the latter grew also within intellectual circles, not necessarily in academic milieus.36 It is only in the 70’s that the work of academic teachers who have studied phenomenology while culti- vating special philosophical interests, such as the philosophy of art,37 the theory of knowledge38 and the history of modern philosophy,39 among others, helped phenomenology acquire a larger institutional recognition, and, in addition to that, produced for the first time an original phenomenological discourse.40

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Still, the gap between academic teaching and research and the “para- academic” production – independent publications41 or translations of phenomenological studies and papers by eminent phenomenologists, such as W. Biemel, E. Fink and E. Husserl himself, in scientific and intellectual journals such as the review Epopteia and the periodical journal Deukalion published by the Kentron Filosofikon Ereunon [Center for Philosophical Research] – remained. From all those efforts to introduce phenomenology to the Greek intellectual community, volume 12 of the philosophical journal Deukalion dedicated to Husserl’s phenomenology is by far the most comprehensive and scientifically valid. The philosophy professor Nikos Skouteropoulos was the translator of three major phenomenological essays by E. Husserl, W. Szilasi and A. Diemer. He also provided us with a first phenomenological glossary and a bibliography of Husserl’s work as well as with a secondary phenomenological bibliography.42 Moreover, the marginal character of the Greek phenomenological studies is clearly witnessed by its hesitant flourishing outside the rather tra- ditionalist National and Capodistrian University of Athens, mainly in the Faculty of Philosophy of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, which was considered to be less conservative in its general philosophical orientation.43 Still, the non-systematic way of translating phenomenological thinkers or of investigating into phenomenology is characteristic of the way in which phenomenology has been integrated into the modern Greek philosophical community.44 Only later on, in the 80’s, Husserl himself was translated into modern Greek.

V The case of Martin Heidegger has been sensibly different from that of his predecessor right from the first steps of phenomenology within the Greek philosophical community. A first translation of parts of his Introduc- tion to Metaphysics took place in the monthly review Epoches, as was the case for Husserl. The selection of the passages and the their translation by Nelli Saveriadou was accompanied by a concise introduction to his early work with a focus, once more, on Being and Time and only in part to other works, such as his Introduction to Metaphysics. Saveriadou’s evaluation of Heidegger’s thought reflected much of the intellectual climate of those times: no men-

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tion of the place of Heideggerian phenomenology within the phenomenological movement in general was undertaken; emphasis was placed solely on the anthropological and sociological parameters of Being and Time’s existential analytics; last but not least, Heidegger’s hasty comparison to other Existentialists, such as Sartre, proved him to be of a lesser quality due to the absence of political engagement in him. Nevertheless, Saveriadou did enrich her translation with specific remarks on the rendering of phenomenological terms, yet in a non-systematic manner.45 Another fragmentary translation of Heidegger’s Ti einai I filosofia; [What is philosophy?] by Agisilaos Dokas also took place in the next volume of the review Epoches.46 But the more widespread reception of Heidegger’s phenomenology in comparison to that of other phenomenologists was due to the great interest in his philosophy on the part of Greek Existentialist philosophers and theologians who engaged themselves in studying47 and translating48 his work. It is without doubt that Yannis Tzavaras’ translation of Being and Time determined a new era in the reception of Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology.49 Nevertheless, the study of Heidegger’s phenomenology remained non systematic and always centered either on his anthropological-existential features,50 or on his link with the Christian, in particular, Or- thodox tradition.51 The hellenocentrism of Greek Heideggerian existentialists is quite apparent in their writings: “also when we examine Heidegger’s contribution, its presence honors the ancient Greek thought and language. Nowadays, Heidegger is the only big voice in the world which pronounces that the Presocratic Greek philosophers were the prophets of humanity. But Heidegger says also something even more important: the history of humanity starts with the Greek philosophers, because from then on being was revealed to the world and real history started, history as an ontological determination”.52 In this respect, it is by no means fortuitous that in his 1972 essay on the “Modern Greek Core” Malevitsis brings to an unprecedented osmosis contemporary existentialism (Sartre, Heidegger) and philosophy of culture (Spengler) with the national poetry of Kostis Palamas and the writings of Ion Dragoumis and Ioannis Sikoutris on the character of Hellenic civilization and culture. As for the case of other phenomenological thinkers – with the exception of French existentialist phenomenologists, such as Jean-Paul Sartre, who enjoyed a much wider acceptance not so much within the academic

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community, but among educated Greeks – the study and translation of their works took place in an even less systematic manner thanks to the individual work of intellectuals. Contrary to the increasing interest in Heidegger’s phenomenology,53 few of the German and French phenomenologists were translated into modern Greek in the first post-WW II decades.54 Few were also the studies dedicated to phenomenological thinkers, except from those who viewed them in the light of their existentialist reception.55 A far more serious effort of translating not just isolated conferences or papers, but systematic phenomenological works began from the 80’s on.56 They were accompanied by the increasing recognition of phenomenology as an autonomous field of contemporary European philosophy within the Greek universities and the Greek intellectual community in general.

VI Taking the abovementioned frame of inquiry into account a series of issues could be raised for future research concerning the contemporary reception of the phenomenological movement in Greece. A first issue is related to the continuity or discontinuity between modern and contemporary Greek philosophy as well as to the dependency upon its past. Several historians of ideas have seen in this the sign of the definitive continuation of the Byzantine, Plato-inspired, philosophical heritage to the present.57 A second issue worth discussing is the idealistic consideration of Hellenism by the generation of the 30’s58 and, after the tragedy of WW II, its transformation into a critique of contemporary culture and an inquiry into Greece’s contribution to the contemporary world.59 The question rises as to the way in which a scientific philosophical trend, such as phenomenology, is appropriated within such a cultural context. A third issue is the ideological background of the struggle of philosophical ideas60 and also the fate of a generation of Greek philosophers and intellectuals who matured in the West, especially in France and Germany and were faced up with the tragedy of history. This is exemplified in the decline of neokantian idealism and the bringing forth of the historical present especially through existentialism or existentialism-inclined phenomenology.61 Further on, historiographi- cal issues are of importance, as there has been a constant tension between the ex cathedra philosophy professors and the intellectuals who moved in a more independent manner, through publications in less specialized,

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paraphilosophical journals, e.g. Nea Estia, Epoches, Epopteia, Efthini, Deu- kalion, or in encyclopaedias and dictionaries of ideas destined to a wider educated public (Megali Paidagogiki Egkuklopaideia, Neoteron Egkiklopaidikon Lexikon “Iliou”). It is worth noting that one of the first occurrences of phenomenology as a philosophical movement was the analysis of the entries “Husserl” and “phenomenology” in the eighteenth volume of the Neoteron Egkyklopedikon Lexikon “Ilios”. Other issues worth raising are, on the one side, the difficult balance between the transferring of European trends of thought and original research on genuine philosophical questions and, on the other side, the distance between university professors and intellectuals who investigate into “to elliniko genos” and those who study philosophy in a systematic manner. This issue is related to the “mimetic” character of modern Greek philosophy, and what lies in its heart as its creative core. For historians of ideas, contemporary Greek philosophy has been creative only as a national philosophy.62 What has been often the case is that questions of national identity have often mixed with a less systematic philosophical paradigm, e.g. existentialism.63 It is worth noting that a philosopher who studied phenomenology and hermeneutics, like Yorgos Antonopoulos (1920-2010), was nevertheless inclined, next to their scientific work, to work on the special nature of neo-hellenic values, the latter being the heir of the idealistic philosophy of the first half of 20th century.64 Still, it is evident that, from the 70’s on, the situation of philosophy in Greece, in and outside the academia, underwent a considerable evolution in the direction of scientific research with a high status, and a prolifera- tion of societies, centers and periodical publications, which promoted the active participation in the international philosophical becoming.65 What is also true is the gradual disappearance of philosophy from Greece’s effort to articulate an autonomous discourse related to its identity and its past or to formulate a “national philosophy”.66 From the ‘80s on, the distance between university teachers and intellectuals, due mainly to the increasing need for specialization, but also the new structure of philosophical studies within Greek universities67, brought a new perspective on contemporary European philosophy and its impact upon Greece’s intellectual climate. Last but not least, an important factor with a great impact on the way in which Greece appropriated the European spirit, in philosophy too,

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is “geophilosophy”. For Evangelos Papanoutsos, rationalism is French, romanticism is German, whereas empiricism is British.68 Still, the point where Greece stands from the viewpoint of “geophilosophy” is not easy to determine, even if this “geophilosophical” separation lies on the grounds of the well-known analytic-continental split, which became increasingly important within Greek universities from the 70’s on.69 The analytic-continental split also determined to a large extent the reception of phenomenology in Greece within the last three decades. Despite recent attempts to appropriate phenomenology within the analytic tradition – a trend followed by several young Greek academics today – phenomenology is generally considered to belong to the continental philosophical tradition.

Notes 1 S. Gourgouris, Dream-Nation. Enlightenment, Colonization, and the Institution of Modern Greece, Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, 1996; D. Tziovas, The Other Self: Selfhood and Society in Modern Greek Fiction, Lanham: Lexington Books, 2003. 2 G. Apostolopoulou “Hegel-Studien in Griechenland”, Hegel-Studien, 21 (1986), p. 189-218; Nikou K. Psimmenou, “I proslipsi tis filosofias tou Hegel ston elliniko choro – Anthologio kritikon apotimiseon tis [The Reception of Hegel’s Philosophy in Greece – An Anthology of Critical Evaluations]”, G. W. F. Hegel. Meletes gia ti zoi kai to ergo tou [G. W. F. Hegel. Studies on His Life and Work], Athens-Giannina: Dodoni Publishers 2009, p. 245-71. 3 P. Kanellopoulos, “Xaidelvergi, o chrissos krikos tou pneumatikou desmou mas” [“Heidelberg, the Golden Ring of Our Spiritual Bond”], in: Afieroma ston Konstantino Tsatso [Studies Presented to Constantine Tsatsos], Athens: Sakkoulas Publications, 1980, p. 1-160. Charalambos Theodoridis (1883-1957) points out the unprecedented interest in European philosophy which marked the decade between 1925 and 1935: “I filosofiki kinisi sta teleutaia deka chronia [The Movement of Philosophical Ideas in the Last Ten Years]”, edited and commented by K. T. Petsios, Katoptron Neoellinikis Filosofias 2 (2011), p. 161-82 (the article first appeared in the newspaper Neos Kosmos in 1934). 4 I. Theodorakopoulos, “Ta evdomida chronia tou H. Rickert” [“H. Rickert’s Seventieth Anniversary]”, Archeion Filosofias kai Theorias ton Epistimon IV/4 (1933), p. 356. 5 One of the main features of the modern Greek philosophical evolution is the coexistence of philosophical writing with the translation of influential philosophical works into the Greek language. Such is the case of the “Heidelberg group”: Paul Natorp’s groundbreaking Platos Ideenlehre (1903) was translated into modern Greek by Michalis Tsamados [I peri ton Ideon Theoria tou Platonos] , one of the active members and writers of the Archeion Filosofias and Theorias ton Epistimon, in 1929. The translation was foreworded by Ioannis Theodorakopoulos: “O Neokantianismos kai o Paul Natorp. Prolegomena eis to ergo tou Natorp “I peri ton Ideon Theoria tou Platonos” [“Neokantianism and Paul Natorp. Preface to Natorp’s work “Plato’s Doctrine of Ideas”] (Ta prota mou filosofimata 1927-1930 [My First Philosophical Writings 1927- 1930], Athens: Vivliopoleion tis Estias, 1978, p. 396-425). 6 Ibid, p. 282. Also in this respect: I. Theodorakopoulos, Agapimeni mou Xaidelvergi [My Dear Heidelberg], Athens: Vivliopoleion tis Estias, 1980, p. 93, 111. 7 I. Theodorakopoulos, Ta prota mou filosofimata 1927-1930, p. 283.

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8 C. Cavarnos, C., Modern Greek Thought. Three Essays Dealing With Philosophy, Critique of Science, and Views of Man’s Nature and Destiny, Belmont Mass : The Institute for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 1969, p. 34. 9 Kanellopoulos translated existentialism as “ypostasiakh filosofia” to distinguish it from other, rather vague in meaning, intellectual movements of the 30’s (“Heidelberg, o chrissos krikos tou pneumatikou desmou mas” Kanellopoulos 1980, p. 128, note 278). 10 Ibid, p. 52. 11 P. Kanellopoulos, “Heidelberg” (1937), Dokimia kai alla keimena saranta pente eton (1935- 1980), Thessaloniki : Egnatia Publications, 1980, p. 29. 12 P. Kanellopoulos, “I pneumatiki neoelliniki koinonia [The Spiritual Neohellenic Society]”, Archeion Filosofias kai Theorias ton Epistimon VI/1 (1935), p. 1-41. See in this respect G. Apostolopoulou’s penetrating reading of Kanellopoulos’ approach to metaphysics and existentialism (“The Open Metaphysics of Human Existence. Some Examples from Modern Greek Philosophy”, Dodoni. Proceedings of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Ioannina, 28 (1999), p. 353-358). 13 P. Kanellopoulos, “Kritika meletimata: Descartes kai Jaspers [“Critical Studies: Descartes and Jaspers”]”, Archeion Filosofias kai Theorias ton Epistimon VIII/1 (1938), p. 93-98; “Karl Jaspers. Ypostasiaki filosofia [“Karl Jaspers. – Philosophy of Existence”]”, Archeion Filosofias kai Theorias ton Epistimon VIII/2 (1938), p. 117-145; “Karl Jaspers. Ypostasiaki filosofia”, Archeion Filosofias kai Theorias ton Epistimon VIII/3 (1938), p. 257-289; “Karl Jaspers. Ypostasiaki filosofia”, Archeion Filosofias kai Theorias ton Epistimon VIII/4 (1938), p. 257-289. See also: P. Kanellopoulos, “Heidelberg, o chrissos krikos tou pneumatikou desmou mas”, p. 64-66. 14 P. Kanellopoulos, “Kritika meletimata: Descartes kai Jaspers”, p. 98. 15 P. Kanellopoulos, “Karl Jaspers. Ypostasiaki filosofia Kanellopoulos” (the article was published in three parts in the Archeion Filosofias kai Theorias ton Epistimon of the year 1938). 16 P. Kanellopoulos, “Heidelberg, o chrissos krikos tou pneumatikou desmou mas”, p. 128. 17 K. Jaspers, “Proypotheseis gia mia filosofiki katanoisi tou Nietzsche [“Presuppositions for a Philosophical Understanding of Nietzsche”], translated by P. Kanellopoulos, Archeion Filosofias kai Theorias ton Epistimon VI/3 (1935), p. 249-278. 18 Kanellopoulos, P. (1980/1935): “Karl Jaspers”, Dokimia kai alla keimena saranta pente eton (1935-1980), p. 26. Another interesting perspective on existentialism is given by Kanellopoulos’ critical discussion of a study by Jeanne Hersch, a French student of Jaspers, in the 1937 Archeion. Kanellopoulos reviewed her L’illusion philosophique (Paris, 1936) by emphasizing the “organic fallacy” which lies at the background of all genuine philosophizing, thus keeping it at a safe distance from speculative theory, dogmatism and pure scientific reason. Nevertheless, Jaspers’ influence on Kanellopoulos was not only direct, but also indirect. In reviewing a study by Yorgos Sarantaris (Simvoli se mia filosofia tis iparxis, Athens 1937), he criticized Sarantaris’ sole acceptance of Dostoyevsky and his refusal of Nietzsche and Kierkegaard. Here Kanellopoulos explicitly recognized his debt to Jaspers’ reading of the two thinkers (“Heidelberg”, Dokimia kai alla keimena saranta pente eton (1935-1980), p. 47; To telos tou Zaratoustra [Zarathoustra’s End], Athens, 1956). See in this respect: X. Malevitsis, “Ο filosofikos stochasmos tou P. Kanellopoulou [The Philosophical Thought of P. Kanellopoulos]”, in: P. Tzamalikos (ed.), In memoriam Panayoti Kanellopoulou. Speeches – Studies – Essays, Athens: Yallelis Publications, 1988, p. 181-190. Kanellopoulos’ interest in existentialism did not exhaust itself in the 30’s, but accompanied him all along his thoughpath. Later on, his view of existentialism has been considerably widened – Camus and Sartre are mentioned in many occasions – and existentialism is closely linked to the historical destiny of our century (“Yparxiaki agonia kai ithikos agonas” [“Existential Anxiety and Moral Struggle”], Dokimia kai alla keimena saranta pente eton (1935-1980), Thessaloniki: Egnatia Publications, 1980, p.186- 194.

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19 I. Theodorakopoulos, I. “Edmund Husserl”, Archeion Filosofias kai Theorias ton Epistimon VIII/4 (1938), p. 468-475. 20 I. Theodorakopoulos, Ta prota mou filosofimata 1927-1930 [My First Philosophical Writings 1927-1930], Athens: Vivliopoleion tis Estias, 1978, p. 281-283, 414. 21 Ibid, p. 291, 293-4. Cf. “Neither of the three founders of neokantianism, Cohen, Husserl and Rickert wrote a psychology. The only one of the neokantians who wrote a psychology, but not an empirical one, was Natorp.” (“Filosofia kai psychologia [Philosophy and Psychology]” (1929), in: Ta prota mou filosofimata 1927-1930, p. 217). 22 Ibid, p. 291, 306. 23 Ibid, p. 352, 374. 24 “Theoria tou logou i Gnoseologia [Theory of Reason or Theory of Knowledge]” (1928) in: Ta prota mou filosofimata 1927-1930, p. 64. 25 I. Theodorakopoulos, Ioannis, Agapimeni mou Xaidelvergi [My Dear Heidelberg], p. 118-119. 26 Ibid, p. 120. See also: “Kritiki tis ontologias tou M. Heidegger” [“A Critique of Martin Heidegger’s Ontology”], Proceedings of the Academy of Athens, 47 (1972), pp. 279-285. 27 I. Theodorakopoulos (1929), Ta prota mou filosofimata 1927-1930, p. 310. 28 Ibid, p. 311. 29 C. D. Georgoulis, “I themeliodis iparxiaki ontologia tou Martinou Heidegger” [“Martin Heidegger’s Fundamental Philosophy of Existence”], Ai sigchronai filosofikai kateuthunseis [Trends in Contemporary Philosophy], Athens: Papadimas Publishers, 1973 (1954), p. 51-73. 30 C. D. Georgoulis, “O Edmund Husserl kai h fainomenologiki filosofia” [“Edmund Husserl and Phenomenological Philosophy”], Nea Estia, 43/498 (1948), p. 434-440. 31 C. D. Georgoulis, “O Max Scheler kai h epi tou pediou ths filosofikis ithikis ereunai tou [Max Scheler and His Investigations in the Field of Philosophical Ethics]”, Dialexeis [Conferences], Athens: Christianiki Enossis Ekpaideutikon Leitourgon, 1955, p. 37-56. 32 C. D. Georgoulis, “Sunoptiki theorisis ton kurioteron apopseon tis fainomenologikis filosofias” [“A Brief Overview of the Main Theses of Phenomenological philosophy”], Ai sigchronai filosofikai kateuthunseis, p. 36-7. 33 Ibid, p. 41-3, 48. The proximity of Husserl to Bergson is further encouraged by Georgoulis’ focus on the problem of time and temporality as a stream of conscious states: “O Edmund Husserl kai h fainomenologiki filosofia”, 1948; “I filosofia tou Edmund Husserl” [“The Philosophy of Edmund Husserl”], Nea Estia, 68/796 (1960), p. 1126-1131; “I filosofia tou Edmund Husserl” [“The Philosophy of Edmund Husserl”], Nea Estia, 68/798 (1960), p. 1283- 1288. See also Georgoulis’ unpublished Mathimata eisagogis sti filosofia [Introductory Lessons to Philosophy] of the years 1950-1951. 34 C. D. Georgoulis, “O Max Scheler kai h epi tou pediou ths filosofikis ithikis ereunai tou, p. 56. Cf. “Ai sigchronai kateuthunseis tis uparxiakis filosofias. Atheistikos kai christianikos iparxismos”, Ai sigchronai filosofikai kateuthunseis, Athens: Papadimas Publishers, 74-96. The coexistence of existentialist phenomenology with orthodox faith is one of the most interesting points in this respect (N. A. Nissiotis, Yparxismos kai christianiki pistis kata ton Soeren Kierkegaard kai tous sigchronous iparxistas filosofous Karl Jaspers, Martin Heidegger kai Jean-Paul Sartre, Athens: Minima, 1956). Due to the fact that this is one of the most enduring elements in the Greek reception of existentialist phenomenologists, such as Heidegger, we will abstain from developing this issue further. 35 J. Derrida, “Edmund Husserl. I fainomenologia kai to telos tis metaphissikis” [“Edmund Husserl. Phenomenology and the End of Metaphysics”], translated by E. Platis and R. Argiropoulou, Epoches 34 (1966), p. 181-200, 173-179.

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36 European philosophy seems to have been higher evaluated at Schools of Philosophy of the Greek periphery. Spyros Kyriazopoulos, professor of philosophy at the University of Ioannina transferred a philosophical spirit shaped by the existentialist and phenomenological tradition and aware of the critical questions of the after-war period into the newly founded School of Philosophy (1964). His special interest in the philosophy of civilization and technology made of Kyriazopoulos an academic teacher with a vivid perception of the risks and challenges of his times and fully aware of the intersections between philosophy and the sciences: S. D. Kyriazopoulos, The Origin of the Technological Spirit[I katagogi tou technikou pneumatos], Athens 1965; The Language of Today. Linguistics of Technology [I simerini glossa. Glossologia tis technikis], Athens 1964; The Presence of the Natural Science [I parousia tis fisikis epistimis], Athens 1963. 37 E. Moutsopoulos, “Vers une phénoménologie de la création”, Revue Philosophique, 38 (1961). 38 E. P. Papanoutsos, The Foundations of Κnowledge, edited and with an introduction by John P. Anton, translated by Basil Coukis and John P. Anton, New York: Albany: State University of New York 1968, p. 34, 36, 47, 79, 108, 280. Papanoutsos admittedly prefers the phenomenological analysis of the object (34) over the neokantian account of knowledge and Rickert’s “voluntaristic idealism” (81), a clear sign of his opposition to the “Heidelberg group”. 39 T. Pentzopoulou-Valala, I ennoia tou upervatikou sti Fainomenologia tou Husserl [The Concept of the Transcendental in Husserl’s Phenomenology], doctoral dissertation, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki-School of Philosophy, 1971. 40 E. Moutsopoulos, Ai idonai. Fainomenologiki ereuna enion pronomiouchon suneidisiakon katastaseon [Pleasures. A Phenomenological Investigation of Several Privileged States of Consciousness], Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki - Epistimoniki Epetirida Filosofikis Scholis, 1967; T. Pentzopoulou-Valala, T, “Reflexions sur le fondement du rapport entre l’Apriori et l’Eidos dans la phénoménologie de Husserl”, Kant-Studien, 65/2 (174), p. 135-151; “I “theoria tis alitheias sth filosofia tou Heidegger” [The Theory of Truth in Martin Heidegger’s Philosophy”], Epistimoniki Epetirida Filosofikis Scholis Aristoteleiou Panepistimiou Thessalonikis IH’ (1979), p. 347-380. 41 G. Lukács, Apo ti fainomenoligia ston uparxismo [German original: Existentialismus oder Marxismus?, 1951], Athens: Erasmos, 1975. 42 N. M. Skouteropoulos, “Glossary” and “General Selection” from Edmund Husserl’s Bibliography”, Deukalion, 12 (1974), p. 506-14. 43 See note 39. 44 M. Farber, Fainomenologia (Oi skopoi tis fainomenologias) [Phenomenology (The Ends of Phenomenology)], translated by L. Bargeliotis with an introduction by N. Avgelis, Athens: Grigoris Publications, 1970. This is a lengthy presentation of Husserl’s phenomenology by the eminent American phenomenologist Marvin Farber. Still it is quite interesting that Nikos Avgelis’ “Introduction” to the Greek translation does not focus on phenomenology itself, but on its exchange with American naturalism (p. 7-14). Avgelis stresses the points where Farber distances himself from phenomenological orthodoxy in Husserl and Heidegger, and speaks of “phenomenological naturalism” in him. This shows clearly that this first systematic presentation of phenomenology was biased and gave a rather narrow perspective on phenomenology itself. 45 N. Saveriadou, “Heidegger”. Presentation and selection of texts by Nelli Saveriadou, Epoches. Miniaia Ekdossi pneumatikou provlimatismou kai genikis paideias, 25 (1965), p. 98-100. 46 A. Dokas, A., translation of: Martin Heidegger, “Ti einai I filosofia;” [What is Philosophy?”], Epoches, 66 (1965), p. 3-10. 47 I. Louvaris, Metaxi duo kosmon [Between Two Worlds], Athens, 1949, p. 232-237; I. Skandalaki, Iparxismos [Existentialism], Athens, 1953; . Skandalaki 1953; N. A. Nissiotis, Yparxismos kai christianiki pistis kata ton Soeren Kierkegaard kai

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tous sigchronous iparxistas filosofous Karl Jaspers, Martin Heidegger kai Jean-Paul Sartre, op.cit., p. 109-132, 224-240; D. Koutsogiannopoulos, Dialektiki tis ontologikis diaforas [The Dialectics of Ontological Difference], Athens, 1970 and Essays on Contemporary Philosophy, Athens 1960; Koutsogiannopoulos 1962b; X. Malevitsis, “Heidegger kai Hölderlin”, in I tragodia tis istorias [The Tragedy of History], Athens, 1973; G. Tzavaras, “I “riziki anagkaiotita” kata ton Heidegger. Mia prospatheia gia prosvasi sto Einai kai Chronos” [“Radical Necessity” According to Heidegger. An Attempt at Finding Access to Being and Time”], Epopteia, 29 (1978), p. 955-960. 48 X. Malevitsis translation, introduction and commentary to: “Three Texts by Martin Heidegger (A: Apo thn empeiria ths skepsis, B: Epistoli ston Beaufret, Γ. Epistoli se enan spoudasti”), Lotos, 1 (1971), p. 145-165 Malevitsis 1971 and introduction, translation, afterword to: Martin Heidegger, Eisagogi sti metafissiki (Introduction to Metaphysics), Athens-Giannina: Dodoni Publishers, 1973; G. Tzavaras, “Provlimata kai protaseis gia mia neoelliniki metafrasi tou Sein und Zeit” [“Problems and Proposals for a Modern Greek Translation of Being and Time”], Filosofia, 4 (1974), p. 449-457. 49 The first volume of the Greek translation of Heidegger’s Being and Time by G. Tzavaras appeared in 1978 and the second volume in 1985. See on this issue: X. Malevitsis, “Pareimi (Dasein)”, Epopteia, 87 (1984), p. 152-4. 50 X. Malevitsis, “O neoellinikos pirinas” [The Modern Greek Core”], Prooptikes. Aesthitika, filosofika kai koinoniologika dokimia, Athens-Giannina: Dodoni Publishers, 1972, p. 50-79; I filosofia tou Heidegger [The Philosophy of Heidegger], Athens-Giannina: Dodoni Publishers, 1974. 51 X. Giannaras, I theologia tis apousias kai tis agnosias tou theou. Me anaphora stis areopagitikes suggrafes kai ston Martin Heidegger [The Theology of Absence and of Agnosticism. With Reference to the Writings of Dionysios Areopagitis and to Heidegger], Athens, 1967; To ontologiko periechomeno tis theologikis ennoias tou prosopou (Me anagoges ston Heidegger) [The Ontological Content of the theological Concept of the Person (With References to Heidegger)], Doctoral Dissertation, Athens, 1970. Cf. J. Macquarrie, J. “I ennoia ths suneidisis ston Heidegger kai ston Christianismo” [The Concept of Consciousness in Heidegger and in Christianity], Epopteia, 2 (1976), p. 173-194. 52 X. Malevitsis, Politeia kai erimia. Dokimia gia thn pneumatiki katastasi tis epochis mas [The City and the desert. Essays on the Spiritual Situation of Our Times], Athens-Giannina: Dodoni Publishers, 1975, p. 190-191. 53 M. Heidegger, “O Hölderlin kai h ousia tis poihtikis dhmiourgias” [“Hölderlin and the Essence of Poetry”], translated by M. Markakis, Nea Estia, 87 (1970), p. 718-725; “To telos tis filosofias kai I apostolic tis skepsis” [“The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking”], translated by L. Skami-P. Skaramagkas, Epopteia, 18 (1977), p.3-15; “I teleutaia sinenteuxi” [“The Last Interview”], translated by E. Platis, Efthini, 63 (1977), p. 157-163 and 64 (1977), p. 208-215. 54 M. Scheler, “I anagkaiotita tou thriskeutikou viomatos” [“The Necessity of the Religious Lived Experience”], translated by E. Platis, Efthini, 29 (1974), p. 236-8; “Oi morfes tis gnosis kai I pneumatiki kalliergeia” [“The Forms of Knowledge and the Spiritual Culture”], translated by E. Platis, Efthini, 31 (1975), p. 234-49; M. Merleau-Ponty, “Oi vaseis tis neoteris kosmologias” [“The Foundations of Modern Cosmology”], translated by P. Christodoulidis, Deukalion, 20 (1977), p. 416-6. 55 J. Wahl, J. (1988). Eisagogi stis filosofies toy yparxismou [Introduction to the Philosophies of Existence], Athens-Giannina: Dodoni Publishers, 1988; M. Bochenski, A History of Contemporary European Philosophy: The 20th Century, Athens-Ioannina : Dodoni Publishers, 1985. 56 See for instance: E. Husserl, I deuteri logiki ereuna [Logical Investigations, Investigation II], translated by N. M. Skouteropoulos, Athens: Roes Publications, 1986.

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57 C. Cavarnos, Modern Greek Thought, op.cit., p. 37-8. In his foreword to the English translation of a Plato-inspired text on the soul by Theodorakopoulos, Constantine Cavarnos points out that the latter has Byzantium in mind (p. 102). 58 E. Moutsopoulos, “The Roots and Present Dimensions of Contemporary Greek Philosophy”, in: John R. Burr (ed.), Handbook of World Philosophy. Contemporary Developments Since 1945, London: Aldwych Press, 1980, p. 117-23. 59 S. Kyriazopoulos, Eleftheria kai afthipervasis [Freedom and Self-transcendence], Athens, 1970; X. Malevitsis, I esoteriki diastasi: dokimia sygchronou provlimatismou [The inner dimension: essays of contemporary questioning], Athens-Giannina: Dodoni Publishers, 1975. 60 P. Noutsos, Neoelliniki filosofia. Oi ideologikes diastaseis ton europaikon tis proseggiseon [Modern Greek Philosophy. The Ideological Dimensions of its European Approaches], Athens: Kedros Publications, 1981. Specifically on the period between the two world wars: “I filosofiki skepsi kata tin period tou mesopolemou: theoritiki kai methodologika provlimata [“Philosophical Thought in the Inter-War Period: Theoretical and Methodological Problems”], Katoptron Neoellinikis Filosofias, 1 (2007), p. 155-63. 61 C. D. Georgoulis, “To vioma tis istorikotitas is tin iparxiakin filosofian tou Heidegger kai tou Jaspers” [“The Lived Experience of Historicity in Heidegger’s and Jaspers’ Philosophy of Existence”] (1956/61), Filosofia tis istorias, Athens: Papadimas Publishers, 1978, p. 202-16. 62 D. Apostolopoulos, Syntomi istoria ths neoellhnikis filosofias [A Short History of Modern Greek Philosophy], Athènes: Collection de l’Union Franco-Hellénique des Jeunes, 1949, p.50. 63 P. Kanellopoulos, “Ex’aformis tis meletis tou Karl Jaspers (Enas anagkaios epilogos)” [“Taking as a Starting Point Karl Jaspers’ Study. A Necessary Afterword”], Archeion Filosofias kai Theorias ton Epistimon VI/3 (1935), p. 281-4. 64 G. Antonopoulos, Kefalaia filosofias tou neoellinikou pneumatos. Symvoli eis mian filosofian toy anthropou [Chapters in the Philosophy of the Neohellenic Spirit. Contribution to a philosophy of man], Athens, 1965. 65 M. Dragona-Monachou, M. “I filosofia stin Ellada chthes et simera: taseis, provlimata kai drastiriotites [Philosophy in Greece Yesterday and Today: Trends, Problems, and Activities”], in M. Dragona-Monachou (ed.), I filosofia sta Balkania simera / Philosophy in Balkan Countries Today, Athens: Greek Philosophical Society-Kardamitsa Publications, 1994, p. 51-65. 66 C. Despotopoulos, “I apostoli tis filosofias sti sugchroni Ellada [“The Mission of Philosophy in Contemporary Greece”], in I filosofia simera [Philosophy Today], Athens: Greek Philosophical Society/Kardamitsas Publishers, 1985. For a further questioning of modern (and contemporary) Greek philosophy as a “national philosophy”: Nikos K. Psimmenos, “Iparchei Neoelliniki Filosofia; [Does Modern Greek Philosophy Exist?]”, Katoptron Neoellinikis Filosofias 1(2007), p. 165-75. 67 E. Moutsopoulos, “L’enseignement universitaire de la philosophie en Grèce”, Filosofia, 13-14 (1983-1984), p. 455-62. 68 E. P. Papanoutsos, E. P., “Geografia tis filosofias [“The Geography of Philosophy”], in: Ta metra tis epochis mas [The Measures of Our Times], Athens: Filippotis Publishers, 1981, p. 53-64. 69 C. Boudouris, Analytiki filosofia. I exelixi tis agglikis analytikis filosofias kata ton paronta aiona [Analytic Philosophy. The Evolution of British Analytic Philosophy in the Present Century], Athens, 1974.

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Moutsopoulos, E. (1983-84). “L’enseignement universitaire de la philosophie en Grèce”, Filosofia, 13-14, 455-462. Nissiotis, N. A. (1956). Yparxismos kai christianiki pistis kata ton Soeren Kierkegaard kai tous sigchronous iparxistas filosofous Karl Jaspers, Martin Heidegger kai Jean-Paul Sartre [Existentialism and Christian Faith according to Soeren Kierkegaard and the Contemporary Existentialist Philosophers Karl Jaspers, Martin Heidegger and Jean-Paul Sartre], Athens: Minima. Noutsos, P. (1981): Neoelliniki filosofia. Oi ideologikes diastaseis ton europaikon tis proseggiseon [Modern Greek Philosophy. The Ideological Dimensions of its European Approaches], Athens: Kedros Publications. Papanoutsos, E.P. (1968). The Foundations of Κnowledge, edited and with an introduction by John P. Anton, translated by Basil Coukis and John P. Anton, New York: Albany: State University of New York Press. Papanoutsos, E. P. (1981). “Geografia tis filosofias [“The Geography of Philosophy”], in: Ta metra tis epochis mas [The Measures of Our Times], Athens: Filippotis Publishers, 53-64. Pentzopoulou-Valala, T. (1971). I ennoia tou upervatikou sti Fainomenologia tou Husserl [The Concept of the Transcendental in Husserl’s Phenomenology], doctoral dissertation, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki-School of Philosophy. Pentzopoulou-Valala, T. (1974). “Reflexions sur le fondement du rapport entre l’Apriori et l’Eidos dans la phénoménologie de Husserl”, Kant-Studien, 65/2, 135-151. Pentzopoulou-Valala, T. (1979): “I “theoria tis alitheias sth filosofia tou Heidegger” [The Theory of Truth in Martin Heidegger’s Philosophy”], Epistimoniki Epetirida Filosofikis Scholis Aristoteleiou Panepistimiou Thessalonikis IH’, 347-380. Psimmenos, Nikos K. (2007). “Iparchei Neoelliniki Filosofia; [Does Modern Greek Philosophy Exist?]”, Katoptron Neoellinikis Filosofias 1, p. 165-75. Psimmenos, Nikos K. (2009). “I proslipsi tis filosofias tou Hegel ston elliniko choro – Anthologio kritikon apotimiseon tis [The Reception of Hegel’s Philosophy in Greece – An Anthology of Critical Evaluations]”, G. W. F. Hegel. Meletes gia ti zoi kai to ergo tou [G. W. F. Hegel. Studies on His Life and Work], Athens-Giannina: Dodoni Publishers, p. 245-71. Saveriadou, N. (1965). “Heidegger”. Presentation and selection of texts by Nelli Saveriadou, Epoches. Miniaia Ekdossi pneumatikou provlimatismou kai genikis paideias, 25, 76-100. Scheler, Max (1974). “I anagkaiotita tou thriskeutikou viomatos” [“The Necessity of the Religious Lived Experience”], translated by E. Platis, Efthini, 29, 236-238. Scheler, Max (1975). “Oi morfes tis gnosis kai I pneumatiki kalliergeia” [“The Forms of Knowledge and the Spiritual Culture”], translated by E. Platis, Efthini, 41, 234-249. Skandalaki, I. (1953): Iparxismos [Existentialism], Athens. Skouteropoulos, N. M. (1974). “Glossary” and “General Selection” from Edmund

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Husserl’s Bibliography”, Deukalion, 12, 506-514. Skouteropoulos, N. M. (1986). “Protaseis gia tin apodosi sta ellinika fainomenologikon oron” [“Proposals for a modern Greek translation of Phenomenological Terms”], Parousia, Δ’, 283-285. Theodorakopoulos, I. (1933). “Ta evdomida chronia tou H. Rickert” [“H. Rickert’s Seventieth Anniversary]”, Archeion Filosofias kai Theorias ton Epistimon IV/4, 353- 357. Theodorakopoulos, I. (1938). “Edmund Husserl”, Archeion Filosofias kai Theorias ton Epistimon VIII/4, 468-475. Theodorakopoulos, I. (1972). “Kritiki tis ontologias tou M. Heidegger” [“A Critique of Martin Heidegger’s Ontology”], Proceedings of the Academy of Athens, 47, 279-285. Theodorakopoulos, I. (1978). Ta prota mou filosofimata 1927-1930 [My First Philosophical Writings 1927-1930], Athens: Vivliopoleion tis Estias. Theodorakopoulos, I. (1980). Agapimeni mou Xaidelvergi [My Dear Heidelberg], Athens: Vivliopoleion tis Estias. Tzavaras Y. (1974). “Provlimata kai protaseis gia mia neoelliniki metafrasi tou Sein und Zeit” [“Problems and Proposals for a Modern Greek Translation of Being and Time”], Filosofia, 4, 449-457. Tzavaras G. (1978). “I “riziki anagkaiotita” kata ton Heidegger. Mia prospatheia gia prosvasi sto Einai kai Chronos” [“Radical Necessity” According to Heidegger. An Attempt at Finding Access to Being and Time”], Epopteia, 29, 955-960. Tziovas, D. (2003). The Other Self: Selfhood and Society in Modern Greek Fiction, Lanham: Lexington Books. Wahl, J. (1988). Eisagogi stis filosofies toy yparxismou [Introduction to the Philosophies of Existence], Athens-Giannina: Dodoni Publishers.

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Nicolas Evzonas Université Paris-Sorbonne

Alexandros Papadiamantis: A Passionate Saint

Abstract Despite his appellation as a ‘Saint of Greek Literature’, Alexandros Pa- padiamantis, a writer of national acclaim in Modern Greece, produces texts describing extraordinary passions as well as uncontrolled and uncontrollable drives. This article explores the emotional dynamics underpinning his work in light of four themes: the covert Hedonistic gaze, scenarios involving jealousy, staging the ineffable jouissance of the Other, Eros for women deprived of physical sensation due to a deeply-rooted fear of otherness, and the recurring deaths of feminine beings assimilated with preventive murder in the name of virginity and sterility.

Introduction The eulogist of passion: this would be a much more appropriate desig- nation for Alexandros Papadiamantis than his glossy and univocal moniker, ‘The Saint of Modern Greek Literature’. This prodigy of Neo-Hellenic prose owes his notorious appellation not only to his literary and ascetic way of life, but also to his explicit professions that ‘as long as [he] lived and breathed, [he] would never stop glorifying and worshipping Christ nor lov- ingly depicting nature and affectionately describing original Greek mores’.1 One and a half centuries on, the works of Papadiamantis continue to fas- cinate, despite their ritualistic religiousness, committed hellenocentricity, and deeply rooted rural attachment, but they also create an imperceptible

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enchantment and challenge critics,2 who try to discern precisely why they so strongly appeal to our impulsiveness, reaching deep into its most archaic libidinal layer. ‘In the beginning was the emotion’, not the Verb, so Céline tells us.3 And Papadiamantis had a veritable talent for phrasing the sensory and affective vibrations buried in our immemorial past in accordance with the concept of the writer as ‘the interpreter of the sensitive world’,4 as described by Proust (1988:469) or Beckett (1990:97) The excitement aroused by the instinctual bases of the mother tongue is obviously elusive to the non-native reader of Greek texts, as are certain parts of Papadiamantis’ unique linguistic style, which requires a ‘palimpsest’ vocabulary to make them travel through all the periods of Greek History. However, any reader, even one who accesses these texts through translation, can draw pleasure from the inexhaustible imagination of an author deemed ‘the most fertile creator of myths in Modern Greek Literature’ (Saunier 2001:7). Besides, this fascination is just as great for the younger generations of Greeks, for whom the distinctive language used by Papadiamantis is difficult to access, almost as difficult as a foreign language, which attests the transcendental and translinguistical virtues of his works. Tinged with passion, these works carry as much the etymological meaning of ‘passion’ (suffering from a lack, mourning linked to a loss),5 as the philosophical meaning of ‘accident’ (beyond the active will principle),6 as well as the economical meaning of overinvestment (iterativeness, even addictiveness of the passionate impulse).7 The aim of this contribution is to explore the emotional dynamism of Papadiamantis’ works, while offering an initiatory journey into a literary world, which, in spite of the current craze in certain specialised circles, remains widely unknown outside of Greece. Our approach, which will necessarily be brief on account of the limitations of the present article, will mostly favor psychoanalysis as the interpretative framework, with the reader creating the meaning of the text; the author, as an empirical and psycho-biographical entity creator of the text, will be of no relevance to us here. It is obvious that in choosing to analyze the works of one writer alone and focusing our approach on psychological issues, our analyses may arouse some curiosity about Papadiamantis’ psyche. In spite of the structuralists’ decrees, the writer never really did die. Even Roland Barthes himself, who professed the death of the writer in the iconoclastic May ’68 (1993:63–69),

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acknowledged a short time later his ‘wish for the author’ (1982:39), perhaps because ‘as with every repressed emotion, the writer always rises back to the surface’ (Bellemin-Noël 2004:143)! Our analysis thus revolves around four main axes or four ‘passions’: voyeuristic, jealous, Pygmalion-like, and gynocidal passion. It draws from the major and minor texts stemming from each period of Papadiamantis’ literary production, stretching from 1879 to 1911 (the year of the writer’s death) and comprising three novels—deemed historical novels by the critics—and some 184 short stories, with 30 being set in the working-class neighbourhoods of Athens and the remaining in the Sporades archipelago, especially on the island of Skiathos, the writer’s birthplace.

Voyeuristic Passion The entire work of Papadiamantis is literally crisscrossed by visual perceptions.8 Countless expressions or terms relate to the sense of sight, and his texts are ripe with situations and characters egged by an overmastering scopic drive. This also appears in the clandestine gazing emerging throughout the texts as the ultimate ‘Papadiamantian’ visual mode, which is not marked by realism or ‘photographism’—as the author delights in saying9— but by impressionism and hedonism. Let us examine more closely some typical examples. In his narrative, ‘Dream on the Waves’ (‘Ὄνειρο στὸ κῦμα’), Papadia- mantis recounts with regret the tale of a town dweller who long ago lived in a natural environment and a wonderful world of self-sufficiency: I was a handsome adolescent, and I would look at my prematurely bronzed face mirrored in the water of streams and fountains, and I used to train my supple and slender body by climbing up rocks and mountains. (III, 261, 2–3) For this bucolic Narcissus, happiness consisted—among other things—of the feeling that he lived in perfect harmony with the aquatic element, just as a beatific fetus in his mother’s womb: I was feeling an unspeakable sweetness and rapture, imagining myself as one with the wave, with its liquid and salty and fresh nature. (III, 267, 10–11) This young man, who had never experienced any delight other than those provided by his own body, reaches the fascinating and mysterious

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world of the Other on an initiatory night, such as all of us experience at some moment in our lives with the same enthrallment. After many ration- alizations, probably based on the hero’s religious education so as to turn his desire for active voyeurism into passive and unintentional voyeurism, thus inevitably reactivating the tricks of adolescent and guilt-tainted sexual curiosity, ‘the young mountain Satyr’ (III, 267, 33) stealthily enjoys the exciting sight of a naked damsel bathing in the sea. This scene is divided into two parts corresponding to two different viewings: the first ‘frontal’ view made him run away (the young man possibly discerned the female genitalia), while the second one ‘from behind’ riveted and fascinated him (the young man saw what is common to both sexes). This sight could be unconsciously perceived as a castration fantasy, a consequence of the shocking discovery of the sexual differences. In the text, the castration appears in the form of a ‘denial of reality’ (Verleugnung10), which eventually leads to a poetic description about a fantasised woman: I could see her dark, but still slightly golden hair, her well-turned arms, a honey-colored and heavenly dream under the moonlight. In the twilight, I could make out her supple waist, her hips, her legs, her feet covered by the waves. I could glimpse her bosom, her firm, protruding breast welcoming the breeze and the divine aroma of the sea. She was a whiff, a fantasy image, a dream drifting on the waves; she was a Nereid, a nymph, a mermaid, floating like a magical ship, the way a vessel sails in our dreams… (III, 269, 29–270, 3) Need we recall that the other mermaid depicted by Papadiamantis in his novel, The Gipsy Girl (Ἡ Γυφτοποῦλα I, 603, 30), a mermaid who be- witches a pirate, is not a bird-woman, as might be expected in a digression ripe with Homeric influences,11 but rather a fish-woman, a woman with a fish-shaped tail, thus phallic and uncastrated (I, 604, 25–26)? Escaping from the typical Papadiamantian fiction that uses the main character as an intrigued spectator, ‘A Night in Carnival’ (‘Ἀποκριάτικη νυχτιά’) could be considered a forerunner to Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Win- dow,12 with its tale of a solitary student prone to peeping on his neighbours through the window of his room overlooking their common backyard, thus flattering the scandalous scopophilia of the ‘Id’ in our unconscious: When the steady student had nothing to do, for instance when schools broke up for Christmas or Carnival, Spyros Vergoudis would sit at his

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window watching and overhearing what was happening (II, 301, 1–4). Later on, we read: Again in the evening […], if he wished so, he could find some work to do, or he could stay in his upper floor room, standing with the lights off at the easterly window, spying on people coming in or listening to their words, noises, and whispers by sticking his ear to the keyhole (II, 302, 21–26). The claustrophobic and agoraphobic profile of Spyros appears rather quickly as a mask for his gynophobia, whilst his lustful admiration for a young brunette (‘μελαχροινὴ κορασίδα’ II, 310, 22) on the brink of wom- anhood alludes to his dread of the sexual Other, a fear that all of us share to some degree. On the day marking the highlight of the Carnival festivities, the solitary young man, who lives ‘as a monk’ (‘μονάζων’ II, 303, 21), de- clines an invitation to a party, arguing that he does not dance; instead, he chooses to indulge in his passion for voyeurism. He fantasises nevertheless about having a love affair with one of his neighbours (II, 313, 8–10). While ‘involuntarily dancing in his bed’ (II, 308, 27–28) to the tune of a satirical Carnival song ripe with sexual innuendoes (‘How they pound peppercorns / the devil’s monks’13), he tells himself that ‘even his mother, rocking him in her arms the way she did when he was a baby, had never brought such voluptuousness as his neighbours’ cheers and effusions did that night’ (II, 308, 27–28). This self-erotic rocking, which reawakens our first ‘holding’14 experiences and thus a feeling of solidarity with the main character, can become a source of suffering if it remains the only means of drawing pleasure. This is why the voyeur student, who sees his life as a ‘hard and long-lasting fasting period’ (II, 311, 6), finds some comfort in considering that he is undoubtedly the happiest of all, since, having gone to none of the feasts, he has been able to attend three or four parties at once. (II, 308, 24–26) He further notes that ‘one should probably stay at a distance if one wants to appreciate music and dance’, adding that when one is too close, ‘the noise impairs the hearing and annihilates the judgment’ (II, 308, 35–309, 3). Remembering Aesop’s fable, he whispers, ‘They’re probably sour anyway’ (II, 309, 7). Papadiamantis’ text induces us to give a name to the conflict leading to such a rationalization, namely the ‘complex of the fox’ (unable to reach the grapes so hungered for, the fox ends up despising them).

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Jealous Passion The distance maintained in Papadiamantis’ texts between the characters and the objects so longed for, which also prohibits their bodily fusion, is often presented as the inevitable consequence of a failure in love due to the malevolent presence of a rival. This unwanted third party, this terzo incom- modo who monopolises the lovers’ mind like an obsession, not only causes heartbreak and suffering, but, by triggering an imaginative outburst, is also seen as a source of indescribable pleasure, apt to be compared, even in its negative form, with an enjoyment beyond the phallus, gender, and language, which Lacan calls the ‘Jouissance of the Other’.15 Let us remind our reader that in Plato (Philebus, 47c–48b), the duality of pleasure and pain, likely to grow unboundedly, is considered the quintessence of jealous passion. The short story, ‘The Nostalgic Woman’ (‘Ἡ Νοσταλγός’), brilliantly vouches for the limitless nature of this mixed pathos deeply rooted in our oedipal vessels. The plot is based on a young islander’s love for an older neighbour who endures much suffering on account of her domineering husband. This love, born under the auspices of a triangular desire, reaches its apex when the woman, despite consenting to a nocturnal escape with her suitor, in order to return to her home island, rejects his advances and bluntly expresses her erotic unavailability. The disdained hero then expresses an incredible range of the responses to this fact: the heartrending suspicion that she loves another; the fantasy of playing the role of ‘Charon preordained to join two beings who will indulge in infernal caresses’ (II, 309, 10); the hero’s attempt to detect the other lover’s kisses on the woman’s lips; the guilty avowal that he endeavours to wrest from her, now regarding her as ‘deceit- ful’ and ‘unfaithful’; the delectable confirmation of these allegations that he imagines to have obtained; his imagined scenarios of stabbing and drowning her, followed by his suicide; the appealing image of their corpses lying lifeless on the seabed under the moonlight; the excitement, anger, humiliation, madness, fascination, and so on. This spectrum of reactions reveals the vertiginous hedonic potential of frustration that the writer shares with his reader in a somehow transferential delirium. At the end of the narrative, the passionate and jealous young man feels elated at the thought of his love finally being reciprocated, while visualizing the rival husband, his squad, and the other fantastic admirers. However, our unconscious may easily recognize the alluring image of the ‘whore-mother’

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(Freud 1910) as well as the homosexual desire shown toward other male holders of sensual pleasures, which are lacking for the main character; these in turn entice our mental bisexuality. The ‘Nostalgic Woman’ shows quite powerfully how a jealous lover will stage the inconceivable ‘Jouissance of the Other’ by any possible means, which constitutes the supreme enjoyment of incest, which all of us have dreamed of at one time or another as little Oedipuses. The narrative, ‘Eros-Hero’ (‘Ἔρως–Ἥρως’), provides a triumphant confirmation of the fact that jealous passion can go ‘beyond the principle of pleasure’. The plot introduces a young sailor, who, by a strange twist of fate, carries in his boat a newlywed woman whom he has secretly loved since childhood, transporting her to the village of her elderly husband. Deeply distressed and rowing without thinking, his face grows deathly pale, just like Charon sailing towards the realm of Hades, as he begins to voluptuously unfold a string of revenge scenarios: With a mere kick or even a smaller effort, say simply, by using one of his toes, he could ‘bump off’ three souls: the husband, the mother-in-law, and the young bride…even if he did forsake his intention of saving the latter. (III, 180, 21–24) The hated rival, envied for his riches, ‘could sink to the bottom of the sea with all of his real houses…but even better, without his houses, his lands, his estates’ (III, 180, 26–28). That ‘witch of a mother’ (‘στρίγγλα μάνα’16) who urged her daughter to wed, would hardly have the time to make the sign of the cross for the last time, and her desperate cries would be swallowed in the abyss. The next day, in the village, the priests would be praying for her soul and asking the congregation to repent. Then, for forty days, all the old women of the village would refrain from eating fish, out of fear that they might have touched her drowned corpse. (III, 181, 7–14) Enjoying his fantasy to the full, the young man was cutting through the waves like a dolphin, puffing and disgorging water like a whale, flinging out an arm as sharp as a swordfish’s rostrum. He was swimming with his right arm, clasping the young woman with his left. (III, 181, 18–20). And after this glorious crossing, the two lovers would collapse on the sand, worn-out, half-drowned, dripping with sea water.

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Born and baptized anew, a second Adam and a second Eve, more naked in their clinging wet clothes than had they been totally nude. (III, 181, 26–30). But here comes the charm of fantasy: the tragedy of an entirely pow- erless person turns into mental omnipotence, like the ‘helpless’ child (Hil- flosigkeit) in all of us, left alone by our mother, we juxtapose the reverse and radical omnipotence of our mind, the hallucinatory satisfaction of our desires to our destitution and lack of power.17 Readers familiar with Papadiamantis’ texts, which punish any libidinal outburst by feigned epilogues of obedience to the religious rules, will not be surprised when at the very end of this story, the furious and jealous sailor in ‘Eros-Hero’ represses his passion, calms down, gathers his thoughts, cries, and appears to be a hero in love—a Christian love, chaste, made up of tolerance and charity. (III, 182, 14–15) However, the fact that this supernatural weakening of an aggressive Eros arises immediately after a ‘vision’ (‘νοερά ὀπτασία’ III, 182, 13) of his mother ‘lamenting and crying and telling him, “Oh son! My son! What are you going to do?”’ (III, 182, 14–15), leads us to understand that the young sailor, being ‘overwhelmed’ by his mother who is ‘too old to take him in her arms or rock him in his cradle’ (III, 172, 5–6), becomes incapable of any erotic claiming, just as he had always been. As regards the loathed rival, ‘that bird of prey come from far away to steal the dove’ (III, 179, 10–11), he appears to our minds seasoned to this type of projective tactics18 to be the receptacle in which we pour out our anger and hatred whenever we cannot bear our own inadequacy, and our self-image becomes unendurable.

Pygmalion-like Passion In the works of Papadiamantis, there are some rare passages in which a man and a woman enjoy a love affair without being hindered by distance, a screen, or any third party. In such unique moments, free of remoteness, the characters break their usual bounds and openly express their sensuality. Taking into consideration that these rare occurrences of face-to-face eroti- cism always occur in a context of hazard and danger that delivers the de- fenseless and unconscious woman into the lover’s hands, we should speak of a Pygmalion-like passion in reference to the legendary king of Cyprus who fell in love with a statue.19

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One of the most famous scenes of Modern Greek Literature is the im- mortalization of such passion in ‘Dream on the Waves’. The main character wishes—in a childish manner—for some danger to arise on the sea, and despite being struck by the efficiency of his ‘animistic’ thought, comes out in extremis of his hiding place and runs to the rescue of his secret love, whom he had never before dared to approach: I saw that gorgeous body struggling under the water, closer to the seabed than to the surface, closer to death than to life; I dived in, caught the young girl in my arms, and swam back to the surface. As I was holding her with my left arm, I thought I could feel the warmth of her breath on my cheek. I had come in time, thank God! She did not show any sign of life though… (III, 272, 15–21). This ‘altruist’ rescuer, who swims vigorously toward the shore, feeling his physical powers ‘double as through some miracle’ (III, 272, 24) when he touches the dying body, as though he could only feel energetic and strong towards a ‘neutralised’ woman, admits the ineffable happiness of that transcendental experience, which epitomises an epidermis touch as opposed to a common ‘animal’ copulation: I shall always remember how the delicate and tender body of that chaste girl felt against mine, for such a short enchanted moment in that miserable life of mine. It was a dream, an illusion, an enchantment. How could this exquisite, sublime contact compare with the selfish embraces, the sham friendships, or the bestial lovemaking of this world? I had not carried a load; with her delicate body, I found relief and peace. Never before had I felt as light as I did for the time I carried her weight…I was the man who had managed for an instant to hold a dream in his hands, his own dream… (III, 272, 29–273, 2) This poetically described dream reveals a deep-seated need to dominate the woman and instrumentalise her to the point of annihilating her otherness. This notion does not fall far from our natural tendency to don blinkers whenever we insist on only seeing a limited aspect of the ‘Other’, a ‘partiality’ that serves our own fantasies, as we cling to our narcissism to avoid the painful experience of finding the object of our desire to be wanting. The psychological truth of this passion shown towards a woman in a state of unconsciousness is clearly revealed in the last scene of The Gipsy Girl, in which a strong earthquake and ‘happy disaster’ enable the young Gipsy, in love with his half-sister, to finally unleash his Eros: 3 7 7 Culture

Macthos began to kiss her, holding her tight within his arms, and he felt fulfilled…But Aïma lay unconscious, and the young man was stealing kisses…And those instants of fear and horror, when the world tumbled down around them, felt like a century of bliss. (I, 655, 4–21) We should not disregard the fact that this misappropriation of the Other’s intimacy follows a scene of equally covert peeping. Taking advantage of Aïma’s sleep, which the earthquake rendered a ‘convenient’ loss of consciousness, the young man—who throughout the novel never ceases to display his scopophilic tendency—gazes at the closed eyes of his beloved in a state resembling that of the narrator and sleeping Albertine in Proust’s In Search of Lost Time [À la recherché du temps perdu]: Indeed, watching his love sleeping like a lamb, sleeping calmly and innocently in the dim light is a rapturous sight for a lover; watching the rhythm of her breath is so sweet, looking at her waving chest so enviable; inhaling her sweet breath and admiring the dewdrops on her temples and the crown of blonde hair on her forehead is intoxicating. Machtos, over- joyed, sipped slowly, drop by drop, that chalice of ecstasy. (I, 652, 1–653, 8) The reader, who has not forgotten the ‘brown hair locks’ (‘καστανοὺς βοστρύχους’ II, 359, 8) of the dark-skinned gipsy girl, may feel surprised when the elated young man ‘sees’ her blonde hair, unless he empathises with the character, admitting in his heart of hearts that he too manipulates the ‘Other’ as a fetish according to his obsessions and to what Lacan terms ‘agalmata’.20 The novella, ‘The Black-scarved Woman’ (‘Ἡ Μαυρομαντηλού’), translates Pygmalion’s desire verbatim, since the novel reaches its peak when an unmarried man, ignorant of Aphrodite’s delights, passionately embraces the figure of a unfortunate woman long ago transformed into stone: He embraced her so that for once, at least, the saying ‘Two bodies in one soul’ should come true. Oh! ‘ The Black-scarved Woman’, that lonely stone heart, that statue of a maiden who had never experienced any emotion nor love, that nymph covered with oysters and shells, that unmade bed, full of pebbles, that widow with no husband, always wearing black clothes, but dry-eyed, was actually the only one to accept the hugs and kisses of my cousin, Yannios. (II, 166, 3–11). The paradoxical status of the anthropomorphic reef as a mourning mother/virgin giving shelter to the enfeebled sailor on the brink of drowning obviously echoes the Mother-Madonna of our early years, who

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still continues to live in our unconscious. Therefore, we may impute the young sailor’s indifference toward other women to his ‘mysterious bond’ (‘μυστηριώδης σύνδεσμος’ II, 160, 8) with ‘The Black-scarved Woman’, an eternally fixed image of the mother.

Gynocidal Passion It would perhaps be much more appropriate to call Papadiamantis the saint ‘serial killer’ of Greek Literature rather than the ‘Saint of Modern Greek Literature’. His generally thanatophilic literary world is filled with apparently accidental deaths of women (fiancées, parturients, and young girls) and totally or partially concealed murders, let alone the numerous instances of fantasised crimes. This structural obsession in the corpus, this last passion, may be termed gynocide. The short story, ‘Death of a Young Lady’ (‘Θάνατος Κόρης’), mainly deals with the death of a young girl about to marry, explaining that ‘what the deceased got instead of the triviality of marriage and some other hackneyed things can only be better, since there can’t be anything worse than these’ (IV, 190, 10–12); this could be construed as a trite plea against nuptials. Nonethe- less, at the end of the novel, The Gipsy Girl, as the heroin dies when struck by the statue of the Goddess Artemis just hours before her wedding, we can only guess that the real stake of this untimely death was her virginity. In the text, ‘Reverie on the Fifteenth of August’ (‘Ρεμβασμὸς τοῦ Δεκαπενταυγούστου’), the disappearance of the nubile young girl, that ‘delicate […] flower picked by the Virgin Mary and put under Her protection, before being infected by the contact of this world’s vanities’ (IV, 90, 20–21; my emphasis), may appeal more strongly to our affectivity if our emotional Ego notices that the deceased girl was conceived on Assumption Day, the feast commemorating the end of the Mother of Christ’s earthly life—probably implying a contamination of life by the germ of death. The following is thus the ‘primary scene’21 in the action: The day before yesterday, the virginal flower was cut open [ἄνοιξεν ἐρυθρόν]. Yesterday, she became a bride; the next day, a mother, a mother in childbed, a dead woman (III, 78, 21–23). Thus, maternity, the inevitable consequence of a matrimonial union, is covered in blood (‘ἄνοιξεν ἐρυθρόν’) and seen as deadly, conversely to ‘The Sweet Kiss of the Virgin’ (‘Ἡ Γλυκοφιλοῦσα’), with the ‘immaculate

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mother in childbed who has never known a man’s bed’ [‘Λεχοῦς ἀμώμου ἀνδρός μὴ γνούσης λέχος’ (III, 76, 33)], and who thus ‘embodies the highest expression of motherly affection’ (‘ἦτο ἡ καλλίστη ἔκφρασις τῆς μητρικῆς στοργῆς” III, 75, 16–17). Roman Catholics and Orthodoxies alike, whether religious or not, all cherish a mother who has never been involved in a sexual act, who never submitted to the father’s violence, a mother totally devoted to her offspring.22 The psychological benefits of reading Papadiamantis’ prose, passionately devoted to the Virgin Mary, transcend the limits of faith, language, and geography. Any reader of Papadiamantis’ masterpiece, The Murderess (Ἡ Φόνισ- σα), in which an old village woman murders a string of little girls, is eventually exposed to a feast of unconscious urges. This matriarch, plagued by numerous female progeny, rebels against the subservience extended by every new birth in the family. Her criminal deeds are progressively revealed in the text as murders of femininity in its potential fecundity, but also as extreme acts of prevention: the murderess spares her victims the bleak future of maternity and the ‘hideous’ act leading to maternity through repeating the tragic original sin that brought them to life. Hence, we find her daydream- ing, tinged with Schopenhauerian (2005) tones, on a redeeming sterility: How happy those [monks] were, those who ever since their innocent youth and who as though by some divine inspiration felt that the best thing for them to do would be not to bring other unfortunate people to life! (III, 507, 22–28; my emphasis) This pessimism is steeped in a slightly pedophilic idealism23 aimed at keeping the victims (little girls) forever in childhood or, even better, stop- ping their evolution toward the social, moral, and sexual hell of maturity. Even the first names of the two little girls, ‘Flowering’ (‘Ἀνθή’) and ‘Eternal Verdancy’ (‘Δαφνώ’24), who were cuddled and later spared by the murderess, bring to mind the floral metaphors used by the latter to express the sad bloom of femininity: ‘Krinio’, the little lily, who, alas, despite being naturally so thin and lacking the white and pink complexion of a lily, nevertheless showed signs of blooming. ‘God, how quickly they grow!’ thought Francoyannou. ‘Which garden, which meadow, which Spring produces such a plant? And how nicely they are shooting up, and growing, and sprouting leaves, and turning into

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bushes! And will all those buds, those young plants, become lawns, thickets, gardens some day? (III, 433, 15–22) Hence, the woman, like an exterminating angel, engages in precocious- ly uprooting the femininity predestined to blossom and someday bear fruit. Our inner self reacts quite intensely to the description of the little girls cuddled to death by the murderess, who, as her Christian name ‘Hadoula’ (‘χάδι’ signifying ‘caress’ in Greek) suggests, is destined to caress. And when the mother’s hugging turns into suffocating embraces, we once again experience our former anxiety of being suffocated by the ‘bad breast’25 of our ‘abject’ (pre-oedipal) mother.26 As an antidote against this worrisome resur- gence, we have the dazzling figure of the ‘manly’ spinster who abstains from the infernal circle of nuptials and reproduction and sails through life with a peaceful mind, secure in her androgynous autarky. The interchangeability of gender attributes and mixing of the sexes among almost all of the characters in The Murderess —recurrent themes in Papadiamantis’ literary microcosm—cannot leave us indifferent, the sad- ly ‘sexioned’ creatures that we are, forever nostalgic of an asexual state of primitive fusion with our mother’s body. When Plato recounts (Symposium, 189d–193d), through the voice of Aristophanes, the myth of the double human beings split into two by Zeus, who condemned them to spend their lives in search of their soul mate or other half, desperately trying to merge with their primary onanistic uniqueness, he gives a voice to a universal wish (Libis 1991), whose affective ambivalence is unevenly depicted by Papadia- mantis through his androgynous characters. The end of the chronicle of the main infanticide character leads us to move even further back in time to our self-ontogenesis. For instance, when this murderess is chased by police while trying to cross a narrow bridge to reach a small chapel to confess, the anguished woman, whose killing is an utmost attempt to obliterate the traumas of marriage and maternity resulting from the primordial trauma of her own birth,27 allows herself to drown in a way suggestive of a reverse birth. How could we refrain from following her on her journey back to the source (nostos), back to the amniotic bath where we can forget our pains, cure the wounds of our sexuality, and purify the ‘inter urinas et faeces’28 aspect of our loving?29 Is this nostalgic travel (or painful return) not the stake of enjoyment brought about by writing as well as reading?

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By way of conclusion In the narrative, ‘The Devils in the Gully’ (‘Τὰ Δαιμόνια στὸ Ρέμα’), a text deemed emblematic of Papadiamantis’ personal universe, the main character, who deserted a holy place in order to succumb to a libidinal temptation, makes the confession, ‘When I bring to mind that event of my youth, it seems to me an allegory of my whole life’, before resorting to a quotation from Dan- te: ‘Chè la diritta via era smarrita’ (‘The right path has been missed’ III, 243, 21– 27). If missing the ‘diritta via’ can be interpreted as both a failure of the metaphysical improvement sought by the author throughout his lifetime and the erotic choice of an art form—literature—teeming with tempting passions,30 it ideally summarises the structure and contents of a literary work dedicated to diverting and disguising, both of which are major conditions, according to the Freudian perspective, for the ‘preliminary (formal, aesthetic) enjoyment’, a harbinger of sensual pleasure emanating from underground sources.31 The ars poetica of this Greek ‘national’ writer therefore presumably lies in his ability to satisfy above all the polymorphic perversity of our ‘Id’, while evading the ever-watchful Cerberus of our Superego.

Notes 1 This is a famous excerpt from the introduction of the short story, ‘Cantor of Easter’ (‘Λαμπριάτικος Ψάλτης’), in which Papadiamantis himself speaks before commencing his narrative (II, 517, 1–5). The references to Papadiamantis’ texts refer to the reviewed publication of his complete works by N.D Triantafyllopoulos: Alexandros Papadiamantis, Ἅπαντα, Domos: Athens, 1981–1992). The Roman numeral refers to the volume and the subsequent Arabic numerals to the page and line(s), respectively. 2 Sixteen years ago, L. Proguidis (1997:52) quoted more than 25,000 annotations of Papadiamantis; over the last fifteen years, a real ‘Papadiamantis trend’ has led to a boom in the number of works written on his literary production. 3 This statement is found in many texts by Céline as well as in his interviews; it may therefore be used as a kind of ‘slogan’ associated with the French writer. 4 This is the subtitle appearing in a relevant essay entitled ‘L’amour de l’autre langue’ by J. Kristeva (1998:61–85). Cf. C. Dumoulié and M. Riaudel (2008). 5 Passion derives from the Latin passio < patior ‘to endure, suffer’ from the Greek πάθος ‘emotion of the soul, affected by a real-life experience, ordeal’, etymologically related to πένθος ‘mourning’ and πενθέω ‘to mourn somebody’s death’. See Lewis and Short (1975), s.v. patior; P. Chantraine (1999), s.v. πάσχω. 6 In Aristotle, πάθος is the one of the ten categories designating an ‘accident’ (συμβεβηκός, translated as accidens by the scholastics) that involves enduring an action; it therefore refers to a passive state of mind. See ATILF (2004), s.v. passion; P. Chantraine (1999), s.v. πάθος).

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7 See S. de Mijolla-Mellor (2004:102). 8 On the supremacy of the visual images in the works of Papadiamantis, see the detailed study by R. Bouchet (1983) and the chapter ‘Le désir voyeur ou l’amour ambivalent de la distance’ in N. Evzonas (2012: 36–124). 9 See, for instance, the self-referring sentences of Papadiamantis in The Black-scarved Woman’ (‘Ἡ Μαυρομαντηλού’): ‘Let no one believe that I am making up or inventing anything in this text. The resignation and the wife’s thrift and the affection of the step-mother are real facts that I saw for myself’ (II, 158, note 1). See also ‘The Poor Saint’ (‘Φτωχός Ἅγιος’), ‘I am just writing down the memories and impressions of my childhood’ (II, 211, 21–22), as well as his comment in the ‘Cantor of Easter’ used in the introductory paragraph of the present article. 10 The German term Verleugnung refers to the mental process of denying reality through sensory perception because of its traumatic contents. In Freud’s works, all the relevant examples refer to either the denial of women’s lack of a phallus or the denial of the father’s death. For the first case, see S. Freud (1909) and, for the second case, S. Freud (1927). 11 In The Gipsy Girl, Velminnis is tied to the mast of his ship, similarly to Ulysses trying to resist the Sirens’ song, although in the Odyssey, the Sirens are not fish-women, but bird-women. 12 As implied by the title, the main character peeps on his neighbors through the window located at the rear of his New York apartment. 13 ‘Πῶς τὸ τρίβουν τὸ πιπέρι / τοῦ διαβόλου οἱ καλογέροι’: these apparently inoffensive verses found in the text come from a song sung during the period of Carnival. The song describes how monks used to grind peppercorns by using the different parts of their body (tongue, hands, wrists, back, nose, knees, feet, bottom, penis…). ‘This is the way we grind peppercorns…’ is danced as a mimic circular dance, taking turns for every part of the human body; in the last verse, people used to rub their penis on the ground in a parody of the sexual act, which is why ‘the way we grind peppercorns’ is still danced at weddings in some parts of Greece. 14 This term, invented by the British psychoanalyst D. Winnicott, embraces the entirety of the ministrations provided by the mother to the infant to help assure his or her bodily needs. The ‘holding’ experience does not focus on the child’s body, but rather refers to the emotional place left between the child and mother. See D. W. Winnicott (1957). 15 See J. Lacan (1999). On jealousy as a negative counterpart of the enjoyment of the ‘Other’, see C. Dumoulié (1999:153–155). 16 This is the title of another short story by Papadiamantis (IV, 389–396). 17 Regarding the infant’s primary incapacity to satisfy his libidinal needs, which creates feelings of abandonment and despair that can only be calmed down with the intervention of the mother or an equivalent person, see S. Freud (1926). The German term describing the state of mind of a helpless child is Hilfosigkeit. 18 . The British psychoanalyst, Melanie Klein, studied and described the process of projective identification. See M. Klein and J. Riviere (1937:19–20) and, specifically on the relevance of this mechanism to the character of the lover-rival in literature and plays (1937:53). On the semiological analysis of the role of the ‘opponent’, see A.J. Greimas (2002:178–180). 19 Cf. the ‘Pygmalion Fantasy’ proposed as a full clinical entity by S. de Mijolla-Mellor (2009 260–277). 20 See J. Lacan (1991:167–182). 21 If parental sexual intercourse is perceived as lethal sadism, in a past time beyond conscious memory, one of the resulting outlets could be the rejection of the act to which we owe our existence. Papadiamantis’ work represents the model for such a reaction: any birth, except that of Christ, is castigated; any delivery, except that of the Mother of Christ, is stigmatized; fertility is rejected unless, of course, it relates to nature.

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22 On the narcisso-oedipal sources of Virgin Mary worship, see J. Kristeva (1997:65) and Th. Sebbag (2008:161–78). For a more general approach on Virgin Mary worship, see M. Warner (1976). 23 For a psychoanalytical approach to pedophilia, see S. André and G. Gosselini (2008). 24 This first name seemingly refers to the myth of the ancient nymph, Daphne. Most versions (namely, Parthenius of Nicaea and Ovid) converge on the details of her aversion to nuptials and men and to her rescue-transformation into a laurel bush just before the fatal loss of her virginity. 25 On the meaning of the ‘bad breast’, see M. Klein (1932). On the mother who strangles her baby while fulfilling the child’s fantasy of a suffocating breast, see G. Carloni and D. Nobili (1977:54). 26 On the meaning of the ‘ab-jected mother’ (mère abjecte), whereby the infant in a primary state of emotional development cannot recognize an independent external entity as an object, but only as an ab-ject, as something between outside and inside reality, as something that is both intro-jected and ab-jected, see J. Kristeva (1980). 27 Cf. the psychoanalytical theory of O. Rank (1994). 28 The Latin expression, in its exact words, ‘inter urinas et faeces nascimur’ (‘we are born between urine and excrement’), is repeated four times in the Freudian corpus to demonstrate the primitive character of human sexuality (Regarding the More General Downgrading of Sexual Life; Dora, an Analysis of Hysteria; Three Studies on the Theory of Sexuality; Civilization and Discontents). The expression is attributed to Saint Augustine, even though it was first associated with Porphyry (233–304). It was used by a great number of Latin figures before being ‘established’ by Saint Augustine in his Confessions. 29 The narrative, ‘Shores of Twilight’ (‘Τὰ Ρόδιν’Ακρογιάλια’), explicitly describes reproductive sexual intercourse as ‘making love in the dung’ (IV, 142), which summons the ancient fantasy of our cesspit birth. On this fantasy, see S. Freud (1908). 30 Cf. the words of a monk, Th. Dionyssiatis (2003:12), who admittedly made an indirect reference to literature as a deviation from the right path of religiousness and spiritual life: ‘I haven’t read any of Papadiamantis’ work since I became a monk, except for a few narratives which I ran into by chance. The monk’s attitude, as defined by his intellectual experiences, surpasses the psychological ploys of literature. But literature, despite its quality, is not for monks’. 31 As to the preliminary pleasure and its relevance to art, see S. Freud (1905–1906:303–310); for its relevance to wit, see his monograph (1905a), and for its relevance to genital enjoyment, see (1905b).

References André, S. and Gosselini, G. 2008. Qu’est-ce que la pédophilie? Brussels: Luc Pire. ATILF (Analyse et traitement informatique de la langue française: Nancy Université; CNRS) 2004. Trésor de la langue française informatisé [on line]. Available at: . Barthes, R. 1993 [1968]. ‘La mort de l’auteur’ [1967 ‘The Death of the Author’]. In Essais critiques, vol. 4. Paris: Éd. du Seuil 63–69. Barthes, R. 1982 [1973]. Le Plaisir du texte [1973 The Pleasure of the Text]. Paris: Éd. du Seuil.

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Beckett, S. 1990. Proust. Paris: Les Éd. de Minuit. Bellemin-Noël, J. 2004. Psychanalyse et Littérature. Paris: PUF. Bouchet, R. 1983. Le Guetteur invisible: Étude du regard dans l’œuvre d’Alexandre Papadiamantis. Masters’ thesis. Paris: INALCO. Carloni, G. and Nobili, D. 1977. La Mauvaise Mère: Phénoménologie et Anthropologie de l’infanticide [1973 La mamma cattiva‬: ‪fenomenologia, antropologia e clinica del figlicidio‬]. Paris: Payot. Chantraine, P. 1999. Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque. Paris: Klincksieck. Dionyssiatis, Th. 2003 [1996]. Ὁ Κοσμοκαλόγερος Παπαδιαμάντης. Athens: Papadimitriou, 2003. Dumoulié, C. 1999. Le Désir. Paris: Armand Colin. Dumoulié, C. and Riaudel, M. (eds.) 2008. Le Corps et ses Traductions. Paris: Éd. Desjonquères. Evzonas, N. 2012. Le Désir érotique dans l’œuvre d’Alexandre Papadiamantis. PhD thesis. Paris: Sorbonne University. Available at: . Freud, S. 1905a. Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious. In S.E., VIII. Freud, S. 1905b. Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. In S.E., VII:135-243. Freud, S. 1905-1906. Psychopathic Caracters on the Stage. In S.E., VII:303–310. Freud, S. 1908. On the Sexual Theories of Children. S.E., IX:209–206. Freud, S. 1909. Analysis of a Phobia in a Five-Year-Old Boy (Little Hans). In S.E., X:5–147. Freud, S. 1910. A Special Type of Choise of Object Made by Men. In S.E., XI:165–175. Freud, S., 1926. Inhibition, Symptom and Anxiety. In S.E., XX:87–172. Freud, S. 1927. Fetichism. In S E., XXI:152–157. Greimas, A.J., 2002. Sémantique structurale: Recherche de method [1966 Structural Semantics: An Attempt at a Method] Paris: PUF. Klein, M. 1932. The Psychoanalysis of Children. London: Hogarth Press. Klein, M. and Riviere, J. 1937. Love, Guilt and Reparation. London: Hogarth Press. Kristeva, J. 1980. Pouvoirs de l’horreur: Essais sur l’abjection [1982 Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection]. Paris: Ed. du Seuil. Kristeva, J. 1997. Au commencement était l’amour: Psychanalyse et Foi [1988 In the Beginning Was Love: Psychoanalysis and Faith]. Paris: Librairie Générale Française. Kristeva, J. 1998. ‘L’amour de l’autre langue’. In L’Avenir d’une révolte. Paris: Calmann- Lévy 61–85. Lacan, J. 1991. Le Séminaire, livre VIII: Le Transfert. Paris: Éd. du Seuil.

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Lacan, J. 1999. Encore: Le Séminaire, Livre XX [1998 Encore: On Feminine Sexuality, the Limits of Love and Knowledge]. Paris: Éd. Seuil. Lewis, Ch. and Short, Ch. 1975. A Latin Dictionary [on line]. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Available at: . Libis, J. 1991. Le Mythe de l’androgyne. Paris: Berg International. Mijolla-Mellor (de), S. 2004. Le Besoin de croire. Paris: Dunod. Mijolla-Mellor (de), S. 2009. Le Choix de la sublimation. Paris: PUF. Proguidis, L. 1997. La Conquête du roman: de Papadiamantis à Boccace. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Proust, M. 1988. À la recherche du temps perdu, vol. 4. Paris: Gallimard. Rank, O. 1994 [1929]. The Trauma of Birth. New York: Dover. Saunier, G. 2001. Ἑωσφόρος καὶ ἄβυσσος: Ὁ Προσωπικὸς μύθος τοῦ Ἀλἑξανδρου Παπαδιαμάντη. Athens: Agra. Schopenhauer, A. 2005 [1859]. ‘Metaphysics of Sexual Love (Supplements to the Fourth Book)’. In The World as Will and Representation. New York: Dover. Sebbag, Th. 2008. ‘Virginité, virginité. De Gaïa à Marie…’ Figures de la psychanalyse 17(1): 161–78. Warner, M. 1976. Alone of her Own Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson. Winnicott, D.W. 1957. The Child and the Family. London: Tavistock.

This article follows on from my PhD dissertation entitled ‘Le Désir érotique dans l’œuvre d’Alexandre Papadiamantis’ (‘Erotic Desire in the Works of Alexandros Papadamantis’), defended at Paris-Sorbonne University in January 2012. It originally appeared in a different form in the Freudian journal Topique (‘La voix des passions’ [‘The Voice of Passion’], 120 (2012/3):51-65), aiming, among other things, at providing a global presentation of Papadiamantis to French-speaking readers keen on psychoanalysis.

Acknowledgments Many thanks go to Ms. Hélène Paraskéva who translated the Greek passages of Papadiamantis into English and to Dr Victoria Grace who reviewed the manuscript.

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Nick N. Trakakis Australian Catholic University

Who is Kazantzakis’ God?

Abstract The work of Kazantzakis is saturated with theological language, but disagreement continues as to how such language is to be understood. In some readings, Kazantzakis is interpreted as a non-religious, or even anti-religious, writer who rejects or is skeptical towards belief in God; while other readings emphasize the deeply religious character of his writings, seeing in them a ‘post-Christian’ or postmodern development of traditional Christian concepts. Critics, however, have surprisingly neglected a promis- ing proposal, which would bring to the fore Kazantzakis’s lifelong engagement with Eastern religion. This proposal, although not denying that Ka- zantzakis was influenced by many of the streams of thought identified by others (e.g., evolutionary theory, process philosophy, apophatic theology, etc.), holds that Kazantzakis’s most fundamental commitment lay with a monistic and idealist worldview, prominent in Eastern philosophy and religious thought, which conceives reality as a unified whole that is ultimately spiritual in nature. “Be careful, avoid constructing the face of our God from what you have learned of the God of the Christians.” —Kazantzakis, letter to Fr. Emmanuel Papastephanou

It has been observed that the modern Greek novelist Nikos Kazantza- kis “uses the word ‘God’ more frequently, perhaps, than any other twenti-

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eth-century writer” (Dombrowski 1997:4).1 Even a superficial acquaintance with Kazantzakis’s oeuvre makes it plain that what Laurence Hemming has said of Heidegger applies equally well to Kazantzakis—viz., that he “‘reeks of God,’ and rarely in reading him is it possible to pass more than a few pages without a mention of God, the gods or the divine” (2009:175). But just as commentators have struggled to make sense of Heidegger’s relation to religion, so with Kazantzakis a bewildering array of interpretations has arisen, many incompatible with one another. The problem, however, is not only the wide range of sometimes conflicting readings of Kazantzakis’s views on God and religion; even more problematic and puzzling is that, on the one hand, Kazantzakis talks incessantly and devoutly about God, and yet on the other hand he is often considered by both scholars and the reading public as a thoroughly non-religious, or even anti-religious, writer—and so he is variously categorized as a religious skeptic, an atheist, a non-theist of some sort, an anti-Christian, or at best a Christian of a highly unorthodox variety. My aim in this paper is, firstly, to make some sense of this multitude of readings, offering along the way indications as to where many of them fall short; and secondly, to propose an alternative reading that has been surprisingly overlooked in the large secondary literature, one that follows clues such as the opening quote above in aligning Kazantzakis’s thought with philosophical currents in Eastern religions such as Hinduism and Bud- dhism rather than exclusively with the Abrahamic and especially Christian traditions.

Kazantzakis as atheist It has been quite common, though perhaps less so nowadays, to read Kazantzakis as an atheist. The writer’s second wife, Helen Kazantzakis (née Samiou), has given a degree of credence to this view by referring to her husband and herself as “atheists” (1968:433).2 A similar reading has been advocated by another woman who was close to the novelist, Katerina Ang- helaki-Rooke, a godchild of Kazantzakis, with whom she exchanged letters as she grew up. In the introduction to a collection of Kazantzakis’s letters that she helped translate (with Philip Ramp), published as The Suffering God: Selected Letters to Galatea and to Papastephanou, she states: “If by spirituality we mean hoping for divine supervision over creation, reward, and the preservation of the personality after death, then Kazantzakis was not spiritual.

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But if we mean the thirst for an absolute answer to the ever-unanswered questions, then he was” (1979:17). She goes on to describe the (a)theological content of Kazantzakis’s most overtly philosophical work, Salvatores Dei: Askitiki (The Saviors of God: Spiritual Exercises, first published in in 1927) in the following terms: “There is a God inThe Saviors but there is no hope; there is a believer but no object of belief…Kazantzakis made his God from atheistic elements” (18; emphasis in the original). A little later she reiterates, in somewhat paradoxical language: “He [i.e., Kazantzakis’s God] is made in the image of man and is identical to man. Kazantzakis’ God does not believe in God.” For this reason, explains Anghelaki-Rooke, “when Kazantzakis says [in The Saviors], ‘Our duty is to transubstantiate matter into spirit,’ this transubstantiation has no relation to any return of man to God but signifies man’s victory over a non-God.” In short, according to Anghelaki-Rooke, “The Saviors is not theology but a form of anthropology” (19).3 Andreas Poulakidas also reads Kazantzakis’s Spiritual Exercises as the expression of an essentially atheistic worldview. Addressing the infa- mous ending of the book, where Kazantzakis discloses (what he calls) “this great, sublime, and terrifying secret: that even this One does not exist!” Poulakidas writes: “Ultimately, he [Kazantzakis] has no theology. If, in essence, the One does not exist, then one certainly cannot speak of God, since there is no God, or nature, or man to be a God and to be saved. There is only the unlimited and deathly silent Abyss” (1975:217). In like fashion, Charles Glicksberg describes Kazantzakis as an atheist who propounded a ‘Dionysian’ (i.e., joyous and affirmative) form of nihilism. According to Glicksberg, “Kazantzakis is a fitting example of the secular saint. A religious atheist, he never gave up the quest for the innermost secret of life even after he became convinced that there was no ultimate meaning to be found” (1975:276).4 More recently, but again in a similar vein, Dimi- tris Tsiovas characterizes Kazantzakis as “a writer of extremes vacillating between intellect and instinct: at the same time a reclusive writer and a man of action, Cretan patriot and cosmopolitan traveller, god-driven intellectual and atheist” (2009:84; emphasis mine). Finally, Australian-based philosopher, Damon Young, in a short piece entitled “Faith Without God,” presents Kazantzakis as an atheist whose ultimate value is freedom. Again referencing the ending of Kazantzakis’s Saviors of God, Young explains that, for Kazantzakis, “what we are struggling for is the realisation that no God,

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nor ‘spirit of Man,’ grounds our brief mortal lives,” and he goes on to add that “In his [Kazantzakis’s] quest for the freedom of a godless, hopeless and yet brave cosmos, Kazantzakis retained his faith in one thing only: freedom itself… Kazantzakis’s faith was a faith in freedom itself” (Young 2006:69). The atheistic interpretation of Kazantzakis has also been promulgated and perpetuated by a quite different and often hostile group: the Christian community, and specifically its evangelical and fundamentalist wings, both within the Orthodox Church and beyond. Opposition to Kazantzakis’s work within ecclesiastical and theological circles began very early on in his career. In May 1930, Kazantzakis and Demetrios Glinos (the editor of Anayennisi [Renaissance], the Athenian periodical in which Askitiki was originally published) were summoned to appear in court “for sneering at religion.”5 In the latter years of Kazantzakis’s career, as his novels were attracting a wider audience and critical acclaim, sections of the church and media in Greece (and elsewhere, including the United States) reacted harshly, seeking to vil- ify him as an atheist, communist, immoralist, and decadent (see Antonakes 1996:26-27). In January 1954, the Vatican placed The Last Temptation on the Index of Forbidden Books, and in June of the same year the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece followed suit, contending that Kazantzakis’s novels undermine the teachings and scriptures of the church, and therefore advocating that his books be banned.6 Even after Kazantzakis’s death in 1957, the conflict and controversy continued. Most famously, upon Kazantzakis’s death, the Archbishop of Athens (Theokletos) caved in to conservative demands by not allowing Kazantzakis’s body to lie in state in any church in Athens. (The body was thereupon transferred to Crete, with the Archbishop of Crete giving permission for an abbreviated Orthodox funeral.) Later, the well-known iconographer Photios Kontoglou, in articles published in 1978 in a Boston newspaper, described Kazantzakis’s work as containing “irreli- gion” and “blasphemies” (see Antonakes 1996:23). One cannot also fail to mention Martin Scorsese’s film adaptation of The Last Temptation, released in 1988 amid zealous protests from church groups who were scandalized by Kazantzakis’s account of the life of Christ. Such responses, no matter how rooted they might be in irresponsible ignorance and prejudice, have served to create and reinforce an image of Kazantzakis as an anti-Christian writer who wishes to do away with traditional faith, and perhaps also any religious belief at all.

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It is worthwhile, however, to place the atheistic perception of Kazant- zakis, as endorsed by theological groups as well as secular scholars, alongside Kazantzakis’s own view of his works (which is not to say, of course, that his view necessarily is the correct or the best one). In a letter to his friend, Ioannis Konstantarakis, dated 6 June 1954, Kazantzakis stated: My most recent work, The Poor Man of God, Saint Francis, written last year, will begin to be printed in Eleftheria. Please follow it to see with what religious emotion it is written. And the priests accuse me of being an atheist! (2012b:766) It is also pertinent to highlight, as others have done, that the response from religious groups, including the Orthodox Church, has never been uniform and in particular has never been entirely negative or condemna- tory. The reception, rather, has always been mixed. Demetrios Constan- telos points out that “some of the leading Greek theologians of Kazantza- kis’s era—for example, Nikolaos Louvaris—refused to condemn him as a blasphemer. Even less liberal Greek theologians like Vassilios Moustakis, although disagreeing with the terminology Kazantzakis used to describe churchmen and Christ, advised the Synod of the Orthodox Church of Greece to be cautious and avoid the mistake of excommunicating the famous author” (1996:50). Constantelos also draws attention to the fact that Kazantzakis was never excommunicated by the Orthodox Church, although it is difficult to see what ‘excommunication’ would amount to in the case of someone, like Kazantzakis, who held no official position in the church and did not participate in its liturgical and theological life. In any case, many in the Orthodox Church, including prominent bishops and theologians, have identified close correspondences between Kazantzakis’s writings and the spiritual and doctrinal heritage of Orthodoxy, even if they do not think of Kazantzakis as ‘Orthodox’ or even ‘Christian’ in any formal or traditional sense.7 What this suggests is that at least something in Kazantzakis’s works deeply resonates with a profoundly religious sensibility. To label or even dismiss Kazantzakis as an ‘atheist’ is to therefore run the risk of missing what is perhaps the central focus of his vision.8

Kazantzakis as ‘post-Christian’ In order to bring to the fore the religious dimension of Kazantzakis’s work, while continuing to situate it within a broadly secular or at least

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non-Christian framework, scholars have discarded the limiting interpretative category of ‘atheism’ and have turned instead to a range of more fruitful and theologically-informed perspectives. One of the most prominent voices in this discussion has been Peter Bien, translator of many of Kazant- zakis’s novels and a leading commentator on these works. Introducing a recent special journal issue dedicated to Kazantzakis, drawn from a 2007 symposium celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Kazantzakis’s death, Bien sought to answer the question that was put to the symposiasts: why read Kazantzakis in the twenty-first century? (2010:1-6). Bien’s answer is that Kazantzakis remains relevant because the philosophical and religious problems he struggled with continue to bedevil us today, and because we stand to learn much from the way he responded to these problems. Bien states that, “in the Odyssey, Zorba, Christ Recrucified, The Last Temptation, and Saint Francis (but not, I would venture, in Kapetan Mihalis), he [i.e., Ka- zantzakis] examines a central problem of current and future times: how to deal with failure, how to live as though immortal in a Darwinian modern world with no afterlife, and how to give eternal significance to a life that lacks any realistically eternal dimension” (2010:4). As the emphasis here on contingency and transience makes clear, Kazantzakis is committed, in Bien’s view, to a naturalistic view of reality, according to which all that exists is the natural world and its inhabitants, so that supernatural entities such as gods and ghosts are eliminated as non-existent. This is the position, as one of its leading philosophical proponents (David Armstrong) formulates it, “that nothing but Nature, the single, all-embracing spatio-temporal system, exists” (1978:138). Bien thus describes Kazantzakis as a ‘romantic naturalist,’ and he explains that, “By naturalist here, I mean a person who believes that being and nature are identical, hence that everything supernatural—including any teleological explanation of the ultimate purpose of being—must be rejected” (2007:xi). Note, however, the qualifier romantic: this connotes (according to Bien) a “yearning for transcendence” and a “refusal to accept limitation,” as against the classical ideals of restraint and rationality (2007:xi). One might say, then, that it is Kazantzakis’s romanticism that infuses his naturalism with the distinct religiosity that marks nearly every page of his books. The conception of God that results is one that Bien calls ‘post-Christian’: although indebted in significant ways to the Christian tradition within which

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Kazantzakis was raised and educated, the supernatural superstructure of the Abrahamic faiths is replaced with a naturalist outlook informed by the evolutionary theory of Darwin and the philosophical vitalism of Bergson. The Bergsonian influence is particularly (and rightly) emphasized by Bien, who notes that Kazantzakis’s thinking about God was largely modeled on his former teacher’s concept of the ‘élan vital’—a pure energy or life-direct- ing principle, forever surging upward toward novel expressions of creativity, postulated by Bergson as that which fundamentally accounts for the evolution of all living species. Led by the religious overtones of Bergson’s account of the vital impetus and the evolutionary path it creates, Kazantza- kis does not hesitate to divinize these biological drives and processes. For Kazantzakis, as Bien explains, God just is Creative Evolution: “Seen monis- tically, god is the entire evolutionary process: the primordial essence that first wills its own congealment into life and then wills the unmaking of that creative action” (1989:38, emphasis in the original). Bien interprets Kazantzakis’s Odyssey and his major novels as incar- nating in poetic and narrative form this Bergsonian view of God. Speaking of the Odyssey, for example, Bien holds that, “The epic attempts to portray the entire cosmic situation as the life force’s evolutionary journey through matter in a creative process that unmakes itself, transubstantiating matter into spirit” (1989:193). Odysseas’s view, in the epic, is that “god is not encountered at the end of life’s journey but is with us at all stages of that journey—indeed is the journey” (Bien 1989:199). In line with this, the Odyssey presents us with the idea that “the absolute is not the concluding abyss but the entire cycle bringing us repeatedly from one dark abyss to another across the luminous interval called life; it is, as always, the élan vital” (Bien 1989:199). Even in earlier works, such as the plays Comedy, Christ, and Nicephorus Phocas, Bien detects a pattern that was to become standard in Kazantzakis’s later work: the use of Christian concepts and symbols for the sake of ‘meta-Christian’ purposes. Nicephorus Phocas is therefore read as “a meta-Christian spectacle of how a God inherent in matter thrusts matter into the struggle to undo itself and thereby to produce Spirit” (2007:403; see also Bien 2007:411-420). Most importantly, belief in an afterlife is rejected, and death is viewed not in a Christian manner (as the gateway to eternity), but in meta-Christian or Bergsonian terms as “the overcoming of matter…the ultimate act willed by matter itself in its upward élan toward self-overcoming” (Bien 2007:418).

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Kazantzakis’s religious and philosophical development was by no means straightforward, progressing from childhood piety to the renunciation of faith (under the influence of scientific theory), the critique of science also, and the discovery of Bergson, even a brief reversion to traditional faith (including a stay on Mt Athos in 1914), before making (by 1922) a complete turnabout and subscribing to a form of communism (see Bien 2007: 394- 397). Eventually, the outlook Kazantzakis was to adopt incorporated aspects of all these philosophies and ideologies, and what remained constant was the innovative way he folded Christian concepts within a naturalist and Bergsonian framework. This, at least, is Bien’s influential reading, which sees Kazantzakis as not entirely anti-Christian nor wholly Christian, but ‘meta-Christian,’ someone who seeks to reconfigure traditional Christian concepts in creative and possibly heterodox ways. Bien is correct to point to the ways in which Kazantzakis goes beyond the Christian faith, but it is questionable whether he is correct to impute the belief in naturalism to Kazantzakis. Other commentators, as will be seen in the following section, agree with Bien that Kazantzakis is not an outright atheist or a standard theist, but they prefer to read him as a ‘panentheist,’ panentheism (literally, ‘all is in God’) being the view that God is immanent within all creation, while at the same time transcending the physical world. Bien seems to allow for this reading, as when he writes of Kazantzakis: “I would say that at no time in his mature life was he without some form of theistic (more accurately, panentheistic) belief: faith in an infinite force inherent in matter—that is, belief in transcendence-within- immanence” (2007:397). Bien, however, is careful to locate transcendence within immanence: the infinite or transcendent emerges from, and is dependent upon, the finite and physical world. The reading I wish to propose reverses this schema, rendering the transcendent fundamental and all else derivative. But this will have to wait for the final section of this paper, and in the meantime I will turn to recent developments of the panentheist reading of Kazantzakis.9

Kazantzakis as process theist One of the leading varieties of panentheism in contemporary philosophy of religion is “process theism,” and the process view has recently become a prominent interpretive lens for gaining a richer appreciation of Ka-

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zantzakis’s ideas on God. The principal proponents of process philosophy and theology have been Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) and Charles Hartshorne (1897-2000), though forerunners include thinkers such as Teil- hard de Chardin and Henri Bergson, who were greatly influenced by evolutionary theory. In outline, process philosophy upholds a Heraclitean metaphysics, where process or becoming is more ultimate than permanence or being. Thus, the categories of change, creativity, and temporality assume foundational status in process metaphysics, and being is seen as only an abstraction of becoming. On this view, the basic units of the world or the most concrete real entities are not substances or enduring individuals, but ‘processes’ or momentary events that Whitehead called “actual entities… drops of experience, complex and interdependent” (1978:18). When this metaphysics is taken in a theological direction, a way of thinking about God results that diverges significantly from traditional or classical theistic conceptions. Process theists, in particular, highlight the one-sided, ‘monopolar’ nature of classical theism, where God is in all respects creator, active, infinite, eternal, necessary, independent, immutable, and impassible, and is in no respects created, passive, finite, temporal, contingent, dependent, mutable, or passible. The assumption underlying this view is that these two poles or sets of metaphysical properties are mutually exclusive, or form an ‘invidious contrast.’ As Charles Hartshorne and Wil- liam Reese explain what they call ‘the doctrine of the invidious nature of cat- egorical contrasts,’ “One pole of each contrary is regarded as more excellent than the other, so that the supremely excellent being cannot be described by the other and inferior pole” (2000:2). Classical theism therefore inherits the long-standing philosophical prejudice of valuing being over becoming and assuming that perfection must be static or unchanging: any change can only be a move away from or a move towards perfection, in which case a perfect being (God) has no need to change. Whitehead, Hartshorne, and other process theists jettison this view of God, replacing it with a ‘dipolar’ (or ‘neoclassical’) version of theism. Challenging the assumption that God can only exemplify one of the two attributes in a pair of metaphysical contraries (such as necessary-contingent, timeless-temporal), process theists defend the principle of the non-invidi- ousness of metaphysical contraries (see Hartshorne 1970:268).10 According to this principle, contrasting metaphysical pairs are not related as superior to

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inferior; rather, each pole in such pairs has valuable and admirable elements as well as inferior and deficient aspects. Regarding the being-becoming contrast, for example, some forms of change or becoming are defective (e.g., when change entails a movement towards evil or immorality), but other manifestations of change can be regarded as good or superior (e.g., those which involve a loving and sensitive responsiveness to the sufferings of others). Now, if metaphysical contraries can in this way be complementary and non-invidious, and if (following Anselm) God is conceived as an absolutely perfect being (or ‘the being than which none greater can be conceived’), then it follows that God must be understood not in monopolar terms but as dipolar, exemplifying the most admirable forms of both pairs of metaphysical contrasts. In other words, all expressions of excellence must be ascribed to God, including those found on either side of a non-invidious contrast. This is why the classical (e.g., the Aristotelian and Thomistic) notion of God as an ‘unmoved mover,’ where God lacks the capacity to change, to participate in the evolving universe he has created, and to be affected by the joys and sorrows of his creatures, strikes process theists as a religiously impoverished understanding of God, for it overlooks what is best and most valuable in temporality and contingency. In contrast to classical theism, therefore, Hartshorne (1997:6, 39) holds that “God is the most and best moved mover,” and Whitehead (1978:351) depicts God as “the great companion—the fellow-sufferer who understands.” Darren Middleton and Daniel Dombrowski have led the charge in reading Kazantzakis along these process lines. Both emphasize, to begin with, that Kazantzakis is not an atheist or unbeliever, at least in any straightforward sense. In his 1997 book, Kazantzakis and God, Dombrowski con- tends that “Kazantzakis’s antipathy to the traditional view of God in the Abrahamic religions often leads him to give the impression that he does not believe in God, but I will show that a more defensible view is that Ka- zantzakis does believe in God, but what he means by ‘God’ is something that is very often heterodox from the traditional point of view” (1997:2). Middleton’s 2007 study of Kazantzakis, Broken Hallelujah, takes a similar stance, portraying Kazantzakis as a “believing skeptic,” someone who early on lost his faith in Christianity and embarked for the remainder of his life on a deep religious quest (2007:1-4). Given Kazantzakis’s skepticism, Mid- dleton acknowledges that “It would be stretching the point either to label

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Kazantzakis Christian or to think of him as a theologian” (2007:6). Even if Kazantzakis cannot be categorized as a Christian (in a narrow or traditional sense), Middleton argues that Kazantzakis should be seen as a profoundly religious writer who worked within a broadly Christian context and even accepted some sort of belief in God, which Middleton aligns with ‘panentheism’: “In time Kazantzakis spoke, and frequently, of a transhistorical referent of experience, some presence matching the word ‘God,’ yet he pictured it panentheistically and not theistically. Such panentheism…describes God as the circumambient reality including all things” (2007:2).11 Echoing the title of his book, Middleton goes on to express his central thesis as follows: “while Kazantzakis may not be claimed for Christianity, because he was a believing skeptic throughout his life, he nonetheless thrummed to its major themes and personalities. In short, Kazantzakis sang broken hallelujahs” (2007:3).12 Kazantzakis’s broken hallelujahs, according to Middleton and Dombrowski, sound distinctly panentheist, delivered in the key of process theology. The traditional theist view, as noted earlier, has been that God is impassible and immutable, this resting upon the Platonist assumption that perfection entails changelessness. Influenced by Bergson’s evolutionary philosophy, however, Kazantzakis rejected this traditional view, affirming instead a dynamic, struggling, fiery, and passionate God. Relying primarily on the Spiritual Exercises, Dombrowski is careful to point out that Kazant- zakis’s conception of God is not just another monopolar version of theism, where God is this time a purely immanent God of becoming (rather than a God of pure being) (see Dombrowski 1997:70-72). Despite this being a common reading of Kazantzakis,13 Dombrowski argues that Kazantzakis also accepted an unchanging, eternal, and transcendent aspect of God— thus making him a genuinely dipolar theist. Nevertheless, it is their shared belief in divine mutability and passi- bility that distinguishes Kazantzakis and process theists from their classical counterparts. The notion of an evolving and suffering God is, as Middleton states (2007:62), “part of a once-lost-but-recently-reclaimed aspect of the Christian tradition,” and Kazantzakis and process theologians sought to rediscover and renew it: Where Kazantzakis speaks of God as part of the evolutionary process, actively involved within our world and affected by its events, sometimes to

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the point of needing and agitating us to help God advance in time, process theologians emphasize how God stirs the creative advance with initial vocational aims designed to optimize fulfillment for subjective becoming. (Middleton 2007:92) Kazantzakis expresses this point provocatively when saying that we are called to be ‘the saviors of God’ by transubstantiating matter into spirit. But this theme Middleton also finds in process theology. For example, in the philosophy of Lewis Ford just as much as in the novels of Kazantzakis, “we work with God to develop the creative advance and contribute to the richness of the divine experience. God saves us, then, and we save God” (Middleton 2007:87). This soteriological vision is thus underwritten by a relational view of reality, where salvation is “a dialogical endeavor” involving “the positive interplay between our freedom and divine agency” (90). Indeed, for Middleton, the idea that we can contribute to and enrich the divine life and even ‘save’ God is one that “unites the distinctive writings of Kazantzakis and Whitehead” (75) and “can serve to call us to a faith that is adventurous and risky (77).14 There is much to be said for the process interpretation of Kazantza- kis, and there are undoubtedly close correspondences between Kazantza- kis’s view of God and that of process theologians. However, the process reading is limited in certain respects, the first of which has to do with the fact that Kazantzakis was not acquainted with the works of Whitehead and Hartshorne. Attributing the process view to Kazantzakis might therefore seem anachronistic, in which case the process reading is more of a creative appropriation of Kazantzakis than a faithful interpretation. Dombrowski responds to this charge by noting that, even if Kazantzakis was not aware of Whitehead and Hartshorne, “he was very much familiar with another process theist, Bergson. And dipolar, process theism is as old as Plato” (1997:72). Both Middleton and Dombrowski further point to precedents in Christian theology, with Dombrowski noting “certain oddities in the Christian tradition itself” (e.g., the traditional Christian belief that God is immutable and yet knows and loves the world) as also possibly leading Kazantzakis towards the process view (Dombrowski 1997:74; Middleton 2007:62-66). These are contentious matters of historical influence, and there is not the space to investigate them here. But even if Dombrowski is correct in

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identifying Kazantzakis’s sources of influence, these sources (including the writings of Plato and Bergson) offer only a rudimentary version of dipolar theism, far removed from the systematic detail one finds in later process thinkers. Kazantzakis’s inspiration, therefore, largely remains a mystery. A more significant limitation in the process reading is the emphasis it places on dipolarity in Kazantzakis’s thinking. In the final section of the paper I will argue that Kazantzakis’s most fundamental commitment was to a form of monism that overcomes any such dualism.

Kazantzakis as postmodern Another increasingly prominent way of reading Kazantzakis’s language about God is by way of postmodern philosophy and theology. The theoretical basis of postmodernism was first worked out in France in the late 1960s and early 1970s, particularly in the writings of Jacques Derrida, Jean-François Lyotard, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Jean Baudrillard, and Luce Irigaray, before being transplanted to other parts of the world. Considered negatively, postmodern philosophy stands in opposition to modern philosophy as inaugurated by Locke and Descartes in the seven- teenth century and culminating in the work of Enlightenment thinkers such as Kant and the French philosophes in the eighteenth century. A central tenet of modern philosophy is ‘metaphysical realism,’ the view that there is an objective world or mind-independent reality, and that there are facts regarding the nature of the world that hold true irrespective of the beliefs and investigative techniques of human beings. Against this, postmodern philosophers often subscribe to ‘anti-realism,’ the view that there is no objective, mind-independent reality, and what passes as ‘reality’ is nothing but a social or conceptual construct. Further, if there is no objective reality, there can be no (objective) truth corresponding to that reality. Or, as postmoderns like to say, the truth is that there is no (capitalized, absolute) Truth. Even the very distinction between truth and falsity is questioned, and indeed all binary oppositions that initially appear fixed are revealed to be permeable and unstable. As a result, the logic of identity (evident in the Hegelian dialectic where two terms in an opposition—e.g., being/nonbeing, speech/writing—are synthesized to produce a new, higher unity) is replaced with a logic of difference, where diversity and heterogeneity are celebrated.

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In line with the emphasis on difference, the modern (e.g., Cartesian) notion of a universal and timeless subject that has a permanent identity or essence gives way to the idea of historically embedded, malleable, and fragmented subjectivities. This, of course, is only a very minimal sketch of some central ideas found in postmodern philosophy, but they have often been applied to religious concerns, giving rise to a variety of postmodern theologies. Fol- lowing Merold Westphal’s useful typology, postmodern theology or philosophy of religion tends to be expressed in one, or a combination, of the following forms: negative theology, Nietzschean ‘death of God’ theology, and phenomenological approaches (see Westphal 1998:583-586). Firstly, then, one of the wellsprings of postmodern theology has been the negative or apophatic tradition, which insists on the radical transcendence, incom- prehensibility, and ineffability of God. Amongst postmodern thinkers, apophaticism functions as a way to overcome idolatrous ways of talking about God that are inscribed or restricted by the categories of philosophy (such as ‘presence,’ ‘cause,’ ‘being,’ etc.). A second stream in postmodern religious thought has been the ‘death of God’ movement that arose in American theology in the 1960s. Taking their lead from Nietzsche’s famous parable of the madman (in The Gay Science §125), theologians such as Gabriel Vaha- nian, Paul van Buren, William Hamilton, and Thomas J. J. Altizer advocated a radically new, ‘post-Christian’ theology that sought to overturn or secu- larize traditional Christian doctrine. More recently, Mark C. Taylor blended this Nietzschean motif with deconstruction, which he introduced in his landmark work Erring: A Postmodern A/theology as “the ‘hermeneutic’ of the death of God” (1984:6). In Taylor’s deconstructive a/theology, the traditional polarity between belief and unbelief is destabilized so as to allow for previously neglected dimensions of the divine to appear within the space of undecidability signified by the slash in ‘a/theology,’ and in this way to finally transcend the nihilism that the death of God inevitably brings. A third major influence on postmodern philosophy of religion has been the phenomenology of Husserl and Heidegger, and particularly its appropriation by a group of theologically-motivated French phenomenologists, including Emmanuel Levinas, Michel Henry, and Jean-Luc Marion. As this indicates, postmodernism need not be atheistic or inimical to religion: if modernism involved a process of secularization, postmodernity

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is marked by a return to God or an awakening of a new experience of the divine—hence the adoption of such terms as ‘post-secular’ and ‘anatheism’ (see Kearney 2010).15 It might be tempting, therefore, to read such a postmodern reclamation of God back into Kazantzakis, viewing him as moving beyond both the premodern religious naïveté of our ancient and medieval forebears and the suspicion and skepticism of the disillusioned modern world, in this way creating the space for new images of God to be constructed. Recent commentators, in fact, have advocated such a postmodern reading of Kazantzakis, restricting themselves to the first and second forms of postmodern theology outlined above. I will return to apophaticism in the next section; also, I will not touch upon phenomenological approaches, given that neither classical phenomenology nor the recent ‘theological turn’ in phenomenology have made an impact on Kazantzakis scholarship (despite the interesting possibilities phenomenological readings might afford). In- stead, I will concentrate on the second (Nietzschean) strand, particularly as it has been developed under the impetus of Derridean deconstruction. A number of calls have recently been made to read Kazantzakis as a precursor of postmodern trends and sensibilities. Dimitris Tziovas, for example, has argued that Kazantzakis’s work is best interpreted not through the lens of ‘being,’ where this is understood as “an eternal essence or a structure to be recovered and as a truth or god to be discovered,” but by way of the postmodern notion of ‘becoming,’ which is “associated with struggle, freedom and an open-ended process, representing the constant quest and the transcendence of limits” (2009:84). Tziovas therefore proposes a new way of reading Ka- zantzakis’s novels, one that passes “from the ontology of being to the contingency of becoming,” so as “to see his novels as open and dynamic texts rather than closed and static ones” (87). This openness manifests itself in the way in which Kazantzakis handles the antitheses that loom large in his work (e.g., spirit-matter, freedom-death, Zorba-Boss). In Tziovas’s view, Kazantzakis does not seek a final reconciliation of these dualities in an eventual synthesis, but rather allows them to remain in perpetual tension, thus giving his works their open-ended nature. But this is openness of a specifically postmodern sort, entailing ceaseless flux and becoming, and ruling out (the modernist ideals of) teleology, unity, and certainty: Becoming in Kazantzakis should not be seen in terms of development, evolution or maturity, but as an inconclusive process of re-inventions,

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transgressions, retellings and even contradictions. At one time it might have been treated as a struggle, a creative progress, or the hope of ultimately reaching a higher spiritual goal. Now becoming is seen as lacking a goal and the emphasis is on open-endedness, relativity and ambiguity. (Tziovas 2009:88) Not only determinate endings, but also seemingly fixed meanings and truths are challenged and destabilized by Kazantzakis, as highlighted in the following passage quoted by Tziovas from the ‘fictional autobiography,’ Re- port to Greco: I swaggered as I wrote. Was I not God, doing as I pleased, transubstantiating reality, fashioning it as I should have liked it to be—as it should have been? I was joining truth and falsehood indissolubly together. No, there were no longer any such things as truth and falsehood; everything was a soft dough which I kneaded and rolled freely, according to the dictates of whim, without securing permission from anyone. Evidently there is an uncertainty which is more certain than certitude itself.16 (Quoted in Tsiovas 2009:90) As Tziovas comments: “In postmodern fashion, Kazantzakis questions the ontological solidity of reality (being) and perceives it as a subjective creation (becoming). Following Nietzsche he declares: ‘The world is my own creation. Everything, both visible and invisible, is a deceptive dream’” (2009:90).17 The boundaries between fact and fiction therefore dissolve, and truth becomes, as in the words of Nietzsche, “a mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms…truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that this is what they are” (1954:46-47). Operating with such a conception of truth, Kazantzakis narrates worlds that are never straight- forwardly factual (even in his so-called ‘autobiography’), nor simply false, but are instead fluid and indeterminate—and it is this open-endedness, according to Tziovas, that might account for the continuing appeal of Kazant- zakis’s works in our postmodern era.18 Connections between Kazantzakis’s works and postmodern philosophy have also been made by Galanopoulos (2010:7-37)19 and Middleton (2007:ch. 6 and conclusion), the latter describing Kazantzakis as a post- humous or untimely writer who, like Nietzsche, “foresaw much of what we now recognize as the postmodern turn, not in literary forms of course, but in philosophy and religion. Both thinkers attended to life’s evanescence,

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intuition’s strength, language’s polysemy, storytelling’s persistence, and interpretation’s malleability” (Middleton 2007:102). Without wishing to downplay these points of ‘philosophical consanguinity,’ as Middleton calls them, there are significant limitations to the postmodern reading, and here I can only indicate some of these. As noted earlier, the Nietzschean strand of postmodern theology takes the death of God as paving the way for a secular or humanistic brand of Christianity, which Middleton ties to Lloyd Geering’s proposal of ‘Christian- ity without God’ (to borrow the title of one of Geering’s books). What Geer- ing is specifically proposing is a Christianity released from commitment to realist forms of theism, which take God to be an ontologically independent, supernatural, and objectively existing entity. In their place, Geering defends ‘theological non-realism,’ where ‘God’ functions as a symbol of our most important moral and spiritual values. According to Middleton, “a similar humanistic Christianity permeates Kazantzakis’s life and career,” a view he suggests is supported by Kazantzakis’s rejection of conventional theism due to its perceived incompatibility with modern science (2007:111). At least one problem with Middleton’s reading is that it conflicts with other things Middleton says about Kazantzakis—and especially Middleton’s view that Kazantzakis develops a form (albeit a nascent form) of process theology. Process theism has not usually been developed in a secular, humanistic, or non-realist direction (although, admittedly, there is no theoretical obsta- cle in doing so). Insofar as the variety of process theology that Middleton is operating with is realist and non-secular (which it seems to be), there is an internal tension in his reading of Kazantzakis. Secondly, it is doubtful that Kazantzakis accepted the kind of secular and non-realist theism espoused by Geering. The rejection of or skepticism towards traditional (realist, su- pernaturalist) theism does not equate to a commitment to theological non- realism, but may instead be a preliminary step towards an unconventional and indeed non-Christian, though resolutely realist and non-naturalist, version of theism. (It is this relatively unexplored possibility I will take up in the last section of the paper.) A more serious weakness with postmodern accounts of Kazantzakis is that many of the central ideas that postmodern thinkers want to oppose or transcend form the very nucleus of Kazantzakis’s worldview. Il- lustrative examples, though by no means a comprehensive list, include:

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(i) incredulity towards metanarratives, or all-inclusive, overarching ideologies or systems; (ii) the attempt to overcome onto-theology, this being Heidegger’s term for referring to a long-standing metaphysical tradition (with Aristotle and Hegel as high points) that strives to render the whole realm of beings intelligible to human understanding, and does so by appeal to the supreme being, God;20 (iii) the rejection of knowledge and truth, at least when knowledge is considered a matter of accurate representation, and truth consists in correspondence to reality or the way things really are; and (iv) suspicion towards claims of progress, particularly the Enlighten- ment belief in human progress and emancipation, and teleological schemes such as those of Hegel and Marx, which hold that history is moving towards some predetermined higher end. It is not possible to show in any detail here how these postmodern ideas or attitudes conflict with Kazantzakis’s works, but it may be worth considering, in relation to each of the above, that: (i) early on, Kazantzakis sought a “theory of the cosmos and of humanity’s raison d’être” (Kazantzakis 2012a:39), which he constructed in large part from materials by Bergson, and which guided and framed his subsequent creative work; (ii) Kazantzakis consistently upheld ‘God’ (albeit in his idiosyncratic understanding of the term) as the interpretative key for unlocking the secrets of reality, this contributing to the perception of Kazantzakis as a profoundly religious thinker; (iii) Kazantzakis’s medium of expression is literary, not propositional, but this does not lead him to abandon all distinctions between truth and falsehood in favor of a perpetual open-endedness and undecidability, as claimed by Tziovas, but rather brings him to a metaphysical vision of a unified whole (to be elaborated in the following section); and (iv) despite coming to reject any simple or linear claims to progress (as in Marxism), Kazantzakis’s fictional heroes embody the teleological principle of spiritual ‘ascent,’ a passionate leap upward in the struggle to transmute matter into spirit.

Kazantzakis as idealist I do not wish to deny that points of influence or similarity can be identified between Kazantzakis’s writings and each of the foregoing streams of thought (atheistic materialism, process philosophy, postmodern theology, etc.). What I wish to propose, however, is that Kazantzakis’s conception of the divine (especially in his most mature and productive period: the last

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ten years of his life, during which time he wrote his major novels) can also be understood as an expression (a ‘mythopoesis’) of the metaphysical view known as Absolute Idealism. By seeing Kazantzakis’s God in idealist light, Kazantzakis’s interactions with and indebtedness to Eastern religion, and especially Buddhism, become more apparent. Surprisingly, these connections between Kazantzakis’s work and Eastern thought form a significant lacuna in contemporary scholarship,21 and part of my aim here is to take a small step towards rectifying this. It will be helpful, to begin with, to sketch the history and metaphysics of idealism, as it has developed in both West and East. In the modern West, idealism came into prominence as a movement in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in German philosophy. Rejecting Kant’s de- limitation of metaphysics, philosophers such as Fichte, Schelling, Schopen- hauer, and above all Hegel sought to reinvigorate metaphysics, principally through the development of systems of ‘absolute idealism.’ In the idealist view, the most basic or ultimate reality is ‘mind’ or ‘spirit’—everything else, including matter and the physical world, is only an appearance or expression of mind. For the German idealists, this ultimate reality is the ‘Abso- lute,’ that which has an unconditioned existence (not conditioned by, or dependent upon, anything else), and is usually deemed to be the whole of things, conceived as unitary, spiritual, self-knowing, and rationally intelligible. An important successor of this idealist movement was the British form of idealism that held sway in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and included such philosophers as F. H. Bradley, T. H. Green, Edward Caird, J. M. E. McTaggart, and Bernard Bosanquet. Turning away from the naturalism, utilitarianism, and empiricism characteristic of British philosophy (e.g., the work of Hume), the British idealists held that physical objects and the subjective points of view of conscious individuals stand in a system of ‘internal relations’ called the ‘Absolute.’ Although in Anglophone philosophy idealism would not survive the hostile turn taken early in the twentieth century against metaphysics, the idealist view remains a venerable part of certain streams of Buddhism and Hinduism. For example, the Indian tradition of Yogacara (Sanskrit: ‘Prac- tice of Yoga’) is a leading proponent of idealism within Mahayana Bud- dhism. Founded in the fourth or fifth century A.D. by the Indian philosopher Asanga and his half-brother Vasubandhu, the Yogacara school disavows realism,

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or the commonsense belief in an independently existing world. As Peter Harvey explains, “in the Yogācāra, the role of the mind in constructing the world is so emphasized that all concepts of an external physical reality are rejected: the perceived world is seen as ‘representation-only’ (vijñapti-mātra) or ‘thought- only’ (citta-mātra)” (1990:106).22 All that really exists is awareness or consciousness (vijñāna), an inconceivable and ineffable ‘emptiness’ that transcends customary dualistic divisions. For the Yogacarin, then, emptiness is not merely the lack of an intrinsic or unconditioned nature (as the Madya- maka school holds), but designates (to quote from Stephen Laumakis) “the original or natural state of the mind in which there is no dualistic distinction between the knower and the known or the perceiving subject and the perceived object” (2008:146). Ultimate reality, within this view, is an undifferentiated consciousness, empty of any duality. A similar non-dual view can be found in the Advaita Vedanta tradition of Hinduism. The wider Vedanta school constitutes the most influential of the six ‘orthodox’ Hindu systems (darsana) of philosophy, and it is divided amongst its members on how to interpret the relation that exists between the atman (self) and Brahman (Ultimate Reality) as this is depicted in the philosophically-oriented thought of the Upanishads. The interpretation of this relation given by Shankara (or Sankaracarya [‘Samkara the Teacher’], in the early eight century; traditionally A.D. 788-820) and the school that developed in his wake centered on the notion of ‘a-dvaita,’ meaning (in San- skrit) ‘non-dual’ and referring to the tradition’s monism, the belief that there are no separate things, so that reality consists in a unified whole. The Advaita school therefore rejects all duality, identifies Brahman with our true and unchanging self or atman (as distinct from our ‘empirical self’), and takes Brahman to be the sole reality. The role of the ‘Absolute’ in German and British idealism is here played by Brahman: a pure undifferentiated consciousness that is the ultimate foundation and goal of all existence. Only by ‘realizing’ or awakening to one’s identity with Brahman and the non-dual nature of reality can release or liberation (moksa) be achieved from the cycle of birth and rebirth (samsara). Of the many connections that could be made between these forms of idealism and Kazantzakis’s work, I wish to focus briefly on the shared commitment to monism. Perhaps the greatest influence on Kazantzakis’s monism has been Bergson, though another significant but neglected source of

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influence is the idealist philosophy of Hegel. Bergson’s influence on this score, as in many other areas, is well documented. Middleton and Bien, for instance, point out that although Darwinian evolutionary theory may have initially undermined Kazantzakis’s religious faith, it also drove Kazantzakis towards a Bergsonian and monistic outlook: Darwinism…set him [i.e., Kazantzakis] on the road toward a relational philosophy in which, viewing ourselves as bound up with the processes of nature and history, we realize that “there is no such thing as ‘me,’ ‘you,’ and ‘he’; everything is a unity.”23 (Middleton and Bien 1996:3) The ‘relational philosophy’ spoken of here is, of course, that of Berg- son. Initially at least, Bergson seems far removed from monism, as his philosophy is pervaded by various stark dualisms: there are two kinds or sources of knowledge (analysis and intuition); there are two forms of time (scientific or clock time and ‘duration,’ la durée); there are two kinds of morality and religion (those that are open, universal, and dynamic, and those that are closed, local, and static), etc.24 Bergson, however, privileges one of the terms in these oppositions, taking the other as derivative and defective, and thus he can be seen as advocating a form of monism. With respect to time, for example, Bergson holds that it is somewhat falsified when it is measured objectively as a set of discrete moments or instants (as happens in ‘clock time’), while its true nature can only be intuited or experienced as a continuous and essentially indivisible stream (what Bergson calls ‘duration’). More generally, our intellect, guided by our needs, habitually employs the methods of analysis and abstraction to impose stability and homogeneity on the incessant motion of life and its evolution, which can be immediately accessed only by means of ‘intuition’—a kind of intellectual sympathy involving direct participation in, or identification with, the other. It was in such terms that Kazantzakis presented Bergson to the members of the Educational Society in Athens, in January 1913, after having attended Bergson’s lectures in Paris in 1907-1908. In a spirited overview and defense of Bergson’s philosophy, Kazantzakis explained that Bergson does not regard matter and energy dualistically, but rather holds to the monist view that matter is a congealed form of energy: Matter and energy are substantially one and the same; there is no dualism. Matter is simply energy’s condensation, its stable equilibrium.25 (Kazantzakis 1983:280)

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As is well known, Bergson’s dualistic battle between the vital impulse (élan vital) and materiality takes on momentous significance in Kazantza- kis’s fiction, with its recurring depictions of the struggle between the divine call to surge upward toward life and creativity, and the forces pushing downward toward death and stagnation. In Kazantzakis’s view, however, the élan and materiality are not separate in Bergson’s system; rather, matter is only the congealed aspect of the élan’s own substance, thus underscoring the monist tendencies within Bergson’s dualist perspective. Influenced by Bergson, monism came to be one of Kazantzakis’s most deeply held convictions. Consider, for example, the summary Kazantzakis gave of his philosophy in a ‘symposium’ held on the eve of his departure from Alexandria in February 1927 (and recorded in his Egypt journal): I am a monist. I feel deeply that Matter and Spirit are one. Within me I feel only one essence. However, when I am forced to express myself as I am tonight, and formulate this essence, I am forced, naturally, to express myself with words, that is to say, with logic. Consequently, following the nature of logic, I am compelled to separate what by nature is inseparable. And since human senses are limited, out of all the infinite, probable aspects or sources, if you will, of reality, I distinguish only two: that which we call Matter and that which we call Spirit.26 (Kazantzakis 1975:78-79) Reality is ultimately one, and it is divided into parts only by our use of language and logic, which “separate what by its nature is inseparable.” The monist vision of ‘an indestructible unity behind the ceaseless flux’ (to borrow from the end of The Saviors of God; see Kazantzakis 1960:13027) was to inform Kazantzakis’s entire life and work, as Bien observes: On the one hand he [i.e., Kazantzakis] laments the anticommunist atmosphere in Greece [around 1928]; on the other he scorns the communists themselves. As always in Kazantzakis’s personality as well as in his works, we are forced to confront this bewildering conjunction of opposites: his “positions” are not positions but temporary shifts of emphasis—swings toward either pole of a duality explicable only in terms of his deepest allegiance, which was to Bergsonian monism. (Bien 1989:129) Bergson, however, might not be the only philosopher Kazantzakis was drawing upon when formulating his monist worldview. Another, and relatively unacknowledged, source may well have been Hegel’s idealism.28

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In particular, what Kazantzakis calls the ‘Cretan Glance’ bears much in common with Hegel’s dialectical process of Aufheben (sublation), where antitheses are overcome by ‘raising them up’ into a new totality or whole, while preserving elements from each of the opposing pairs. One of the few scholars to have alluded to this, but without explicitly naming Hegel, is Kimon Friar. In his Introduction to his translation of Kazantzakis’s Odyssey, Friar emphasizes the synthetic—or what might be called ‘monistic’—outlook permeating Kazantzakis’s writings: “Basic to all of Kazantzakis’s vision, as to that of Yeats, has been the attempt to synthesize what seem to be contraries, antitheses, antinomies” (Friar 1958:xviii). Borrowing from Yeats, Friar portrays Kazantzakis as the ‘Antithetical Man,’ “for his own life and thought were formed in a double vision of tension between opposites, an explosive conflict which ascended unceasingly upward toward higher and higher spiritual reaches over an abyss of nothingness” (1958:xxv). This ‘double vision’ looks to Kazantzakis’s birthplace of Crete as unifying the contrasting perspectives of East and West. For example, the Greek ideal of the rational self and disciplined will stands in opposition to the Oriental ideal of self-renunciation and abandonment to mysterious and impersonal powers. As Kazantzakis explains (in a letter to a young critic, quoted by Friar), he sought to transcend and ‘sublate’ these contrasting ideals by way of the ‘Cretan Glance’: Crete, for me (and not, naturally, for all Cretans), is the synthesis which I always pursue, the synthesis of Greece and the Orient. I neither feel Europe in me nor a clear and distilled classical Greece; nor do I at all feel the anarchic chaos and the will-less perseverance of the Orient. I feel something else, a synthesis, a being that not only gazes on the abyss without disintegrating, but which, on the contrary, is filled with coherence, pride, and manliness by such a vision. This glance which confronts life and death so bravely, I call Cretan. (Quoted in Friar 1958:xix). The structure of the Glance, however, is distinctly Hegelian. Just as the advance of Hegel’s Absolute toward self-consciousness is founded on the sublation of antitheses, so Kazantzakis’s Cretan vision is reached by progressively surmounting all dualisms, until one attains to the One.29 The monist and idealist character of Kazantzakis’s thought can also be traced to his lifelong engagement with Eastern religions, especially

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Buddhism.30 Kazantzakis felt a profound personal connection to the Bud- dha, listing him in Report to Greco among Christ, Lenin, and Odysseus as one of “the decisive steps in my ascent” (Kazantzakis 1973:15).31 Although the influence of Buddhism in Kazantzakis’s works has not gone unnoticed, what remains underexplored is the way in which the metaphysics of Bud- dhism (or some Buddhist schools) has marked Kazantzakis’s conception of God and ultimate reality. To highlight this, I will briefly turn to one of Kazantzakis’s most remarkable, though unjustly neglected, works: his play Buddha. This was published in 1956, a year before his death, but it was a project that obsessed him for many years; he began the first draft in 1922 in Vienna and gave the work its definitive shape only in 1941-1943 during the German occupation of Greece. In Kazantzakis’s eyes, at least, this play ranked highly within the formidable body of work he had completed. As he was to say shortly before he died: “Buddha is my swan song. It says everything. I’m glad that I have managed to utter…my final word in time, before I go” (quoted in Bien 1983:xviii). This high estimation is echoed by Peter Bien, one of the few scholars to have extensively studied the play: But of all Kazantzakis’s immense output, the play Buddha, I believe, is the clearest, most genuine and comprehensive exposition of his mature position, because it both isolates and amalgamates the disparates so deftly, and also because it so openly and unapologetically treats the aesthetic as the primary way to salvation.32 (Bien 1977:270). What characterizes the play is its pronounced (metaphysical) idealism, understood in terms of the notions of reality as mind-dependent and as an essentially unified whole. These notions find expression not only in the dialogue, but even more so through the structure of the work. The play unfolds on two levels: a ‘realistic’ plot set in the central square of a Chi- nese village, which narrates the rise of the Yangtze River that floods the village and drowns its inhabitants; and an ‘idealistic’ part, which frames and is interweaved into the real-world action, thus revealing the latter to be nothing but the product of the imagination. As Bien points out, it is the skillful way in which Kazantzakis destabilizes the sense of reality (ours and that of the characters) that gives “the work its uniqueness and distinction” (1977:254).33 The repeated set changes, in particular, reinforce the illusory character of (empirical) reality, as in Act I when the Magician puts on a yellow mask and:

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Silently the set crumbles, as in a dream. The scenery changes—the Yangtze encircles all like a ring. In the center is an island, and in its center a huge, dried-out tree. Underneath the tree, sitting cross-legged, is Buddha.34 (Kazantzakis 1983:42) All plays, like any creative works, are the expression and product of the mind of the artist, but Kazantzakis (through the character of the Magi- cian) wants to take matters further and say the same about the great Play we call ‘life’—this too is created and constituted by the mind. The mind (or more precisely the intuitive and imaginative mind, as opposed to the theoretical, intellectualizing mind) is therefore imbued with the power not only to construct different worlds, but also to penetrate past the empirical world through to the ultimate reality and the underlying oneness of all. In idealist fashion, then, Kazantzakis draws a sharp contrast between appearance and reality, multiplicity and unity, in this way indicating the extent to which a radical and difficult conversion of our gaze is required if we are to overcome ignorance and illusion. Bien puts this well when discussing the monist outlook of the play: By making the Magician call life a game and state audaciously that he can escape fate by changing the eyes with which he views the world, Kazantzakis is attempting to remind us that our normal, commonsensical conception of reality is outrageously incorrect, so incorrect that we come closer to truth with “play” instead of seriousness, “evasion” instead of confrontation. Where we go wrong in our commonsensical approach is to think that the multiplicity we see before us is real. We cannot see through this multiplicity to the One behind it; thus we think that individual beings are truly separate from one another, and we think as well that life is separate from death. (Bien 1977:257) But if this correctly represents Kazantzakis’s mature position, then Western philosophical and theological sources cannot provide the full picture on Kazantzakis’s views on God. An equally important source in this respect is the East, and in particular the idealist and monist metaphysics of Buddhism. What this implies is that, by turning East, Kazantzakis managed to finally overcome the dualism and materialism he inherited from the Western (and especially Christian) tradition. Rather than seeing the non-physical or spiritual realm, inhabited by God and angelic beings, in opposition to the material world made up of land and sea, trees and plants,

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animals and humans, and rather than positing an infinite ontological divide between the Creator and the creation, one that only the God-Man (Christ) could traverse, Kazantzakis’s later work displays the marks of a distinctly ‘non-dual’ conception of reality, indebted in large part to Eastern forms of thought. There is no sharp divide, in this view, between self and other; indeed, there is a fundamental identity. What results, and what is arguably present in Kazantzakis’s later fiction, is arelational view of reality: to be is to be in relation with others, and above all with the Other (Brahman, Buddha, Christ, etc.). In such a relational ontology, evident in the East but also not unknown in the West (for example, in German and British idealism, and more recently in process philosophy), the world is not an assemblage of persistent entities or things, but is a complex web of interconnections or relations, so that the deepest level of reality consists in a holistic connectivity. Further, this all-inclusive and harmonious whole, or ‘Absolute,’ is conceived in mind- like terms as a non-physical consciousness, experience, or ‘idea.’ Towards the end of his trip to China in 1935, Kazantzakis was to encounter two astounding expressions of this idealist view, which looks not to the phenomena of matter and motion, but to that which transcends these phenomena as disclosing the true nature of reality. While staying in a Buddhist temple in a Chinese village, Kazantzakis noticed in the garden of the temple a marble pedestal separated from its statue of the Buddha. The pedestal was holding up literally nothing. This, in turn, reminded him of a strange concert he attended earlier, where no sounds at all were made: The bows were raised, the flute players brought their flutes near their lips without touching them and began to move rapidly, the tips of their fingers on the holes. The bows played in the air without touching the strings, the sticks stopped quietly before touching the skin of the drum, the harpist moved his hand in the air and sometimes stopped and listened ecstatically to the immaterial sound. Nothing was heard. (Kazantzakis 1982:249) Kazantzakis recounts that: When the mute concert ended, I bent to the guest next to me and posed my question. And he smilingly answered me: “For trained ears the sound is superfluous. The redeemed souls have no need of the act. The true Buddha has no body.” (1982:249; emphasis mine)

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This signaled to Kazantzakis the way in which materiality and temporality are transcended in Buddhist culture to reach the invisible, inaudible, and eternal realm of spirit: Invisible statues, silent music—these are, I thought, the highest flowers of the muddy root of the body. (1982:250) For Kazantzakis, as much as for Chinese Buddhists and Indian Ad- vaitins, reality is One and this One does not exist in any way that can be adequately captured by words and sounds, but is rather ‘nothingness’—a pure spirit we are called to return to and realize as our ownmost.

Notes 1 A similar observation has been made by Pandelis Prevelakis (1961:181n128). 2 She was referring to the incongruity of “atheists like ourselves” (i.e., herself and Nikos Kazantzakis) getting married in an Orthodox church in 1945. But in such contexts the Greek word for ‘atheist’ may connote more broadly someone who is not religious in any conventional sense, rather than someone who explicitly rejects the existence of God. 3 An even closer companion of Kazantzakis, Pandelis Prevelakis also refers to his friend as an atheist (1961:186-187n204). 4 Glicksberg, at least, acknowledges the paradoxical nature of this aspect of Kazantzakis’s thought: Numerous contradictions also crop up in Kazantzakis’s work. He employs religious terms— faith, striving, God, perfection, spirit, transcendence—to embody his symbolic version of the quest. He finds it enormously difficult to reconcile this religious terminology with his professed atheism and his nihilistic Weltanschauung. (1975:289) 5 The charge, however, was eventually dropped. See Antonakes (1996:25); in this valuable study, Antonakes recounts the reception of Kazantzakis’s works in Greece, focusing on the ways in which his religious ideas were received and (mis)understood by church leaders and literary critics. 6 See Antonakes (1996:25-27), who reports (30) that the proposal that Kazantzakis’s books be banned was rejected in 1955 by the government of Greece. Demetrios Constantelos (1996:50-51) contests the view that the Synod condemned Kazantzakis’s works, but this does not seem justified given the evidence provided by Antonakes. 7 For example, Constantelos holds that, “In terms of Orthodox dogma he [Kazantzakis] is heterodox, but in terms of religious teachings—spiritual-mystical religious teachings in particular—he is Orthodox” (1996:37-38). 8 This is not to deny that Kazantzakis could be considered an ‘atheist’ in some sense, especially since the concept of ‘atheism’ is context-sensitive: its meaning is dependent upon the religious system or conception of deity it is seeking to oppose. No one is generically atheist. And there is no doubt that, with respect to some ideas about God, Kazantzakis was an atheist. 9 Much of Bien’s post-Christian reading is predicated on his interpretation of Kazantzakis’s attitudes towards death, and in particular Kazantzakis’s rejection of the afterlife. What needs to be distinguished, however, is whether Kazantzakis is denying (i) all conceptions of the afterlife or immortality, or (ii) belief in personal survival after death, or (iii) hope in postmortem rewards and fear of postmortem punishments. Even if Kazantzakis rejects (ii) and (iii), it is far from clear that he also rejects (i). Consider, for example, the following

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passage from Report to Greco: “man is not immortal, but rather serves Something or Someone that is immortal.” (Kazantzakis 1973:412). The reading I develop in the last section of the paper will seek to make sense of such passages. It is also important to note that Bergson’s philosophy is not incompatible with postmortem existence, as has been argued by G. William Barnard (2011:ch. 28). 10 The principle is helpfully elucidated in Dombrowski (1997:66-69). 11 Middleton also describes Kazantzakis as an ‘antitheist,’ a term borrowed from literary critic James F. Lea. Middleton explains: “Antitheism is not a rejection of belief in God’s existence; rather, it is a radical attempt to wrestle with traditional ways of thinking about the divine. Resisting metaphysical or theological pretensions, antitheists enjoin us to engage ceaselessly in the practice of theological construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction” (2007:94). Middleton goes on to classify both Kazantzakis and process theologians as antitheists “because they both scrutinize our culture’s very deep theological assumptions and urge us to take increasing responsibility for our religious searching” (95). 12 A little later, Middleton states that “his [Kazantzakis’s] views comport, albeit uneasily, with those opinions espoused by individuals associated with shaping and reshaping Christianity” (2007:6). Similarly, in an earlier piece, an Introduction to an edited collection, co-authored with Peter Bien, Middleton wrote: “The point we are trying to make is that Kazantzakis… was actually in tune with thinkers who, although challenging Augustinian orthodoxy, are within the allowable bounds of Christian speculation” (1996:15; emphasis in the original). This is repeated towards the end of the same Introduction: “Assuredly, Kazantzakis’s witness lies within the boundaries of a biblical faith still in the making” (22). I find this a somewhat strange claim, as it is not clear what “the allowable bounds” are and who is drawing them. 13 Kimon Friar, for example, seems to have promoted such a reading, as Dombrowski notes (1997:65). Also, Peter Bien’s emphasis on Kazantzakis’s naturalism and the attendant denial of any transcendent realm independent of the physical world (e.g., heaven and hell) suggests that any existing deity would have to be a purely immanent one. 14 Middleton discusses the connections between Kazantzakis and process thought in greater detail in his earlier work, Novel Theology: Nikos Kazantzakis’s Encounter with Whiteheadian Process Theism (2000). 15 Kearney explains that the ‘ana’ in ‘anatheism’ “signals a movement of return to what I call a primordial wager, to an inaugural instant of reckoning at the root of belief. It marks a reopening of that space where we are free to choose between faith or nonfaith. As such, anatheism is about the option of retrieved belief” (2010:7; emphasis in the original). 16 The quotation is from Report to Greco (1973:ch. 16, Return to Crete; Knossos). 17 The quotation is from Report to Greco (1973:ch. 23, Paris; Nietzsche the Great Martyr). 18 A similar view has recently been advanced by Charitini Christodoulou (2012), who conceives of ‘openness’ in terms of the process of becoming, and specifically the process of the formation of identity and meaning; focusing on The Last Temptation, she regards the novel and its main characters as exemplifying this sort of openness. 19 See, especially, pages 22-28, where Kazantzakis’s response to nihilism is thought to parallel various themes in postmodern philosophy. 20 Middleton notices this also, stating that: “Whereas postmodernism signals an age of incredulity toward metaphysics and metanarratives, Kazantzakis ultimately fails the postmodern test. In the end, he suggests that Something or Someone provokes him toward writing stories that disclose being, reality, and God” (2007:116-117). 21 For example, in Middleton and Bien’s 1996 collection, God’s Struggler: Religion in the Writings of Nikos Kazantzakis, there is no consideration of the Buddhist influences on Kazantzakis’s work, and there is no mention at all of Hinduism. Lewis Owens (2001:269-284) draws interesting parallels between Kazantzakis and the idealism of Plotinus and Berkeley. But Owens’s emphasis is on apophaticism, rather than on idealism. Also, no connections are

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made in Owens’s paper between the thought of Kazantzakis and Eastern philosophy. 22 Some scholars, however, dispute the idealist interpretation of Yogacara—see, for example, Dan Lusthaus (1998:66-67 §2). 23 The quote is from Report to Greco (1973:105). 24 See also the 1910 Introduction to Matter and Memory (first published in 1896), where Bergson wrote that Matter and Memory “is frankly dualistic” since it “affirms the reality of spirit and the reality of matter” (1911:vii). 25 Translation taken from Bien (1989:46). It is not clear, however, that this is an accurate reading of Bergson, who is often seen instead as advocating a dualism of matter and spirit, where these are coexistent and interdependent. 26 Kazantzakis proceeds to replace the dichotomy between matter and spirit with that between ‘hunger’ and ‘pathos,’ which he explains in a way that does not seem to comport well with traditional idealism: “I use the word pathos and not the word spirit because this word has assumed an ideological, immaterial distilled content that is incomprehensible and hateful to me. ‘Spirit’ contains a great deal more ‘matter’ than materialists imagine; just as ‘matter’ contains a great deal more ‘spirit’ than idealists imagine” (1975:79). 27 In line with this monist vision comes an emphasis on the unity and solidarity of humanity: “We are all one, we are all an imperiled essence. If at the far end of the world a spirit degenerates, it drags down our spirit into its own degradation. If one mind at the far end of the world sinks into idiocy, our own temples overbrim with darkness” (Kazantzakis 1960:115). 28 Bien (1989:50) does point to the continuity of Bergson’s thought with that of Hegel, but Hegel’s influence on Kazantzakis remains unexplored. 29 However, as Friar points out, sublation in Kazantzakis is only ever momentary: “The Cretan Glance for Kazantzakis…was an attempted synthesis of those contraries which he believed underlie all human and natural endeavor, but a synthesis not so much of permanent as of momentary harmony, which in turn builds into a greater tension and explodes toward a higher and more inclusive synthesis in an ever upward and spiraling onrush, leaving behind it the bloodstained path of man’s and nature’s endeavors” (1958:xx). Perhaps, then, in saying “even this One does not exist,” Kazantzakis was alluding to (what may be called) an ‘asymptotic monism’: as soon as we reach some higher unity that overcomes a prior antithesis, this immediately collapses into (or gives rise to) another antithesis, which again needs to be sublated. On this conception, ultimate unity is never reached; it exists only as an ideal to which we can approximate but never fully attain. Bien also points to a possible monistic reading of the ending of The Saviors of God. He speculates, for instance, that the ending, when seen from a Buddhist frame, only means to deny separateness and to affirm the essential unity of everything. To illustrate, Bien quotes from the Zen master, Nyogen Senzaki: So you see, the worlds of desire, of the material and of the nonmaterial are one. This sameness is absolute and infinite. To avoid the possibility of misunderstanding, however, we speak of this sameness negatively, calling it “Nothingness” or “Nirvana.” (Quoted in Bien 1989:135; emphasis added by Bien) 30 Apart from general remarks regarding idealism and monism, I will not have anything more specific to say about the connections between Kazantzakis’s work and Hindu philosophy, though this is an area that deserves greater attention from scholars. Consider, for instance, Middleton’s comment: “Studying at the Kazantzakis library, based at the Historical Museum of Iraklion, Crete, I discovered that Kazantzakis read and admired many books on Indian philosophy” (2007:118n9). 31 Later, in the same work (1973:364), Kazantzakis places Buddha at the summit of the ascent. 32 Another worthwhile study is Charalampos-Demetres Gounelas’s “The Concept of Resemblance in Kazantzakis’s Tragedies Christ and Buddha” (1998:313-330), which analyzes the role of ‘resemblance’ in these works, with the aim of showing that they are imbued with an idealist and monist strain of thought.

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33 However, the technique of creating a play within a play so as to highlight the mind- dependence of reality and value is not entirely original to the Buddha play. As Gounelas has observed (1998), a similar strategy is evident in Kazantzakis’s other works, including Serpent and Lily (1906, his first literary work), Comedy: A Tragedy in One Act (published around 1909), the play Christ (published in 1928), and the novel Toda Raba (1929), in all of which the narrative and dialogue are enacted entirely within (an individual or indeterminate) mind or consciousness. 34 This recurs in the following two Acts, as soon as the Magician puts on the yellow mask (see Kazantzakis 1983:104, 143).

References Anghelaki-Rooke, Katerina, 1979 Introduction to The Suffering God: Selected Letters to Galatea and to Papastephanou, by Nikos Kazantzakis. Translated by Philip Ramp and Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke. New Rochelle, New York: Caratzas Brothers Publishers. Antonakes, Michael, 1996 “Christ, Kazantzakis, and Controversy in Greece.” In God’s Struggler: Religion in the Writings of Nikos Kazantzakis, edited by Darren J. N. Middleton and Peter Bien. Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press. Armstrong, David M., 1978 Universals and Scientific Realism. Vol. 1 of Nominalism and Realism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Barnard, G. William, 2011 Living Consciousness: The Metaphysical Vision of Henri Bergson. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. Bergson, Henri, 1911 Matter and Memory. Translated by Nancy Margaret Paul and W. Scott Palmer. London: George Allen & Unwin. Bien, Peter , 1977 “‘Buddha’: Kazantzakis’ Most Ambitious and Most Neglected Play.” Comparative Drama 11(3):252-272. ______, 1983 Introduction to Buddha, by Nikos Kazantzakis. Translated by Kimon Friar and Athena Dallas-Damis. San Diego: Avant Books. ______, 1989 Kazantzakis: Politics of the Spirit. Vol. 1. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ______, 2007 Kazantzakis: Politics of the Spirit. Vol. 2. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ______, 2010 “Introduction: Why Read Kazantzakis in the Twenty-first Century?” Journal of Modern Greek Studies 28(1):1-6. Christodoulou, Charitini, 2012 Dialogic Openness in Nikos Kazantzakis. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Constantelos, Demetrios, 1996 “Nikos Kazantzakis: Orthodox or Heterodox? A Greek Orthodox Appreciation.” In God’s Struggler: Religion in the Writings of Nikos Kazantzakis, edited by Darren J. N. Middleton and Peter Bien. Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press. Dombrowski, Daniel A., 1997 Kazantzakis and God. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. Friar, Kimon, 1958 Introduction to The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel, by Nikos Kazantzakis. Translated by Kimon Friar. New York: Simon and Schuster.

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Galanopoulos, Christos, 2010 “Anti-Nihilism in the Thought of Nikos Kazantzakis.” Journal of Modern Greek Studies 28(1):7-37. Glicksberg, Charles I. , 1975 The Literature of Nihilism. Lewisburg, Pennsylvania: Bucknell University Press. Gounelas, Charalampos-Demetres , 1998 “The Concept of Resemblance in Kazantzakis’s Tragedies Christ and Buddha.” Journal of Modern Greek Studies 16(2):313-330. Hartshorne, Charles, 1970 Creative Synthesis and Philosophic Method. La Salle, Illinois: Open Court. ______, 1997 The Zero Fallacy and Other Essays in Neoclassical Philosophy. Edited by Mohammad Valady. Chicago: Open Court. Hartshorne, Charles and William L. Reese, 2000 Philosophers Speak of God. Amherst, New York: Humanity Books. Harvey, Peter , 1990 An Introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, History and Practices. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hemming, Laurence Paul, 2009 “Heidegger.” In The History of Western Philosophy of Religion. Vol. 5, edited by Graham Oppy and Nick Trakakis. London: Acumen. Kazantzakis, Helen, 1968 Nikos Kazantzakis: A Biography Based on His Letters. Translated by Amy Mims. New York: Simon and Schuster. Kazantzakis, Nikos, 1960 The Saviors of God: Spiritual Exercises. Translated by Kimon Friar. New York: Simon and Schuster. ______, 1973 Report to Greco. Translated by Peter Bien. London: Faber and Faber. ______, 1975 Journeying: Travels in Italy, Egypt, Sinai, Jerusalem and Cyprus. Translated by Themi Vasils and Theodora Vasils. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. ______, 1979 The Suffering God: Selected Letters to Galatea and to Papastephanou. Translated by Philip Ramp and Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke. New Rochelle, New York: Caratzas Brothers Publishers. ______, 1982 Japan/China. Translated by George C. Pappageotes. Berkeley: Creative Arts Book Company. ______, 1983 “H. Bergson.” In Νίκος Καζαντζάκης: Γεννήθηκε γιά τή δόξα. Edited by Elli Alexiou and Yiorgos Stefanakis. Athens: Kastaniotis. ______, 2012a Nikos Kazantzakis to Dimitrios Kaloyeropoulos, 4 January 1908. In The Selected Letters of Nikos Kazantzakis. Edited and translated by Peter Bien. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ______, 2012b Nikos Kazantzakis to Ioannis Konstantarakis, 6 June 1954. In The Selected Letters of Nikos Kazantzakis. Edited and translated by Peter Bien. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Kearney, Richard , 2010 Anatheism: Returning to God After God. New York: Columbia University Press. Laumakis, Stephen J. , 2008 An Introduction to Buddhist Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lusthaus, Dan , 1998 “Buddhism, Yogācāra school of.” In Routledge Encyclopedia of

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Philosophy. Vol. 2, edited by Edward Craig. London: Routledge. Middleton, Darren J. N., 2000 Novel Theology: Nikos Kazantzakis’s Encounter with Whiteheadian Process Theism. Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press. ______, 2007 Broken Hallelujah: Nikos Kazantzakis and Christian Theology. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books. Middleton, Darren J. N. and Peter Bien, 1996 “Introduction. Spiritual Levendiá: Kazantzakis’s Theology of Struggle.” In God’s Struggler: Religion in the Writings of Nikos Kazantzakis, edited by Darren J. N. Middleton and Peter Bien. Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press. Nietzsche, Friedrich, 1954 “On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense.” In The Portable Nietzsche. Translated by Walter Kaufmann. New York: The Viking Press. Owens, Lewis, 2001 “Beyond Nihilism: Kazantzakis and Plotinus on the Metaphysical ‘One’ that Does Not Exist.” Journal of Modern Greek Studies 19(2):269-281. Poulakidas, Andreas K., 1975 “Kazantzakis’ Spiritual Exercises and Buddhism.” Comparative Literature 27(3):208-217. Prevelakis, Pandelis , 1961 Nikos Kazantzakis and His Odyssey: A Study of the Poet and the Poem. Translated by Philip Sherrard. New York: Simon and Schuster. Taylor, Mark C., 1984 Erring: A Postmodern A/theology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Tsiovas, Dimitris, 2009 “From Being to Becoming: Reflections on the Enduring Popularity of Kazantzakis.” Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 33(1):83-91. Westphal, Merold, 1998 “Postmodern Theology.” In Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Vol. 7, edited by E. Craig. London: Routledge. Whitehead, Alfred North, 1978 Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology, corrected edition. Edited by David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne. New York: The Free Press. Young, Damon, 2006 “Faith Without God.” Meanjin 65(4):66-70.

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Eleni Leontsini University of Ioannina

Στη μνήμη του Βαγγέλη Αθανασόπουλου In the Memory of Vangelis Athanasopoulos

Abstract My aim in this paper is to attempt a philosophical reading of M. Kara- gatsis’ novel Kitrinos Fakelos (1956), focusing my analysis on the passions and the emotions of its fictional characters, aiming at demonstrating their independence as well as the presentation of their psychography in Karagat- sis’ novel where the description of the emotions caused by love is a dominant feature. In particular, I will examine the expression of desire, love (erôs) and sympathy in this novel – passions and emotions that play an important role to moral life and human existence in general. I will be approaching these issues from the point of view of moral philosophy, analyzing the passions and the emotions expressed by the fictional characters in Kitrinos Fakelos, and in particular of the fictional character of Manos Tasakos. At the same time, I will attempt to show the philosophical influences that M. Karagatsis has received in his literary work, and especially in his novel Kitrinos Fakelos, by the philosophical thought of Friedrich Nietzsche. In addition, I will try to demonstrate the contrast between the Nietzschean moral model and that of both ancient and contemporary virtue ethical theory, in relation to the traditional interpretation of the work of Nietzsche’s that Karagatsis adopts, along with many of his contemporaries in Greece from the beginning of the 20th century until the 70’s at least.

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1. Εισαγωγή Στη μελέτη αυτή επιχειρώ μία φιλοσοφική ανάγνωση του μυ- θιστορήματος του Μ. Καραγάτση Κίτρινος φάκελος (1956) επικε- ντρώνοντας την προσοχή μου σε μια ανάλυση των παθών και των συναισθημάτων των μυθοπλαστικών προσώπων επιδιώκοντας να καταδείξω την αυτοδυναμία τους καθώς και την ψυχογραφική πα- ρουσίασή τους από τον Μ. Καραγάτση στο έργο του οποίου η περι- γραφή των συναισθημάτων που γεννά ο έρωτας αποτελεί κυρίαρχο στοιχείο. Θα εξετάσω ειδικότερα την έκφραση της επιθυμίας, του έρωτα και της συμπάθειας στο έργο αυτό, πάθη και συναισθήματα που έχουν ιδιαίτερη σημασία για τον ηθικό βίο και διαδραματίζουν σημαντικό ρόλο στην ανθρώπινη ζωή γενικότερα. Θα προσεγγίσω τα θέματα αυτά από την πλευρά της ηθικής φιλοσοφίας, αναλύοντας τα πάθη και τα συναισθήματα που εκφράζονται από τους χαρακτήρες του Μ. Καραγάτση. Συγχρόνως, θα επιχειρήσω να καταδείξω τις φι- λοσοφικές επιδράσεις που ο Μ. Καραγάτσης έχει δεχθεί στο λογοτε- χνικό έργο του, και κυρίως στον Κίτρινο φάκελο, από τον φιλοσοφικό στοχασμό του Friedrich Nietzsche. Επιπλέον, θα προσπαθήσω να καταδείξω την αντίθεση του νιτσεϊκού ηθικού μοντέλου με αυτό της αρχαίας και της σύγχρονης αρετολογικής ηθικής θεωρίας, σε σχέση με την παραδοσιακή ερμηνεία του έργου του Friedrich Nietzsche που υιοθετεί ο Μ. Καραγάτσης, όπως άλλωστε και πολλοί άλλοι σύγ- χρονοί του νεοέλληνες από τις αρχές του 20ού αιώνα μέχρι και τη δεκαετία του ’70 τουλάχιστον.

2. Μυθοπλασία και ηθική Ήδη από την εποχή του Πλάτωνα, οι φιλόσοφοι και οι ποιητές αντιμετώπιζαν ο ένας τον άλλο με καχυποψία και ορισμένες φορές ακόμη και με ζήλεια1. Όμως, ακόμη και ο ίδιος ο Πλάτων υπήρξε ποιητής και οφείλουμε να αναγνωρίσουμε ότι πολύ συχνά οι ποιη- τές ασχολήθηκαν και εξέτασαν φιλοσοφικά προβλήματα2. Η λογο- τεχνία είναι εξίσου σημαντική, όπως η φιλοσοφία, για τον ηθικό και πολιτικό στοχασμό αλλά και για την αισθητική, πολιτική και ηθική εμπειρία και πράξη. Ενώ ο Πλάτων υποστήριζε ότι τα περισσότερα είδη της καλλιτεχνικής μίμησης, και κυρίως η τραγωδία, τρέφουν τα

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πάθη και παραπλανούν τον αναζητητή της αλήθειας, ο Αριστοτέλης αντίθετα θεωρούσε ότι οι τέχνες γενικά έχουν αξία, γιατί επιδιορ- θώνουν τις ατέλειες της φύσης καθώς, επίσης, και ότι η μυθοπλασία του τραγικού δράματος νομιμοποιείται λόγω της ηθικής λειτουργίας της. Στην σύγχρονη εποχή, αρκετοί φιλόσοφοι έχουν επιχειρήσει να αναγνωρίσουν το γεγονός ότι η λογοτεχνία είναι δυνατόν να προσφέ- ρει πολύ περισσότερα στη φιλοσοφία και να μην αποτελεί απλώς μια πηγή καλών παραδειγμάτων για τον ηθικό ή τον αισθητικό στοχα- σμό3. Η λογοτεχνία αποτελεί μία από τις πιο σημαντικές ανθρώπινες δραστηριότητες κατά την οποία η ικανότητα του ανθρώπου να επι- νοεί και να αφηγείται συλλειτουργεί με την άλλη ικανότητά του για στοχασμό και αναζήτηση4. Δεδομένου ότι οι λογοτεχνικοί συγγρα- φείς επηρεάζονται από φιλοσόφους και φιλοσοφικά ρεύματα, είναι εξίσου σημαντικό να εξεταστεί σε ποιο βαθμό οι αξίες και οι ηθικές έννοιες, που σχετίζονται με την κατανόηση των ανθρώπινων όντων, επηρεάζουν επίσης το κοινό στην κατανόηση των μυθοπλαστικών χα- ρακτήρων καθώς και στην αντίδρασή του σε αυτούς. Είναι, άλλωστε, γνωστή η ρήση του Montaigne σύμφωνα με την οποία «ένας επαρκής αναγνώστης θα βρει πάντα στα συγγράμματα των άλλων πράγματα που ο συγγραφέας δεν θέλησε διόλου να βάλει»5. Βέβαια, οι χαρακτήρες των μυθιστορημάτων δεν είναι πραγ- ματικά πρόσωπα, δεν είναι αληθινοί άνθρωποι, αποτελούν πλάσμα- τα της φαντασίας του συγγραφέα που δεν ανήκουν στον πραγματικό κόσμο. Όπως έχει επισημανθεί, οι μυθοπλαστικοί χαρακτήρες «δεν εμπλέκονται στις διαπροσωπικές σχέσεις μας και οι πράξεις και οι αποφάσεις τους ούτε βοηθούν ούτε επηρεάζουν τους στόχους μας και τις δραστηριότητές μας, κατά τον ίδιο τρόπο βέβαια που και οι δικές μας δεν επηρεάζουν τις πράξεις των χαρακτήρων της μυθοπλασίας»6. Στην πραγματικότητα, οι χαρακτήρες της μυθοπλασίας αποτελούν απλές κατασκευές, κατασκευάσματα που εξυπηρετούν τους σκοπούς του συγγραφέα, πλάσματα της φαντασίας του συγγραφέα που σε καμία περίπτωση δεν μπορούν να θεωρηθούν ως ηθικά πρόσωπα, αφού δεν διαθέτουν τα απαραίτητα κριτήρια προσωπικής ταυτότη- τας7: «Αφού σαν μαριονέτες, δεν πράττουν τίποτε άλλο από αυτό που ο ρόλος τους τούς καθορίζει, δεν είναι λάθος να τους ψέγουμε ή να τους κατηγορούμε για αυτά που κάνουν; Και δεν είναι ακόμη πιο

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λάθος να αισθανόμαστε θλίψη για εκείνους, να χαιρόμαστε για τις επιτυχίες τους ή να ικανοποιούμαστε από τη λύση των προβλημάτων τους;»9. Παρόλο, όμως, που οι χαρακτήρες της μυθοπλασίας δεν αποτελούν υπαρκτά πρόσωπα, γεγονός παραμένει ότι γοητευόμαστε από αυτούς, χαιρόμαστε και λυπόμαστε μαζί τους και γενικότερα τους αποδίδουμε συναισθήματα σαν να ήταν αληθινοί. Επιπλέον, όχι μόνο συνηθίζουμε να αναφερόμαστε στους χαρακτήρες της μυθοπλασίας σαν να υπήρχαν στο κόσμο της πραγματικότητας, αλλά επίσης, σε ορισμένες περιπτώσεις, νιώθουμε συναισθήματα για αυτούς ή τουλάχιστον εκφραζόμαστε γι’ αυτούς ωσάν να νοιώθαμε συναισθήματα, όταν λέμε π.χ. ότι είμαστε ερωτευμένοι ή θυμωμένοι μαζί τους ή ότι ανησυχούμε για την τύχη τους και στενοχωριόμαστε με τον θάνατό τους. Πώς όμως είναι δυνατόν να είναι κανείς ερωτευμένος ή θυμωμένος με ένα πρόσωπο που αποτελεί απλώς ένα αποκύημα της φαντασίας κάποιου συγγραφέα; Η διαμάχη γύρω από την υπόσταση των χαρακτήρων της μυ- θοπλασίας είναι σύνθετη και πολλοί φιλόσοφοι και φιλοσοφούντες έχουν ασχοληθεί με το θέμα αυτό10. Οπωσδήποτε, γεγονός παραμένει ότι, όταν διαβάζουμε για κάποιο μυθοπλαστικό πρόσωπο ή το βλέ- πουμε στο θέατρο ή στον κινηματογράφο, θεωρούμε ότι αυτό έχει κάποιου είδους ζωή, αφού συγκινούμαστε από αυτό, το λατρεύουμε ή το μισούμε, το θαυμάζουμε ή το απεχθανόμαστε και, γενικότερα, νιώθουμε συναισθήματα γι’ αυτό11. Αυτό συμβαίνει με τις περισσότε- ρες, αν όχι όλες, τις μορφές των παραστατικών τεχνών, αφού ακόμη και όταν βλέπουμε ένα πίνακα ζωγραφικής αναρωτιόμαστε για τη ζωή, τις σκέψεις και τα συναισθήματα του προσώπου ή των προσώ- πων που απεικονίζονται. Επιπλέον, κάτι που έχει ιδιαίτερη σημασία είναι ότι όντως αποδίδουμε συναισθήματα στα πρόσωπα αυτά, αξι- ολογούμε τις πράξεις τους και πολλές φορές βλέπουμε μια εικόνα του εαυτού μας μέσα από αυτά ή ακόμη και επηρεαζόμαστε στην προσωπική μας ζωή από τους χαρακτήρες αυτούς της μυθοπλασίας12. Ο Αριστοτέλης, όταν αναφερόταν στον τραγικό ήρωα στην Ποι- ητική του, αλλά και σε άλλα έργα του όπου χρησιμοποιεί συχνά πα- ραδείγματα από την τραγική ποίηση, αναφέρεται στα πρόσωπα αυτά ωσάν να είναι πραγματικά, υπό την έννοια ότι είναι δυνατόν, παρό-

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λο που είναι μυθικά, να μας βοηθήσουν στην κατανόηση του ηθικού βίου13. Γι’ αυτό, άλλωστε, ο Αριστοτέλης υποστηρίζει ότι η ποίηση είναι σημαντικότερη από την ιστορία, γιατί η ποίηση, λόγω των φα- νταστικών, μη ιστορικών προσώπων που μας παρουσιάζει, είναι σε θέση να μας μιλήσει με καθολικό τρόπο για τη ζωή χωρίς να μας περιορίζει με πρόσωπα που είναι προσδιορισμένα από ιστορικούς παράγοντες και είναι, επομένως, πεπερασμένα και ανεπανάληπτα: «Φιλοσοφώτερον καὶ σπουδαιότερον ποίησις ἱστορίας ἐστίν· ἡ μὲν γὰρ ποίησις μᾶλλον τὰ καθόλου, ἡ δ’ ἱστορία τὰ καθ’ ἕκαστον λέ- γειν». (Περί ποιητικής, 9, 1451b5-7). Η ποίηση, δηλ. η τέχνη γενικώς, ασχολείται με τα καθόλου ενώ η ιστορία με τα καθ’ έκαστον. Μας προσφέρει, επομένως, γι’ αυτόν τον λόγο, παραδείγματα καθολικά στα οποία όλοι μπορούμε να αναφερόμαστε και να τα χρησιμοποιού- με για την ηθική ζωή15.

3. Η κριτική του ερωτικού πάθους Όπως αναφέρει ο Françis Bacon στο δοκίμιό του για τον έρωτα, «Η σκηνή του θεάτρου οφείλει περισσότερα στον έρωτα από ό,τι η ζωή του ανθρώπου. Διότι στη σκηνή, ο έρωτας είναι πάντοτε θέμα κωμωδιών και μερικές φορές τραγωδιών· αλλά στη ζωή προκαλεί πολύ κακό, άλλοτε σα σειρήνα, και άλλοτε σα μαινάδα»16. Πράγματι, στο σύντομο αυτό δοκίμιο που γράφει για τον έρωτα, ο Bacon κα- τορθώνει επιγραμματικά σχεδόν να σκιαγραφήσει τις δυσκολίες που το πάθος του έρωτα προκαλεί στους ανθρώπους, σημειώνοντας ότι ο έρωτας «μια φορά να αναμιχθεί στις δουλειές τους, αναστατώνει τη ζωή των ανθρώπων, και τους κάνει να μην μπορούν να σταθούν πιστοί στους σκοπούς τους»: Διότι ποτέ δεν υπήρξε υπερήφανος άνδρας, ο οποίος να έχει τόσο παράλογα μεγάλη ιδέα για τον εαυτό του, όπως έχει ο ερωτευμένος για το αγαπημένο πρόσωπο· και γι’ αυτό καλώς ειπώθηκε ότι, Είναι αδύνατον να είναι κανείς ταυτόχρονα ερωτευμένος και συνετός.17 Ούτε συμβαίνει αυτή η αδυναμία να γίνεται φανερή μόνο στους άλλους, και όχι στο αγαπώμενο πρόσωπο· αντίθετα, σε αυτό ακόμη περισσότερο, εκτός κι αν ο έρωτας είναι αμοιβαίος. Διότι ισχύει ο κανόνας, ότι ο έρωτας πάντα ανταμείβεται είτε με ανταπόδοση είτε με μια ενδόμυχη και

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μυστική περιφρόνηση. Ακόμη περισσότερο, λοιπόν, θα έπρεπε οι άνθρωποι να είναι προσεκτικοί με το πάθος, που δεν είναι μόνο η αιτία να χάσουν άλλα πράγματα, αλλά και το ίδιο που ποθούν. Όσο για τις άλλες απώλειες, η αφήγηση του ποιητή τις παριστά καλά: εκείνος που προτίμησε την Ελένη, εγκατέλειψε τα δώρα της Ήρας και της Παλλάδος. Διότι, όποιος δίνει υπερβολική αξία στο ερωτικό συναίσθημα εγκαταλείπει και τα πλούτη και τη σοφία»18. Ανάλογη κριτική του έρωτα βρίσκουμε και στον Κίτρινο φάκελο του Μ. Καραγάτση, την πρώτη φορά που ο ήρωας, ο Μάνος Τασάκος, μας φανερώνει εκτενώς τις σκέψεις του πάνω στο θέμα αυτό, σκεφτόμενος τις συναντήσεις της Τετάρτης στο σπίτι του νομπελίστα λογοτέχνη Κωστή Ρούσση, με αφορμή την ερωτική επιθυμία του για την Μαρία Πετροπούλου: Μόνο η Μαρία Πετροπούλου, πάντα σεμνή και λιγόλογη, δεν του είναι δυσάρεστη. Η θηλυκιά νοστιμιά της του ικανοποιεί το μάτι. — Αν δεν φοβόμουν τις περιπλοκές, συλλογιέται, θα της έβαζα χέρι. Με ερεθίζει, το παλιοκόριτσο! Είναι εντελώς σίγουρος πως αν έβαζε τα δυνατά του, του την έπαιρνε του Νίκου. Το κυριότερο ατού του, ήταν η προοπτική ενός πολύ καλού κοινωνικά και οικονομικά γάμου. Διάβολε, σ’ αυτό το σημείο ο Νίκος Ρούσης δεν μπορούσε να του αντιπαραβληθή! Αλλά κι από κάθε πλευρά ήταν πολύ πιο ενδιαφέρων απ’ τον ανεκδιήγητο ανεψιό του θείου. Μόνο που η Μαρία, καλά δασκαλεμένη από την φτώχεια και τον πατέρα της, δεν φαινόταν επιρρεπής σε αισθηματολογίες άσχετες από πρακτικές προοπτικές. — Αν της πρότεινα γάμο, αμέσως παρατούσε το σαχλαμαράκια της. Αλλά για να απολαύσω μια γυναίκα που επιθυμώ και δεν αγαπώ, το τίμημα είναι δυσανάλογο. Εξ άλλου δεν πρόκειται να παντρευτώ ποτέ. Ποιος ο λόγος να δεθώ νομικώς με μια οποιαδήποτε γυναίκα, έστω κι αν την αγαπώ; Σε τι μπορεί να αξιοποιήσει τον έρωτά μου ένας συνεχής συστεγαστικός συγχρωτισμός; Συλλογιέται πως είναι 31 χρόνων, κι ακόμα δεν αγάπησε. Είχε βέβαια μερικούς συνδέσμους, και με γυναίκες ενδιαφέρουσες. Τις χάρηκε, τις λογάριασε, ένιωσε γι’ αυτές φιλία, τρυφερότητα, συναισθηματική έλξη· αλλά το πάθος εκείνο που κυριεύει όλα τα κύτταρα του ανθρώπου, που του ανατρέπει το ψυχολογικό καθεστώς,

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του εκτροχιάζει το βιοτικό ρυθμό, του μεταλλάζει τη νοοτροπία και τον διαποτίζει με μιαν αντιφατική κι αγχώδη νοσηρότητα, δεν το’ νιωσε ποτέ. — Κι ούτε θα το νιώσω ποτέ, συλλογιέται. Όποιος δεν ερωτεύθηκε ως τα 30 του, δύσκολο πια να ερωτευθή. Ποια όμως η αιτία; Ο εγωκεντρισμός μου, κι όχι ο εγωισμός μου. Ο έρωτας πηγάζει από τον εγωισμό να κυριαρχήσουμε, με κάθε θυσία, στον εγωισμό ενός ετεροφύλου. Όταν όμως είμαστε εγωκεντρικοί, αποκλείουμε διαρρήδην το νόημα της θυσίας· για τίποτ’ απολύτως δεν βάζουμε σε κίνδυνο την ολύμπια γαλήνη μας, και καγχάζουμε με την ιδέα να επιβάλλουμε την ψυχική ή σαρκική κυριαρχία μας σ’ οποιονδήποτε. Ναρκισσευόμαστε να μας αγαπούν. Ν’ αγαπήσουμε; Τι μείωση της ατομικής μας και υπερβατικής ανωτερότητας; Ως εκεί θα ξεπέσουμε, να μοιραζόμαστε τον ανυπέρβλητο εαυτό μας με την οποιαδήποτε γυναικούλα; Κάγχασε με κέφι σαρκαστικό. Το ζήτημα δεν τον ενδιέφερε, ήταν πολύ ευχαριστημένος από την παρούσα του κατάσταση. Δεν αισθανόταν την ανάγκη ψυχικής προσφοράς, αισθηματικού αντικρύ- σματος και τα παρόμοια. Η καλή συντροφιά και το καλό κρεβάτι μιας οποιασδήποτε όμορφης και έξυπνης γυναίκας τον ικανοποιού- σαν απόλυτα. Αυτό τον καιρό είχε δυο φιλενάδες χαριτωμένες. Τι άλλο γύρευε;19

4. Ο Κίτρινος φάκελος και η ιστορία ενός μυθοπλαστικού μυθιστοριογράφου Ο Κίτρινος φάκελος κυκλοφορεί το 1956 και αποτελεί ένα από τα πιο σύνθετα και ιδιόμορφα21 μυθιστορήματά του Μ. Καραγάτση, «μια μυθοπλασία που στηρίζεται στις εσωτερικές σχέσεις της και όχι σε εξωτερικούς αφηγηματικούς πυρήνες ή αναφορές»23. Είναι, όπως έχει επισημανθεί, ένα «παιχνίδι θεατρικής πράξης»25, ένα αστυνο- μικού χαρακτήρα «μεταμυθιστόρημα»26 που «με σημερινούς όρους θα λέγαμε ότι έχει συντεθεί βάσει τηλεοπτικής λογικής»28, με σημα- ντικό ψυχαναλυτικό υπόβαθρο29, το οποίο «χαρακτηρίζεται από την αρχιτεκτονική οργάνωσή του, μια οργάνωση που το προβάλλει ως αστυνομικό μυθιστόρημα, ενώ στην πραγματικότητα είναι ένα ακό- μη αστικό μυθιστόρημα του Καραγάτση»30. Ενδεικτική είναι επίσης η

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αδυναμία κατανόησης του Κίτρινου φακέλου από τον Αντρέα Καρα- ντώνη: «Υπάρχει μια πρωτοτυπία, που εκπλήσσει, και μια περιφρό- νηση της καθαρής λογοτεχνίας, που τρομάζει και μας κάνει συχνά ν’ αναρωτιόμαστε αν πρόκειται για έργο τέχνης ή για κάτι άλλο»31. Ο ίδιος ο Καραγάτσης αναγνωρίζει αυτήν την ιδιομορφία της γραφής του Κίτρινου φακέλου, γράφοντας χαρακτηριστικά για το έργο του αυτό: Οποιοδήποτε μυθιστόρημά μου μπορώ να σας το διηγηθώ αρκετά λεπτομερώς, μέσα σε μισή ώρα. Αλλά τον «Κίτρινο Φάκελο» μού είναι αδύνατον να τον διηγηθώ. Όχι επειδή δεν υπάρχει πλοκή. Απεναντίας τα πολυποίκιλα γεγονότα περιπλέκονται με συνέπεια τόσο αρρήκτως αδέκαστη, ώστε οποιαδήποτε από τις αμέτρητες λεπτομέρειες κι αν λησμονήσω, η διήγησή μου γίνεται ακατανόητη. «O Κίτρινος Φάκελος» είναι μυθιστόρημα πού πρέπει να το διαβάζουν, κι όχι παραμύθι, που μπορούν να το διηγούνται34. Η υπόθεση του Κίτρινου φακέλου, όσο είναι εφικτό, παρόλες τις αντιρρήσεις του Καραγάτση, να περιγραφεί εν συντομία, έχει ως εξής: Ο Μάνος Τασάκος, λογοτέχνης και δικηγόρος, βρίσκεται νε- κρός έχοντας υπογράψει ένα μονολεκτικό σημείωμα «αυτοκτονώ». Δέκα χρόνια αργότερα, η ερωμένη του Μαρία Πετροπούλου-Ρούσση παραδίδει έναν κίτρινο φάκελο στο συγγραφέα Μιχάλη Καραγάτση. Ο φάκελος περιέχει τα χειρόγραφα του ημιτελούς αυτοβιογραφι- κού βιβλίου του Τασάκου «Θέσεις κι αντιθέσεις» και ο Καραγάτσης καλείται σύμφωνα με την επιθυμία του νεκρού να ολοκληρώσει το έργο. Διαβάζοντας τα χειρόγραφα και ακούγοντας με προσοχή την αφήγηση της Μαρίας, ο Καραγάτσης, συνθέτει σιγά-σιγά τη ζωή του Μάνου Τασάκου, και την ιστορία ενός ερωτικού τριγώνου που σχη- ματίστηκε ανάμεσα σ’ αυτόν, τον καλύτερο του φίλο και διάσημο νομπελίστα συγγραφέα Κωστή Ρούσση και τη γυναίκα του Μαρία Πετροπούλου. Αποκορύφωμα της ιστορίας τους ήταν ο τραυματι- σμός του Τασάκου από τη Μαρία για λόγους ερωτικής αντιζηλίας, το βράδυ του θανάτου του. Αν και ο τραυματισμός δεν ήταν θανάσιμος, ο Τασάκος, επειδή είχε προσβληθεί από ανίατη αρρώστια, έδιωξε την Μαρία από το σπίτι, υπέγραψε το σημείωμα της αυτοκτονίας και αφέθηκε να πεθάνει από αιμορραγία.

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Όπως παρατηρεί ο Βαγγέλης Αθανασόπουλος, στον Κίτρινο φά- κελο έχουμε έναν «λογικό έλεγχο της μυθοπλασίας που αναδεικνύε- ται σε πλοκή», ένα «ελεύθερο λογικό παιχνίδι με τη μυθοπλασία», το οποίο όμως «όσο πετυχημένο και να ήταν στον Κίτρινο φάκελο, δεν μπόρεσε να το κρατήσει»35. Πράγματι, ο Κίτρινος φάκελος αποτελεί ένα ιδιόμορφο έργο του Καραγάτση, ένα έργο που μοιάζει να προ- σπαθεί να συνδυάσει πολλά πράγματα μαζί, να είναι ένα αστυνομικό, ένα ερωτικό, ένα αστικό, ένα πολιτικό αφήγημα36, ακόμη ίσως και αυτοβιογραφικό37, ένα ιδιόμορφο ρεαλιστικό whodunit�, ένα campus novel στον κύκλο των λογοτεχνών, ένα ψυχογράφημα της ανθρώπι- νης φύσης� που συγχρόνως ασκεί πολιτική και λογοτεχνική κριτική. Οι ήρωες είναι σχεδόν αληθινοί, θα μπορούσαν να είναι κάποιοι από εμάς και οπωσδήποτε είναι πολλοί από αυτούς με τους οποίους καθη- μερινώς συναναστρεφόμαστε στους λογοτεχνικούς ή τους φιλοσοφι- κούς κύκλους που συχνάζουμε, άνθρωποι που έχουμε αγαπήσει πολύ και μισήσει εξίσου. Άνθρωποι που προκαλούν τα πάθη, εξάπτουν τον έρωτα και σκορπούν τη δυστυχία στους γύρω τους και, προπάντων, σε αυτούς που τους αγαπούν. Πράγματι, όπως επισημαίνει ο Roderick Beaton, ο τρόπος της αφήγησης του Καραγάτση, είναι σχεδόν υστερικός» και οι χαρακτή- ρες του «οδηγούνται από μια δύναμη που ελάχιστα καταλαβαίνουν και δεν είναι σε θέση να ελέγξουν, προς μια τελείωση που το περι- βάλλον γύρω τους τούς αρνείται»�: «ο Καραγάτσης κατά τη δεκαετία του ’30 δημοσίευσε μυθιστορήματα και διηγήματα στα οποία χαρα- κτήρες με εξαιρετικές ιδιότητες καταδιώκονταν και τελικώς κατα- στρέφονταν από τις βιολογικές ανάγκες που τους καθοδηγούσαν»�. Κατά τον Beaton, Ο Κίτρινος φάκελος είναι η ιστορία ενός μυθοπλαστικού μυθιστοριογράφου του 1930 που σχεδιάζει ένα μυθιστόρημα που θα αποδείξει ακριβώς αυτή τη θεωρία του βιολογικού και υλιστικού ντετερμινισμού. Όπως ο ίδιος ο Καραγάτσης κατά την περίοδο εκείνη, ο φαντασιακός Μάνος Τασάκος απηχεί την άποψη του Emile Zola ότι ο συγγραφέας αποτελεί ένα είδος επιστήμονα, που χωρίς πάθος πειραματίζεται με το υλικό του. Όμως στο μυθιστόρημα, ο Τασάκος μεταφέρει το πείραμά του στην πραγματική ζωή, καθώς χωρίς διορατικότητα κινεί τους

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πραγματικούς ανθρώπους που βρίσκονται γύρω του μέσα σε ένα κυνικό σενάριο που θα αποδείξει τη θεωρία του και θα γίνει η «υπόθεση» του μυθιστορήματός του. Παρόλα αυτά, το τελευταίο θύμα αυτού του σεναρίου είναι ο ίδιος ο Τασάκος, όταν η κοπέλα που υπήρξε το κυρίως θύμα του διαβάζει τα περιεχόμενα του κίτρινου φακέλου και τον πυροβολεί θανάσιμα. Το μυθιστόρημα για το οποίο αδίστακτα θυσίασε τη δική του ευτυχία και των άλλων βραχυκυκλώνεται, και το ψεγάδι ολόκληρης της θεωρητικής πρότασης του Τασάκου αποκαλύπτεται με την επιθανάτια πράξη του να γράψει ένα ψεύτικο σημείωμα αυτοκτονίας, έτσι ώστε να σώσει το κορίτσι που τελικά αγαπά: «ως το αναπότρεπτο, το δίκαιο θάνατο που μου’ δωσε το χέρι σου». Ο Καραγάτσης σ’ αυτό το μυθιστόρημα αντικατροπτίζει τη δική του προηγούμενη δουλειά, την οποία, όπως τη «σατανικά» καθοδηγούμενη δεκαετία κατά την οποία την παρήγαγε, τώρα τη βλέπει ως ένα κύκλο που έχει κλείσει. Από τη δική του συγκεκριμένη οπτική γωνία, ο Καραγάτσης κοιτά πίσω προς τον κόσμο του Μάνου Τασάκου και εκφωνεί τον επιτάφιό του. Ο κύκλος, όμως, δεν έχει απολύτως παρέλθει. Παρόλο που ο Τασάκος είναι νεκρός και το μυθιστόρημα δεν είναι δυνατόν να ολοκληρωθεί, είναι τώρα δυνατόν μετά το πέρασμα δέκα ετών ο Καραγάτσης να φτιάξει ένα διαφορετικό μυθιστόρημα μέσα από την αποτυχία του Τασάκου, σε ένα νέο γενναίο κόσμο όπου ο βιομηχανικός καπιταλισμός υπόσχεται ευτυχία για το μέλλον�. Ο Beaton τονίζει ότι το περιβάλλον αυτό, αυτός ο περίγυρος, είναι πάνω απ’ όλα η Ελλάδα και η ελληνική κοινωνία του 1930: τα μυθιστορήματα και τα διηγήματα του Καραγάτση, παρόλο που συ- χνά έχουν ως πρωταγωνιστές αλλοδαπούς, αναφέρονται πρωτίστως στην Ελλάδα. Ο Beaton κάνει επίσης ένα ενδιαφέροντα παραλλη- λισμό ανάμεσα στους ήρωες της Αργώς του Γιώργου Θεοτοκά και τους ήρωες του Καραγάτση, επισημαίνοντας ότι αυτοί αναζητούν να εισέλθουν σε μία κατάσταση «ηρεμίας», εκφράζοντας έτσι την επι- θυμία που κατέχει τον Έλληνα διανοούμενο της γενιάς του Τριάντα�. Το χωρίο από τον Θεοτοκά που παραθέτει ο Beaton είναι εξαιρετικό: «Αλίμονο! το ιδανικό έργο δε θα το φτάσουμε ποτέ. Μήτε θα βρούμε την ιδανική γυναίκα. Μήτε θα πραγματοποιήσουμε την ποίηση στη

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ζωή μας. Μήτε τις ιδέες. Μήτε ο διπλανός μας θα καταλάβει ποτέ τι ζητούμε. Αυτά όλα είτανε παιδιαρίσματα, εφηβικοί ρεμβασμοί. Δεν υπάρχει πουθενά το Χρυσόμαλλο Δέρας. Μα υπάρχει το ταξίδι της Αργώς» (Γ. Θεοτοκάς, Αργώ, Εστία, Αθήνα 1933). Ανάλογο γαλήνεμα μέσω της μεταφοράς του ταξιδιού και της θάλασσας υπονοείται και στο διήγημα του Μ. Καραγάτση «Μοναχικό ταξίδι στα Κύθηρα» που περιλαμβάνεται στη συλλογή διηγημάτων του με τίτλο Το Μεγάλο Συναξάρι, όπου γίνεται αναφορά στο ποίημα «Απολείπειν ο Θεός Αντώνιον» του Κωνσταντίνου Καβάφη�. Κατά παρόμοιο τρόπο, χρει- άζεται να παρατηρηθεί, στο πλαίσιο της δικής μας φιλοσοφικής ανά- γνωσης του Κίτρινου φακέλου, ότι η θεραπεία των παθών σύμφωνα με την στωική ηθική φιλοσοφία επιφέρει το γαλήνεμα της ψυχής, την απάθεια που αποτελεί τελικό στόχο για τον στωικό σοφό�. Έχει όμως ο κόσμος του Μάνου Τασάκου πράγματι «πεθάνει», όπως υποστηρίζει ο Roderick Beaton; Ο ίδιος ο Μάνος Τασάκος μήπως υπάρχει ακόμη ανάμεσά μας; Τι είναι δυνατόν να μας πει ο μυθοπλαστικός αυτός χαρακτήρας για την ανθρώπινη φύση και τα ανθρώπινα πάθη και συναισθήματα; Από τη στιγμή που το έργο του Καραγάτση έχει χαρακτηριστεί στο μεγαλύτερο σύνολό του ως πρωτίστως «ηθογραφικό»39, παρουσιάζοντας τα ελληνικά ήθη της Ελλάδας κατά την περίοδο 1919-1930, σε τι συνίσταται η περιγραφή αυτών των ηθών και, κυρίως, ποιοι «ηθικοί» χαρακτήρες περιγρά- φονται; Ειδικότερα, στην περίπτωση των χαρακτήρων του Κίτρινου φακέλου, που αποτελεί και το αντικείμενο της φιλοσοφικής ανάλυ- σης της παρούσας μελέτης, ποια ηθικά πρότυπα αυτοί προβάλλουν και σε τι συνίσταται η μυθοπλαστική αφηγηματική ενότητα της ζωής τους40; Αν και έχει υποστηριχθεί ότι στο έργο του Καραγάτση αντι- κατροπτίζεται η κοινωνία των δεκαετιών του 1930-50, ο καθρέπτης, κατά τη γνώμη μου, δείχνει και το είδωλο της δικής μας εποχής: ο Καραγάτσης είναι ακόμη επίκαιρος, γιατί είναι κατά μία έννοια σύγχρονός μας. Ο Μάνος Τασάκος, ο κεντρικός ήρωας του μυθιστορήματος, δεν είναι σε καμία περίπτωση ένας αξιοθαύμαστος χαρακτήρας, δεν απο- τελεί πρότυπο «ηθικού αγίου»41, το αντίθετο μάλιστα, είναι «σατανι- κός», είναι ο ίδιος ο Εωσφόρος. Είναι χαρακτηριστικό άλλωστε ότι το κεφάλαιο όπου η Μαρία πυροβόλησε τον Τασάκο ονομάζεται «Το

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τέλος του Σατανά», όπου εκεί η ίδια τον αποκαλεί σατανά και τον εαυτό της και τον κύκλο του ως «τα παιδιά του Εωσφόρου». Ο Μά- νος Τασάκος ένας άνθρωπος που, ενώ γνωρίζει τον νόμο (είναι άλλω- στε δικηγόρος στο επάγγελμα), δρα έξω από τα όρια της ηθικής και παραβιάζει τους ηθικούς κανόνες προκειμένου να εξυπηρετήσει το προσωπικό του συμφέρον. Οι πράξεις του καθορίζονται από εγωιστι- κά κίνητρα ή, όπως ο ίδιος θα έλεγε, «εγωκεντρικά». Κατά πολλούς τρόπους είναι δυνατόν να υποστηρίξει κανείς ότι οι περισσότερες πράξεις του και, γενικότερα, ο συνολικός τρόπος ζωής του ταιριάζουν στο προφίλ της «αντικοινωνικής παρεκκλίνουσας προσωπικότητας» μαζί ίσως με στοιχεία οριακής και ναρκισσιστικής προσωπικότητας, όπως και οι τρεις αυτοί τύποι προσωπικότητας ορίζονται από το γνω- στό εγχειρίδιο διάγνωσης και θεραπείας των παρεκκλινουσών προ- σωπικοτήτων DSM-IV42. Ακόμη και ο Κωστής Ρούσης, ένα από τα άλλα βασικά πρωταγωνιστικά πρόσωπα, ο «δάσκαλος» γνωστός νο- μπελίστας λογοτέχνης, που οπωσδήποτε δεν έχει τα ίδια ελαττώμα- τα του χαρακτήρα με τον Μάνο Τασάκο, είναι όμως μορφινομανής, κοσμοφοβικός και μισογύνης και, οπωσδήποτε, δεν χαρακτηρίζεται από έκφραση υγιών συναισθημάτων, όταν χαρακτηριστικά δηλώνει «Μπορεί να είμαι συναισθηματικός, αλλά αντιπαθώ να εκδηλώνω αυτού του είδους τις αδυναμίες». Όπως εύστοχα έχει επισημανθεί από τον Μιχάλη Χρυσανθό- πουλο, υπάρχει ένα είδος διαστροφής στον χαρακτήρα του Μάνου Τασάκου: Προσεγγίζοντας τον χαρακτήρα του Τασάκου μέσω της διαστροφής, αφενός, και του τι σημαίνει κατάσταση έκτακτης ανάγκης στις περιόδους που πραγματεύεται «Ο κίτρινος φάκελος», αφετέρου, επιχειρώ να συνδέσω την προσωπική βία με τη βία ως χαρακτηριστικό γνώρισμα μιας εποχής. Για την έννοια της διαστροφής προσφεύγω στην ψυχαναλυτική θεωρία, σύμφωνα με την οποία «οι αρνητικές συνδηλώσεις του όρου διαστροφή (perversion) αντικατοπτρίζουν την ασαφή αίσθηση ότι στον πυρήνα της διεστραμμένης πράξης βρίσκεται η επιθυμία να βλάψει κανείς τον άλλο. [...] Ο όρος διαστροφή χρειάζεται όχι γιατί αποτελεί χρήσιμο προπαγανδιστικό όπλο για τη διατήρηση της κοινωνίας, αλλά γιατί μπορεί να καταδειχθεί ως κατάσταση».

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Η θεωρία αυτή τονίζει ότι «η διαστροφή, η ερωτική μορφή του μίσους, αποτελεί φαντασίωση που συνήθως γίνεται πράξη. [...] Κίνητρό της είναι η εχθρότητα, δηλαδή η επιθυμία να βλάψει κανείς το αντικείμενο, και σε αυτό διαφέρει από την επιθετικότητα (aggression), η οποία προϋποθέτει μόνο τη βία». Η εχθρότητα στη διαστροφή παίρνει τη μορφή της εκδίκησης, η οποία στοχεύει στο να βλάψει το αντικείμενο της ερωτικής επιθυμίας, ενώ παράλληλα η διαστροφή παρουσιάζεται και ως πράξη που ενέχει κινδύνους (risk-taking) γι’ αυτόν που την ασκεί. Η ψυχαναλυτική θεωρία παρατηρεί, όμως, ότι η διαστροφή δεν αποτελεί μια εξαίρεση, κάτι εκτός της κανονικότητας. Είναι μέρος αυτής, όπως άλλωστε και η νεύρωση. Επιπλέον τονίζεται ότι υπάρχει μια αινιγματική σχέση μεταξύ διαστροφής και δημιουργικότητας: η δημιουργικότητα (creativity) βασίζεται στη μετουσίωση (sublimation)· η μετουσίωση χρησιμοποιεί την ενέργεια της λίμπιντο πριν από τη διαμόρφωση της ταυτότητας του φύλου (pregenital libido)· η ίδια ενέργεια εκλύεται και κατά τη διαστροφή. Κατά συνέπεια, όπως κανείς δεν μπορεί να υποστηρίξει ότι βρίσκεται πέραν της νεύρωσης, με τη φροϋδική σημασία του όρου, έτσι και κανείς δεν μπορεί υποστηρίξει ότι βρίσκεται πέραν της διαστροφής. Για να χαρακτηρίζεται, όμως, μια συμπεριφορά ως διαστροφή πρέπει η ένταση της βίας με την οποία ασκείται να την προσδιορίζει ως εχθρότητα που επιδιώκει να καταστρέψει το αντικείμενο της επιθυμίας43. Ο έρωτας και γενικότερα η παρουσίαση και η ανάλυση των πα- θών καταλαμβάνουν κεντρική θέση στη μυθοπλαστική αφήγηση του Καραγάτση. Τα μυθιστορήματα του Καραγάτση στηρίζονται στη σύ- γκρουση έρωτα και θανάτου, κλασικό αρχέτυπο του ελληνικού και του ευρωπαϊκού πολιτισμού και όχι μόνον. Δεν είναι τυχαίο, άλλω- στε, ότι το 1943 ο Καραγάτσης δημοσιεύει σε δώδεκα συνέχειες στην εφημερίδα Πρωία, τη μελέτη του με τίτλο «Ο έρωτας στο νεοελ- ληνικό μυθιστόρημα»44. Στο έργο του Καραγάτση, ο έρωτας αποτε- λεί την κινητήρια δύναμη της ζωής, που όμως συνέχεια ωθεί αυτούς που τον βιώνουν στην καταστροφή, όταν το άτομο είτε καταστρέφει τους άλλους, είτε καταστρέφεται απ’ αυτούς, είτε αυτοκαταστρέφε- ται. Επομένως, η έννοια του έρωτα στο έργο του Καραγάτση είναι

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κατά μία έννοια πλατωνική, ο έρωτας αποτελεί ένα πάθος, μια μανία που, παρόλο που είναι δημιουργική και μπορεί να αποτελέσει πηγή έμπνευσης, αν τυχόν προκληθεί χρειάζεται να θεραπευτεί45. Είναι δυνατόν να υποστηριχθεί ότι η σύγκρουση αυτή αποδίδει στην έννοια του καραγατσικού έρωτα ένα είδος τραγικότητας και μοι- ρολατρίας, υπό την έννοια ότι όλα προς το θάνατο κατευθύνονται και όλα τελικώς αποβλέπουν προς αυτόν. Η άφιξη του θανάτου μοιάζει να είναι αναπόφευκτη, αλλά συγχρόνως και ακυρωτική της ίδιας του της υπόστασης. Ήδη από την πρώτη συνάντηση ανάμεσα στον Μάνο Τασάκο και τον Κωστή Ρούση, ο Τασάκος απαντά στην ερώτηση του Ρούση για το πώς του φαίνεται το γραφείο του, «Σαν λιμέρι δύσοσμο, ενός γέρου λύκου, που αποφάσισε να θαφτή εδώ μέσα ζωντανός, γιατί ούτε τη ζωή μπορεί ν’ αγαπήση, ούτε το θάνατο47 να στέρξη»49.

5. Η άρνηση του έρωτα και η έλλειψη των συναισθημάτων Από τη στιγμή που ένας κοινός ορισμός της ερωτικής αγάπης είναι ότι «είναι αγάπη που μεταμορφώνεται από την επιθυμία»50, ο έρωτας οπωσδήποτε αποτελεί πάθος και είναι ακατάλληλος για τον ενάρετο άνθρωπο, αφού, σύμφωνα με τους Στωικούς, το πάθος ορίζεται ως «μία κίνηση της ψυχής που είναι άλογη και ενάντια στη φύση»53. Οι Στωικοί προσδιορίζουν τέσσερις τύπους παθών (επιθυ- μία, ηδονή, φόβο και αγωνία) και ένα από τα πιο γνωστά παραδείγ- ματα του πάθους της επιθυμίας είναι αυτό της ερωτικής επιθυμίας (libido)54. Η λύση του προβλήματος αυτού έγκειται στο να υποστη- ρίξει κανείς ότι ο έρωτας αποτελεί «μία παρόρμηση σε συμφωνία με τον λόγο»55, μια και «η αγάπη δεν είναι ούτε επιθυμία ούτε κάτι το μη ηθικό, αλλά αποτελεί μια προσπάθεια να κάνουμε φίλους λόγω της εμφάνισης του ωραίου»56. Μόνο εκτός του ορισμού αυτού ο έρωτας γίνεται πάθος. Αυτή η θέση υποστηρίζεται επιπλέον και από την άποψη του Παναίτιου όπως αναφέρεται από τον Σενέκα: «Νομίζω ότι ο Παναίτιος έδωσε μια ιδιαίτερα γοητευτική απάντηση στον νεαρό που τον ρώτησε κατά πόσον ο Σοφός είναι σε θέση να ερωτευτεί: ‘Σε ό,τι αφορά τον Σοφό θα δούμε. Αυτό που έχει ση- μασία για σένα και για μένα, που ακόμη απέχουμε πολύ από το να είμαστε σοφοί, είναι να σιγουρέψουμε ότι δεν θα πέσουμε θύματα μιας κατάστασης που να μας αρρωστήσει, να μας κάνει εντελώς

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αδύναμους, να μας υποτάξει στον άλλο και να μας καταστήσει ανά- ξιους για τον εαυτό μας»57. Στον Κίτρινο φάκελο, ο Μάνος Τασάκος, ενώ συνειδητοποιεί την προοπτική ευτυχίας που έχει με την Νίνα, την αρνείται58. Ίσως γιατί δεν έχει πραγματικό πάθος γι’ αυτήν, αλλά κυρίως γιατί γνωρίζει ότι η Νίνα, με την αγάπη της και την προσωπική της υπόσταση και καλλι- έργεια, θα μπορούσε να τον κάνει πραγματικά ευτυχισμένο59. Όμως, η προοπτική της ευτυχίας είναι κάτι που ο Τασάκος έχει από την αρχή της ζωής του αρνηθεί, αρεσκόμενος στο να σκηνοθετεί καταστάσεις, να στήνει παιχνίδια με τις ζωές των άλλων και να καταστρέφει αυ- τές και τη δική του. Ο έρωτας, όπως και οτιδήποτε άλλο, αποτελούν απλώς ένα νοητικό παιχνίδι για τον Μάνο Τασάκο, ο οποίος κυριευ- μένος από τον υπέρμετρο «εγωκεντρισμό» του60, όπως θα έλεγε και ο ίδιος, παίζει διαρκώς με τις ζωές των άλλων ένα παιχνίδι σκακιού. Οι άλλοι αποτελούν τα πιόνια της σκακιέρας μέσα σε ένα παιχνίδι που εκείνος δημιουργεί, εκείνος ξεκινά και εκείνος ελέγχει62. Ο Μάνος Τα- σάκος είναι κυρίαρχος του παιχνιδιού που έχει στήσει για τους άλλους, αλλά, τελικώς, και όμηρος του παιχνιδιού του. Ο ήρωας του Καραγάτση μοιάζει να είναι χωρίς συναισθήματα και χωρίς ενδιαφέρον για τους άλλους ανθρώπους, ένας άνθρωπος που «σκηνοθετεί» τις καταστάσεις, δεν ενδιαφέρεται για τα συναι- σθήματα των άλλων και που υποστηρίζει πως σημασία δεν έχει τι νιώθει κανείς, αλλά τι δείχνει κανείς πως νιώθει. Όπως εύστοχα επι- σημαίνει ο Γιώργος Περαντωνάκης, «Ο Κίτρινος φάκελος αποτελεί τη διερεύνηση της υπόθεσης για το πόσο ισχυρά είναι στον άνθρωπο τα ένστικτα του υλικού κέρδους και της κυριαρχίας, αλλά ταυτό- χρονα εξετάζει και τη σχέση πραγματικότητας και μυθοπλασίας. Ο Τασάκος πίστευε ότι η ίδια η ζωή, κατάλληλα σκηνοθετημένη, θα του έδινε το υλικό για τη συγγραφή του μυθιστορήματός του, το οποίο θα βασιζόταν στην πιστή απόδοση της εξωλογοτεχνικής πραγματικό- τητας και όχι σε υποθετικές θεωρίες και εικασίες. (…) Η απρόσμενη εξέλιξη των πραγμάτων αποδεικνύει ότι ο συγγραφέας υπόκειται και αυτός στους νόμους που διέπουν τη ζωή των ηρώων του και δεν μπο- ρεί, όσο και αν σκηνοθετεί τα πάντα διεξοτεχνικά, να χειραγωγήσει τους ανθρώπους, όπως θα έκανε με τους χαρακτήρες σε ένα παλαιάς κοπής παραδοσιακό μυθιστόημα»63.

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Η «εγωλατρία» αυτή του Μάνου Τασάκου είναι δυνατόν κατά επιγραμματικό σχεδόν τρόπο να περιγραφεί σε μερικούς από τους στίχους ενός πρώιμου ποιήματος του Καραγάτση, το «Ύψος», που έγραψε στην περίοδο από το 1922 έως το 193264: Πλεονεξία του Εγώ. –τι θέλω; τι γυρέβω; Τα τέσσερα στοιχεία του παραμυθιού, τη Γνώση, τη Χαρά, τον έρωτα και ιδίως την Αυτολατρεία μου σε όλες τις μορφές της. Φτωχή ιδεολογία! ή μάλλον πλούσια, αφού στο κέντρο της θρονιάζει πάντα η μορφή μου. Αυτολατρεία, αυτοδυστυχία …66 Ιδιαίτερο ενδιαφέρον παρουσιάζει επίσης ο τρόπος που ο Κα- ραγάτσης αντιμετωπίζει στον Κίτρινο φάκελο, αλλά και στα άλλα έργα του, την ικανοποίηση της σεξουαλικής επιθυμίας67, εκφράζο- ντας, όπως έχει χαρακτηριστεί, ένα είδος «βιολογικού ερωτισμού»69. Όπως έχει επισημανθεί, «η κριτική του 1933 θαύμαζε στον νέο μυθι- στοριογράφο την έλλειψη προκαταλήψεων απέναντι στα σεξουαλικά θέματα, τη δημιουργική πληθωρικότητα και τη φλογερή φαντασία τη λυτρωμένη από τα ηθικιστικά και κοινωνικά συμπλέγματα»73. Πράγ- ματι, η ερωτική πράξη δεν αντιμετωπίζεται ως κάτι που έχει ηθική σημασία, αλλά απλώς ως μία φυσική πράξη που από μόνη της δεν έχει ηθικό ενδιαφέρον, όπως λ.χ. άλλες πράξεις που τελούμε καθημε- ρινώς, το περπάτημα, το τρέξιμο, η τροφή. Η στάση αυτή απέναντι στην ικανοποίηση των φυσικών αναγκών, όποιες και να είναι αυτές, συνιστούν τη θεώρηση που οι Στωικοί φιλόσοφοι είχαν απέναντι στον έρωτα και τη σεξουαλική πράξη. Ένας από τους βασικούς στόχους της στωικής φιλοσοφίας υπήρ- ξε η θεραπεία των παθών74. Τα πάθη, όμως, δεν θεραπεύονται στον Καραγάτση, όχι τουλάχιστον σύμφωνα με το στωικό «πρόγραμμα». Αυτό που είναι ιδιαίτερα έκδηλο στον Κίτρινο φάκελο είναι η έλλει- ψη του πάθους, η έλλειψη των συναισθημάτων78. Πάθη οπωσδήποτε υπάρχουν, αλλά αυτά βρίσκονται βασανιστικά εκεί, μέσα στον ψυχι- κό κόσμο ορισμένων από τα πρόσωπα του Κίτρινου φακέλου, λόγω της συναισθηματικής αδιαφορίας των άλλων προσώπων, λόγω της

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αδυναμίας τους να κατανοήσουν και προπάντων να συμπονέσουν με τα συναισθήματα των άλλων. Ίσως τα πάθη να θεραπεύονται τελι- κώς, στο τέλος του βιβλίου όταν έχουμε και τη λύση του μυστηρίου της δολοφονίας του Μάνου Τασάκου, με έναν ιδιόμορφο τρόπο «αρι- στοτελικής κάθαρσης». Η κάθαρση αυτή επέρχεται με την πράξη του θανάτου του Τασάκου, με τον τρόπο δηλαδή που ο ίδιος ο Τα- σάκος επιλέγει να τερματίσει τη ζωή του θυσιάζοντας έστω και τις λίγες μέρες ή μήνες ζωής που του έχουν απομείνει, λόγω της ανίατης ασθένειας που τον έχει προσβάλει, για να προστατεύσει την Μαρία Πετροπούλου, επιδεικνύοντας έτσι, έστω και στο τέλος της ζωής του, ή μάλλον καλύτερα με τον τρόπο που επιλέγει να τερματίσει τη ζωή του, μια μορφή φιλανθρωπίας που δεν τον διέκρινε όσο ζούσε. Ο Τα- σάκος επιλέγει έναν ιδιόμορφο τρόπο για δείξει την αγάπη του στην Μαρία Πετροπούλου και να της ζητήσει κατά μία έννοια συγγνώμη, χωρίς βέβαια με λόγια να της απολογηθεί, αναγκάζοντάς την τρόπον τινά να δεχθεί τη ρήση του P. G. Wodehouse ότι «το σωστό είδος ανθρώπου δεν θέλει απολογίες»79. Όπως εύστοχα άλλωστε παρατηρεί ο Adam Smith στην εναρ- κτήρια παράγραφο του έργου του Θεωρία των ηθικών αισθημάτων, σχετικά με το συναίσθημα της συμπάθειας που το θεωρεί ως το ση- μαντικότερο για τον ηθικό βίο, «Όσο εγωιστής και να μπορεί θεω- ρηθεί ο άνθρωπος, υπάρχουν αναμφισβήτητα ορισμένες αρχές στη φύση του που τον κάνουν να ενδιαφέρεται για τις τύχες των άλλων και καθιστούν την ευτυχία των άλλων απαραίτητη για τον ίδιο, πα- ρόλο που εκείνος δεν αποκομίζει τίποτα από την ευτυχία των άλλων εκτός από την ευχαρίστηση που παίρνει βλέποντάς τους να είναι ευτυχισμένοι. Τέτοιου είδους αρχές είναι ο οίκτος ή η συμπόνοια, το συναίσθημα που αισθανόμαστε για τη δυστυχία των άλλων, όταν τη βλέπουμε ή όταν την φανταζόμαστε με έντονο τρόπο. Ότι συχνά νιώθουμε θλίψη με τη θλίψη των άλλων αποτελεί ένα γεγονός τόσο εμφανές που δεν χρειάζεται να αποδειχθεί, γιατί αυτό το συναίσθη- μα, όπως και τα άλλα αυθεντικά πάθη της ανθρώπινης φύσης, δεν περιορίζεται μόνο στους ενάρετους και τους ανθρωπιστές, παρόλο που ίσως εκείνοι το νιώθουν με μέγιστη ευαισθησία. Ο μεγαλύτερος παλιάνθρωπος, ο πιο σκληρός καταπατητής των νόμων της κοινω- νίας, δεν είναι απαλλαγμένος από το συναίσθημα αυτό».� Απ’ ό,τι

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φαίνεται, τελικώς, ούτε ο χωρίς συναισθήματα χαρακτήρας του Μά- νου Τασάκου στη μυθοπλασία του Κίτρινου φακέλου του Μ. Καραγά- τση είναι απαλλαγμένος από το συναίσθημα της συμπάθειας. Άλλωστε, ακόμη και ο νιτσεϊκός Ζαρατούστρα, στον οποίο ορι- σμένες φορές τείνουν να μοιάζουν οι ήρωες του Καραγάτση, δεν εί- ναι εντελώς απαλλαγμένος από το συναίσθημα αυτό της συμπάθει- ας, αφού νιώθει την ανάγκη να κατηφορίσει από το βουνό στην πόλη και να συναναστραφεί με τους ανθρώπους, να τους φέρει ένα δώρο επειδή τους αγαπά�. Η συναναστροφή, όμως, αυτή με τους άλλους ανθρώπους και η φιλία μαζί τους, σύμφωνα με τον Nietzsche, όπως και σύμφωνα με τον ήρωα του Καραγάτση, είναι ιδιόμορφη, χωρίς να ενέχει τα χαρακτηριστικά που συνήθως αποδίδουμε σ’ αυτήν και χωρίς, βέβαια, να έχει έστω και κάποια ανάμνηση της αριστοτελικής έννοιας της φιλίας όπως αυτή ορίζεται στη Ρητορική του Αριστοτέ- λη: «…αγαπώ κάποιον και θέλω να τον έχω φίλο μου θα πει θέλω γι’ αυτόν καθετί που το θεωρώ καλό, όχι για να κερδίσω κάτι ο ίδιος, αλλά αποκλειστικά για χάρη εκείνου· κάνω μάλιστα και ό,τι μπορώ για να αποκτήσει αυτά τα καλά εκείνος»�. Η αναγνώριση του εαυτού μας στο φίλο μας είναι ένα θέμα που είναι κοινό στις περισσότερες φιλοσοφικές διαπραγματεύσεις της φιλίας και συνδέεται συγχρόνως, με άμεσο σχεδόν τρόπο, με την έννοια της φιλαυτίας. Η αγάπη του εαυτού μας δεν είναι, κατά τον Αριστοτέλη, κατακριτέα, αντιθέτως μάλιστα είναι απαραίτητο να αγαπούμε τον εαυτό μας για να μπο- ρούμε να αγαπούμε και τον άλλο ως άλλο εαυτό μας. Ο Nietzsche, συνδέει τον εαυτό με τη φιλία προς τους άλλους, αντιλαμβάνεται όμως με διαφορετικό τρόπο τη φιλία από τον Αριστοτέλη�. Η νι- τσεϊκή έννοια της φιλίας δεν φαίνεται να έχει καμία σχέση με την αριστοτελική. Γράφει χαρακτηριστικά ο Nietzsche το καλοκαίρι του 1895: «Ο Σωκράτης – τ’ ομολογώ – μου είναι τόσο πλησίον, ώστε πρέπει πάντοτε σχεδόν να μάχομαι μαζί του»�. Σε καμία περίπτωση η νιτσεϊκή αυτή ιδέα για τη φιλία και το πλησίον δεν είναι δυνατόν να έχει κάποια σχέση με την αριστοτελική. Ο νιτσεϊκός άνθρωπος μισεί, φαίνεται, τον εαυτό του τόσο πολύ που ενώ αναγνωρίζει στον άλλον τον εαυτό του, τον αντιπαλεύεται και του συμπεριφέρεται ως τον χειρότερο εχθρό του, όπως κάνει άλλωστε και στον ίδιο τον εαυτό του. Ο ίδιος ο Nietzsche ορίζει αυτήν την ιδανική, ουτοπική

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και απραγματοποίητη ουσιαστικά φιλία που ονειρεύεται και που γι’ αυτήν μοχθεί: «Ονειρεύομαι μια συντροφιά από απόλυτους ανθρώ- πους, που δεν γνωρίζουν καμία επιείκεια και θέλουν ν’ αποκαλού- νται ‘καταλύτες’. Εφαρμόζουν παντού το μέτρο της κριτικής τους και θυσιάζονται για την αλήθεια»�. Ιδιόμορφες είναι και οι απόψεις του Nietzsche για τον έρωτα, όταν υποστηρίζει ότι «η θεραπεία για τον έρωτα είναι μέχρι τώρα για τις περισσότερες περιπτώσεις αυτό το αρχαίο δραστικό γιατρικό: η ανταπόδοση της αγάπης»�. Όπως εύστοχα παρατηρεί ο Roger Scru- ton, ο Nietzsche μας παροτρύνει να περιφρονούμε τους φίλους μας έτσι ώστε να τους αγαπάμε περισσότερο, εννοώντας ότι το καλύτερο που έχουμε να κάνουμε – στον κόσμο όπως είναι πραγματικά και όχι όπως ιδανικά θα θέλαμε να είναι – είναι να καταργήσουμε τη φιλία του σεβασμού και να την αντικαταστήσουμε με τον έρωτα, «γιατί μόνο η ερωτική αγάπη μπορεί να επιβιώσει τη συνειδητοποίηση της αχρειότητας του άλλου, χωρίς να καταλήξει να γίνει αυτή η ασθενής, αμφιταλαντευόμενη φιλία, από την οποία τίποτε το σοβαρό δεν είναι δυνατόν να προκύψει»�. Ο Nietzsche αναγνωρίζει, όμως, τη σημασία του έρωτα και της αγάπης γενικότητα αναφορικά με το αντικείμενο της καλλιτεχνικής δημιουργίας, απηχώντας τις απόψεις του Πλάτωνος στον Φαίδρο για τη δημιουργική μανία�. Η ερωτική επιθυμία, ο «ἔρως», είναι δυνατόν να δημιουργήσει έναν ικανό και σταθερό καλλιτέχνη που, αντί να κυριεύει με πάθος τον άνθρωπο καταδικάζοντάς τον σε μια ζωή γεμάτη με αυταπάτες, μπορεί να τον μεταμορφώσει σε ένα πλάσμα δυνατότερο και πιο αληθινό: «αυτή η μέθη του ερωτικού απο- τελεί ένα μεγάλο κίνητρο για την κατάφαση της ζωής γενικότερα», κατά τον ίδιο τρόπο που «όλα τα πράγματα στην τέχνη που είναι μα- γικά, δηλ. η δόνηση και η λάμψη, δηλ. η μέθη και η περιπέτεια, δηλ. η λυρικότητα και η γενναιοδωρία – όλα αυτά δημιουργούνται από την αγάπη»�. Όπως σημειώνει ο Νίτσε στη Βούληση για δύναμη, «Υπάρχει μια δουλική αγάπη που υποτάσσεται και παραδίνεται, που εξιδανικεύ- εται και αυταπατάται· υπάρχει μια θεϊκή αγάπη που περιφρονεί και αγαπά, που ξαναδίνει μορφή και εξυψώνει αυτόν που αγαπά…»�. Η αγάπη όμως αυτή, ο απόλυτος δηλ. έρωτας για τη ζωή, «για να γίνει ωφέλιμος για το μελλοντικό Εγώ θα πρέπει να κυριαρχηθεί από την αγάπη και ο ερωτευμένος να υπερβεί το συναίσθημα που νιώθει όταν

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βλέπει την καταθλιπτική και αδύναμη ανθρώπινη φύση, βιώνοντας μια αγάπη υπερβατική, που να επιθυμεί τον υπεράνθρωπο. Αυτό όμως προϋποθέτει την ανεπίκαιρη Εμπειρία ενός διαφορετικού Τέλους, που να προσανατολίζεται στην έγχρονη προοπτική του γίγνεσθαι. Η υπέρ- βαση, έτσι, επιτυγχάνεται μέσω της αγάπης και του προσανατολισμού στο έγχρονο, μέσω της περιφρόνησης και της δημιουργίας. Τον εαυτό σου αγαπάς και για αυτό τον περιφρονείς, λέει ο Ζαρατούστρα στον Δι- ονυσιακό άνθρωπο, αφού μόνο εκείνοι που αγαπούν περιφρονούν […] και θέλουν να δημιουργήσουν»�.

6. Η επίδραση του Friedrich Nietzsche στο έργο του Καραγάτση Πράγματι, στο έργο του Καραγάτση, και ιδιαίτερα στον Κίτρινο Φάκελο, υπάρχουν αρκετές αναφορές στο έργο του Friedrich Ni- etzsche και, κυρίως, απ’ ό,τι φαίνεται στο νιτσεϊκό έργο Τάδε Έφη Ζαρατούστρα�. Άλλωστε, δεν πρέπει να ξεχνάμε ότι ο Ζαρατούστρα αποτελεί την «πικρή εξομολόγηση ενός οργισμένου ανθρώπου, ενός αναχωρητή που εγκατέλειψε τον κόσμο, επειδή τον αγάπησε παρά- φορα, ενός ποιητή που εμπνεύστηκε από τη ζωή τους ωραιότερους στίχους του», αφού, «όπως ο Nietzsche, έτσι και ο Ζαρατούστρα αγάπησε βαθιά αυτό που άφηνε πίσω του, αλλά η ψυχή του δεν του επέτρεπε κανενός είδους συμφιλίωση παρά μόνο τη μεγάλη ρήξη, τη μεγάλη άρνηση»�. Ας μην ξεχνάμε, άλλωστε, πως «ο Ζαρατούστρα αποτελεί «το σύμβολο ενός κόσμου απαλλαγμένου από το βάρος των προκατα- λήψεων του, ή καλύτερα, ο οραματιστής ενός κόσμου διαφορετι- κού» και πως έχει χαρακτηριστεί ως «ο καταλυτής που υπόσχεται να απαλλάξει τους οπαδούς του από το βάρος του παρωχημένου, για να τους οδηγήσει στο μονοπάτι της σοφίας που καταφάσκει τη ζωή στα πιο μεγάλα και τα πιο μικρά»80. Κατά τον Nietzsche, «Ο άνθρωπος είναι κάτι που πρέπει να ξεπεραστεί, κηρύσσει ο Ζαρα- τούστρα. Τι κάνατε εσείς για να τον ξεπεράσετε; (…) Ο άνθρωπος είναι ένα πέρασμα και μία δύση»82. Η φράση αυτή του Nietzsche συνοψίζει την πεποίθησή του ότι είναι αναγκαίο, αν επιθυμούμε να προχωρήσουμε στη ζωή μας, να υπερβούμε το παρελθόν και το παρόν μας83.

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Κατά τον Nietzsche, η βούληση για δύναμη αποτελεί το θεμε- λιώδες κίνητρο της ανθρώπινης ζωής και ο άνθρωπος φτάνει στην ελευθερία μέσα από τη βούληση για δύναμη, η οποία συνίσταται στην προσπάθειά του να ξεπεράσει τους άλλους ανθρώπους έτσι ώστε να πάψει να εξαρτάται από αυτούς84. Κατά παρόμοιο τρόπο, ο Τασάκος λέει για τον εαυτό του: «Πρωτίστως είμαι ελεύθερος άνθρωπος. Αν μπορώ να παραβαίνω τους κοινωνικούς νόμους ατιμωρητεί, γιατί να μην το κάνω;». Η βούληση για δύναμη δεν αποτελεί ένα απλό κίνη- τρο δράσης, όπως, για παράδειγμα, το ερωτικό ένστικτο ή το ένστι- κτο της πείνας, αφού τα ένστικτα στο σύνολό τους δεν αποτελούν αυτόνομες λειτουργίες του ανθρώπου αλλά εκφάνσεις της βούλησής του για δύναμη. Κατά τον Nietzsche, οι άνθρωποι δεν εμπλέκονται σε μια ερωτική σχέση με την προσδοκία της κάρπωσης της ηδονής, αλλά με την προοπτική απόκτησης δύναμης, αφού η ερωτική σχέση είναι μια ανταγωνιστική σχέση, όπου το κάθε μέλος επιζητεί να επι- βληθεί του άλλου έτσι ώστε να αποκτήσει περισσότερη δύναμη. Η βούληση για δύναμη δεν είναι μόνο μια ορμή των όντων για την συ- ντήρηση της ύπαρξης που επιβάλλει ο φυσικός ανταγωνισμός, αλλά η δημιουργική αρχή του κόσμου. Το ελληνικό κοινό της εποχής εκείνης ήταν εξοικειωμένο με τη φιλοσοφία και το ποιητικό έργο του Nietzsche και κυκλοφορούσαν μεταφράσεις ορισμένων έργων του είτε κατευθείαν από τα γερμανι- κά είτε αυτές του Νίκου Καζαντζάκη από τα γαλλικά85. Όπως επι- σημαίνει η Ρωξάνη Αργυροπούλου στη μελέτη της για την πρόληψη των ιδεών του Nietzsche στην Ελλάδα, «σ’ ευρύτερο πλαίσιο η απή- χηση της νιτσεϊκής φιλοσοφίας στον ελληνικό χώρο συνδέθηκε κυ- ρίως με ζητήματα ιδεολογικού και πολιτικού περιεχομένου», καθώς «η αισιοδοξία η οποία διακατέχει τον νιτσεϊσμό αναφορικά με τη δημιουργική βούληση του ανθρώπου έδωσε μεγαλύτερη ώθηση στους Έλληνες διανοουμένους, όπως και σε εκείνους των άλλων χωρών, σε εθνικές φιλοσοφικές θεωρίες οι οποίες δεν αποτελούν διακοπή με το παρελθόν αλλά, αντίθετα, ανάδειξή του πάνω σε καινούριες αξίες»86. Η φιλοσοφική θεωρία της βούλησης για τη δύναμη του Nietzsche επηρέασε πολλούς από τους σημαντικότερους λογοτέχνες και ποι- ητές της εποχής εκείνης, όπως τους Γιάννη Καμβύση, Κωνσταντί- νο Θεοτόκη, Παύλο Νιρβάνα, Λορέντζο Μαβίλη, Ίωνα Δραγούμη,

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Κώστα Χατζόπουλο, Γρηγόριο Ξενόπουλο, Νίκο Καζαντζάκη, Κωστή Παλαμά και Άγγελο Σικελιανό, αλλά και συνθέτες όπως ο Μ. Καλο- μοίρης87, όπως βέβαια και νεοέλληνες φιλοσόφους της εποχής όπως, μεταξύ άλλων, οι Θεόφιλος Βορέας και Νεοκλής Καζάζης87. Η επίδραση του Nietzsche στον Καραγάτση είναι εμφανής. Άλ- λωστε, στον Κίτρινο Φάκελο ο ίδιος ο ήρωάς του, ο Μάνος Τασάκος, συγκρίνει τον εαυτό του με τον νιτσεϊκό υπεράνθρωπο, όταν χαρα- κτηριστικά αναφέρει μιλώντας για τον εαυτό του και τη σχέση του με τους άλλους ανθρώπους, κάνοντας άμεσες και έμμεσες αναφορές στη φιλοσοφική θεωρία της βούλησης για δύναμη του Nietzsche: Πρέπει να ξεκαθαρίσω αν είμαι άνθρωπος δυνατός ή αδύνατος. Στην πρώτη περίπτωση, η αντικειμενική ηθική δεν έχει σημασία για μένα. Οι δυνατοί, ακολουθώντας την προσταγή του βιολογικού νό- μου, αρχηγεύουν στους αδύνατους και τους εκμεταλλεύονται για την ικανοποίηση κάθε πάθους τους προς δημιουργία ή απόλαυση. Μην ξεχνάμε πως η απόλαυση είναι στενά συνυφασμένη με τη δημιουρ- γία· γιατί χωρίς την ψυχική ευφορία που τους προσφέρει, οι δυνα- τοί δεν θα’ βρισκαν το δημιουργικό οίστρο. Ο διαχωρισμός της αν- θρωπότητας σε δυνατούς δυνάστες κι αδύνατους δυναστευόμενους αποτελεί πραγματικότητα, απόρροια φυσικής επιταγής αδέκαστης· κι η αντικειμενική ηθική είναι φενάκη επιβεβλημένη στους ηλιθίους αδύνατους από τους νοήμονες δυνατούς, και που επιτρέπει στους πρώτους να δέχονται παθητικά τη δυνάστευση των δευτέρων. Ο νι- τσεϊκός υπεράνθρωπος έχει το προνόμιο να χαίρεται τη ζωή ανε- ξέλεγχτα, και να μεταχειρίζεται το κοπάδι των υπανθρώπων χωρίς οίκτο, για την ικανοποίηση του πάθους του. Κατάντησα οπαδός του ροζεμπεργείου Φυρερμπριντσίπ; Γιατί όχι, αν πιστεύω στην αλήθεια του; Η φύση μ’ έπλασε αρχηγό· και στους αρχηγούς τα πάντα επιτρέ- πονται, για το καλό των αρχηγευομένων. Κάθε προσπάθεια έχει τα μοιραία της θύματα· μα οι υπόλοιποι θα κερδίσουν οπωσδήποτε από το αρχηγικό μου επίτευγμα. Πρέπει να παραδεχθώ πως σαν δυνατός κι αρχηγός, οφείλω να είμαι και amoral, δηλαδή αδιάφορος προς την αντικειμενική ηθική· αλλά κι ανελέητος προς τους αδύνατους που παραβιάζουν τους κανόνες της. Για όλους τους ανθρώπους δεν ισχύουν τα ίδια μέτρα και σταθμά, κι η δημιουργία δεν είναι προ- νόμιο του καθενός: η δημιουργία που αποβλέπει στην εξύψωση της

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ολότητας. Το ριζικό μ’ έταξε δημιουργό για το καλό του συνόλου. Αν, για να πετύχω το σκοπό μου, θ’ αναγκαστώ να πατήσω σε μερικά πτώματα, δεν θα διστάσω. Η ζωή είναι πόλεμος· και πόλεμος είναι η προσπάθεια να επιτευχθεί κάποιο ηθικό αποτέλεσμα με μη ηθικά μέσα. Αν πιστεύω σ’ αυτό, κανένας διασταγμός συμβατικής ηθικής δεν πρέπει να με εμποδίση· γιατί αλλιώς δεν θα ήμουν αρχηγός, αλλά ένα νούμερο του τεράστιου, του ευεπηρέαστου και άβουλα κατευθυ- νόμενου κοπαδιού…88

7. Επιλεγόμενα: Τέχνη και φιλοσοφία Σε κάθε περίπτωση, η επιλογή των φιλοσόφων που μελετούμε ή θαυμάζουμε ή επηρεαζόμαστε από αυτούς με τον ένα ή τον άλλο τρόπο στο έργο μας αποκαλύπτει συνήθως κάτι από τον εαυτό μας, ή, τουλάχιστον, μια πτυχή του εαυτού μας, όπως με εύστοχο τρόπο παρατηρεί ο Αλέξανδρος Νεχαμάς: «… όπως ακριβώς η επιλογή των φίλων μας δείχνει κάτι για τον δικό μας χαρακτήρα, έτσι και οι φιλό- σοφοι τους οποίους μελετούμε, αποκαλύπτουν κάτι και για την δική μας προσωπικότητα. Η μελέτη της φιλοσοφίας ως τέχνης του βίου αποκαλύπτει τις δικές μας ηθικές προτιμήσεις και μας αναγκάζει να αποκαλύψουμε ένα μέρος του εαυτού μας. Αυτό το προσωπικό είδος φιλοσοφίας αντανακλάται στο δικό μας πρόσωπο, είναι δε προσωπι- κό και με αυτή την επιπρόσθετη έννοια. Το να μελετήσουμε σημαίνει επίσης να το ασκήσουμε»89. Η παρατήρηση αυτή είναι δόκιμη στην περίπτωση του Μ. Καραγάτση, αφού ο κύριος χαρακτήρας του στον Κίτρινο Φάκελο, τουλάχιστον, – ο Μάνος Τασάκος – μοιάζει να δο- μεί τη ζωή του σύμφωνα με τα νιτσεϊκά πρότυπα και να προσπαθεί, «ωσάν νέος Ζαρατούστρας», να ποδηγετήσει τις ζωές των άλλων, των προσώπων δηλ. που σχετίζονται με φιλικούς ή ερωτικούς δε- σμούς μαζί του και που είχαν την ατυχία να πέσουν «θύματα» της προσοχής του. Όμως, «όπως ακριβώς μπορεί να κάνουμε λάθος στην επιλογή των φίλων μας, έτσι μπορεί και να θαυμάζουμε τους λάθος φιλοσόφους»90. Στην περίπτωση του Μάνου Τασάκου, η διαπίστωση αυτή του Νεχαμά είναι σαν να έχει γραφεί για τον ήρωα του Καρα- γάτση: ο Τασάκος δεν αποτελεί απλώς μια λανθασμένη επιλογή φί- λου, αφού οδηγεί όλους αυτούς που τον αγαπούν στην καταστροφή, αλλά έχει, απ’ ό,τι φαίνεται τουλάχιστον, επιλέξει να διαλέξει και

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λάθος φιλόσοφο ή – για να είμαστε δίκαιοι απέναντι στο έργο του Nietzsche – τον ερμηνεύει με λάθος τρόπο. Οπωσδήποτε, στο πλαίσιο της μελέτης αυτής δεν είναι δυνα- τόν να ανιχνευθεί το σύνολο των νιτσεϊκών επιρροών στο έργο του Καραγάτση ούτε βέβαια να αξιολογηθούν αυτές με επαρκή τρόπο. Ο φιλοσοφικός στοχασμός του Nietzsche, άλλωστε, είναι δύσκολο να παρουσιαστεί με συστηματικό τρόπο μέσα από το σύνολο των κειμένων του, αφού ο ίδιος δεν υπήρξε συστηματικός φιλόσοφος με την παραδοσιακή έννοια του όρου τουλάχιστον. Ειδικότερα, για την πρόληψη του Nietzsche από τον Μ. Καραγάτση ισχύουν οι παρατη- ρήσεις του Δημήτρη Λαμπρέλλη αναφορικά με την γενιά του Καρα- γάτση: «Η σκέψη τους (…) φαίνεται ενίοτε –όταν δεν υπεισέρχεται η άγνοια ή αυτό που ονομάζεται παρερμηνεία– να νομιμοποιείται σε αυτήν την προσπάθειά της να ανεύρει στον Nietzsche, στις θέσεις του Nietzsche, την πατρότητα αυτού που φιλεί ή αντιμάχεται· στη συνέχεια όμως μπορεί να διαπιστώσει κάποιος, αν βέβαια τον ενδι- αφέρει η συνέχεια και όχι η αμφίβολη γοητεία, η εύκολη μαγεία της επιφάνειας, ότι η πρώτη εντύπωση δίνει τη θέση της σε μία άλλη: στο πλαίσιό της, ο στοχασμός τους, νιτσεϊκός ή αντινιτσεϊκός, φαίνε- ται να εκφράζει κατά βάθος το απόλυτο, την εμμονή στον εαυτό του, οι θέσεις τους είναι εκφράσεις του απόλυτου, ενώ ο στοχασμός του Nietzsche αποκαλύπτεται να μην εκφράζει το απόλυτο παρά μόνο επιφανειακά· η επιφάνεια των θέσεών του, οι τόποι αυτοί του απολύ- του, φαίνεται ότι δεν είναι κατά βάθος παρά η επιφάνεια του ορίζο- ντα της πολλαπλότητας και της συνυφασμένης με αυτήν υποψίας»91. Πράγματι, όπως είναι γνωστό, ο Nietzsche υποστηρίζει, κυρί- ως στη Γέννηση της Τραγωδίας, αλλά και αλλού, ότι η τέχνη εμπεριέ- χει τη δυνατότητα να αποτελέσει την ενωτική δύναμη της κοινωνίας και πως η τέχνη, σε ορισμένες περιπτώσεις, είναι δυνατόν να μας αποζημιώσει για τα δεινά της ζωής: «η ζωή λυτρώνεται από την τέ- χνη»92. Ο ήρωας του Καραγάτση επιχείρησε να χειραγωγήσει τους ανθρώπους που τον αγαπούσαν ώστε «να συγγράψει την ίδια τη ζωή τους ώστε η ζωή να καθρεφτίζει την τέχνη κι όχι η τέχνη τη ζωή»93. Όμως, όπως παρατηρεί ο Bernard Williams, είναι λάθος να αναζη- τούμε στην τέχνη ένα μοναδικό σκοπό και οπωσδήποτε η τέχνη δεν μπορεί σε καμία περίπτωση να αντικαταστήσει τη ζωή, η οποία με τη

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δραματικότητά της δεν παύει ποτέ να μας εκπλήσσει και να μας κα- τακρημνίζει με υπαρκτούς και ανυπέρβλητους εφιάλτες: «αν η τέχνη έχει κάτι να μας προσφέρει είναι ένα απαραίτητο συμπλήρωμα και έναν επιβεβλημένο περιορισμό στον ακούραστο στόχο της ηθικής φι- λοσοφίας να καταστήσει τον κόσμο ασφαλή για αγαθής προθέσεως άτομα» 94.

Notes 1 R. Kannicht, Η παλαιά διαμάχη ποίησης και φιλοσοφίας, μτφρ. Δ. Ιακώβ, Αθήνα: Λωτός, 1988. 2 Πβ. για παράδειγμα τη γνωστή διαμάχη ανάμεσα στον φιλόσοφο Κωνσταντίνο Τσάτσο και τον ποιητή Γιώργο Σεφέρη: Κ. Τσάτσος, «Πριν από το ξεκίνημα, Προπύλαια (Απρίλης και Μάης, Ιούνιος, 1983) και «Ένας διάλογος για την ποίηση», Προπύλαια (Οκτώβρης-Δεκέμβρης 1983), αναδημοσίευση στο Δοκίμια Αισθητικής και Παιδείας, Αθήνα: Δίφρος, 1960, σ. 95-126 και Γ. Σεφέρης, «Διάλογος πάνω στην ποίηση», «Μονόλογος πάνω στην ποίηση», «Το τέλος ενός διαλόγου», στο Δοκιμές Α΄ (1936-1947), 5η έκδ., Αθήνα: Ίκαρος, 1984, σ. 82-165. 3 Βλ. ενδεικτικά Stanley Cavell, Must We Mean What We Say? A Book of Essays, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976· Stanley Cavell, The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and Tragedy, New York: Oxford University Press, 1979 και Martha Nussbaum, Love’s Knowledge. Essays on Philosophy and Literature, New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. Βλ. επίσης και την βιβλιοκρισία του βιβλίου αυτού της Martha Nussbaum από τον J. Kalin, ‘Knowing Novels: Nussbaum on Fiction and Moral Theory’, Ethics, 103 (1992), σ. 135-151. 4 Βλ. Maurice Blanchot, L’espace littéraire, Paris: Gallimard, 1968. 5 Το παράθεμα στον Γ. Σεφέρη, Δοκιμές Α΄ (1936-1947), ό.π., σ. 57 και σ. 149. 6 Βλ. Frank Palmer, Literature and Moral Understanding. A Philosophical Essay on Ethics, Aesthetics, Education, and Culture, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992, σ. 83. 7 Για το πρόβλημα της «προσωπικής ταυτότητας» πβ. γενικά Sydney Shoemaker & Richard Swinburne, Personal Identity, Oxford: Blackwell, 1985. 8 Βλ. Frank Palmer, Literature and Moral Understanding, αυτόθι. 9 Βλ. ενδεικτικά Colin Radford and Michael Weston, ‘How can we be Moved by the Fate of Anna Karenina?’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 69 (1975), σ. 67-93 και E. M. Zemach, ‘Emotion and Fictional Beings’, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 54, 1 (1996), σ. 41-48. 10 Γι’ αυτό, άλλωστε, στην αισθητική θεωρία ένα σημαντικό πρόβλημα αποτελεί αυτό της «αισθητικής απόστασης» του θεατή από το έργο τέχνης που συνδέεται με το θέμα της αισθητικής απόλαυσης του έργου τέχνης. Για να μπορέσει κανείς να απολαύσει αισθητικά ένα έργο τέχνης, όποιο και να είναι αυτό, χρειάζεται να είναι σε θέση να διατηρήσει τη σωστή αισθητική απόσταση από αυτό, η οποία δεν πρέπει να είναι ούτε πολύ «μικρή» ούτε πολύ «μεγάλη», κατά το πρότυπο της αριστοτελικής μεσότητας. Έτσι, όταν ο Οθέλλος πνίγει την Δυσδαιμόνα δεν ανεβαίνουμε στη σκηνή να τον λυντσάρουμε, ούτε βέβαια ξεκαρδιζόμαστε στα γέλια με αυτά που διαδραματίζονται μπροστά μας. Βλ. ενδεικτικά για το θέμα αυτό, Ε. Π. Παπανούτσου, Αισθητική, 4η έκδ., Αθήνα, 1969, σ. 225-234· Π. Α. Μιχελή,

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«Η αισθητική απόσταση και η γοητεία της σύγχρονης τέχνης», στο Αισθητικά θεωρήματα, τόμ. Α, Αθήνα, 1971, σ. 3-68· M. Rader και B. Jessup, Art and Human Values, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1976, σ. 44-74 και Α. Γλυκοφρύδη-Λεοντσίνη, «Αισθητική στάση και θεατρική πράξη», στο Νεοελληνική Φιλοσοφία. Πρόσωπα και θέματα, Αθήνα: Αφοι Τολίδη, 1993, σ. 311-349. 11 Βλ. σχετικά L. W. Hyman, ‘Moral Attitudes and the Literary Experience’, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 38, 2 (1979), σ. 159-165 12 Βλ. S. E. Worth, ‘Aristotle, Thought, and Mimesis: Our Responses to Fiction’, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 58, 4 (2000), σ. 333-339 και F. O’ Rourke, ‘Philosophy and Poetry in Aristotle, Interpreting and Imitating Nature’, στο Α. Γλυκοφρύδη-Λεοντσίνη (επιμ.), Βίος Θεωρητικός. Αφιερωματικός τόμος εις τον καθηγητή Δημήτριον Ν. Κούτραν, Αθήνα: Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών, 2006, σ. 385-404. 13 Βλ. ενδεικτικά για το θέμα αυτό P. McCormick, ‘Moral Knowledge and Fiction’, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 41, 4 (1983), σ. 399-410· M. A. Caws, ‘Moral- Reading, or Self-Containment with a Flaw’, New Literary History, 15, 1, Literature and / as Moral Philosophy (1983), σ. 209-215· N. Carroll, ‘The Wheel of Virtue: Art, Literature, and Moral Knowledge’, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 60, 1 (2002), σ. 3-26. 14 Françis Bacon [1597], «Για τον έρωτα», στο Δοκίμια, μτφρ. Σπύρος Φέγγος, επιμ. Ι.Σ. Χριστοδούλου, Θεσσαλονίκη: Ζήτρος, 2000, σ. 75. 15 Πουβλίβιος Σύρος, Sententiae, 15, στο Françis Bacon [1597], ό.π., σημ. επιμ. 4, σ. 280. 16 Françis Bacon [1597], ό.π., σ. 76. 17 Μ. Καραγάτσης [1956], Κίτρινος Φάκελλος, 2 τόμ., Αθήνα: Εστία, 6η έκδ., 1984. 18 Το κείμενο του Κίτρινου φακέλου βρίθει θεατρικών στοιχείων και, όπως έδειξε ο Ιωσήφ Βιβιλάκης με την επιτόπια έρευνά του στο αρχείο του συγγραφέα, ο Καραγάτσης είχε όχι μόνο θεατρική παιδεία αλλά και την πρόθεση να μεταφέρει θεατρικά τον Κίτρινο φάκελο. Βλ. Ι. Βιβιλάκης, «Ο θεατρικός Καραγάτσης», Παράβασις, 1 (1995), σ. 227-243. Βλ. επίσης Μ. Γ. Μερακλής, «Ο Κίτρινος φάκελος και στοιχεία της πρωτοτυπίας του», Νέα Εστία, 1536 (1991), σ. 847-850· Κριστιάν Φιλιππούσης, «Ο Καραγάτσης και το θέατρο», Διαβάζω, 258 (1991), σ. 71-73 και Γ. Ν. Περαντωνάκης, «Ο Κίτρινος φάκελος και η σκηνοθεσία των ζώντων προσώπων», Νέα Εστία, 164, 1815 (2008), σ. 682-693. Για τον Καραγάτση ως κριτικό θεάτρου, βλ. Μ. Καραγάτσης, Κριτική θεάτρου 1946 1960, πρόλ. Κ. Γεωργουσόπουλος, εισαγ.-επιμ. Ι. Βιβιλάκης, Αθήνα: Βιβλιοπωλείον της Εστίας, 1999. 19 Β. Αθανασόπουλος, Οι μάσκες του ρεαλισμού. Εκδοχές του νεοελληνικού αφηγηματικού λόγου, τόμ. Β΄, Αθήνα: Καστανιώτης, 2003, σ. 556. 20 Γ. Ν. Περαντωνάκης, «Ο Κίτρινος φάκελος και η σκηνοθεσία των ζώντων προσώπων», ό.π., σ. 693. 21 Άρης Μπερλής, Μεσοπολεμική πεζογραφία, τόμ. Δ΄, Αθήνα: Σοκόλη, 1992, σ. 288. 22 Γ. Ν. Περαντωνάκης, «Ο Κίτρινος φάκελος και η σκηνοθεσία των ζώντων προσώπων», ό.π., σ. 687. 23 Τζίνα Πολίτη, «Ο κίτρινος φάκελλος ή η παραγραφή της μυθιστορίας», στο Η ανεξακρίβωτη σκηνή, Αθήνα: Άγρα, 2001, σ. 111-167. 24 Β. Αθανασόπουλος, Οι μάσκες του ρεαλισμού, τόμ. Β΄, αυτόθι. 25 Α. Καραντώνης, Πεζογράφοι και πεζογραφήματα της γενιάς του ’30, Αθήνα: Παπαδήμας, 1977, σ. 153.

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26 Το σχόλιο αυτό του Καραγάτση βρίσκεται στο Β. Αθανασόπουλος, Οι μάσκες του ρεαλισμού, τόμ. Β΄, ό.π., σ. 556-557. 27 Β. Αθανασόπουλος, Οι μάσκες του ρεαλισμού, τόμ. Β΄, ό.π., σ. 557. 28 Βλ. Μ. Χρυσανθόπουλου, «Κυριαρχία και διαστροφή. Ερωτικά πάθη και δολοπλοκίες στον Κίτρινο Φάκελο», Βιβλιοθήκη Ελευθεροτυπίας: «Αφιέρωμα Μ. Καραγάτσης: Τα πολλά του πρόσωπα», 509 (2008), σ. 12. 29 Σύμφωνα με τον Β. Αθανασόπουλο, «ο συγγραφέας ίσως ασυνείδητα προσπάθησε να εξισορροπήσει τη μη ελεγχόμενη μυθοπλασία της ζωής του της εποχής εκείνης, της οποίας χαρακτηριστικότερη εκδήλωση ήταν η υποψηφιότητά του ως βουλευτή με το κόμμα των Προοδευτικών του Σπύρου Μαρκεζίνη στις εκλογές του 1956. (…) Η συμμετοχή του Καραγάτση στην προεκλογική εκστρατεία ήταν υποτυπώδης, και χαρακτηριζόταν από αυτοσαρκαστικό χιούμορ και επίδειξη σνομπισμού. Όταν κάποιος οπαδός των Προοδευτικών και αναγνώστης του, μετά από προεκλογική συγκέντρωση στην οποία παρίστατο ο Καραγάτσης μαζί με άλλους υποψηφίους αλλά χωρίς να μιλήσει, τον ρώτησε γιατί αυτός, ο συγγραφέας του αντιηρωισμού και των αισθήσεων, κατέβαινε στις εκλογές, εκείνος του απάντησε πως ο πραγματικός σκοπός του ήταν να πάρει ψήφους από τον αδελφό του Τάκη Ροδόπουλο, που πολιτευόταν με την ΕΡΕ» (Β. Αθανασόπουλος, Οι μάσκες του ρεαλισμού, τόμ. Β΄, ό.π., σ. 557). 30 Η αστυνομική υφή του έργου αναδείχθηκε από τον Μ. Γ. Μερακλή στη μελέτη του «Ο Κίτρινος φάκελος και στοιχεία της πρωτοτυπίας του», ό.π., σ. 847-850. Βλ. επίσης Μ. Μικέ, «Ο Μ. Καραγάτσης και η τέχνη της συγγραφής. Η περίπτωση του Κίτρινου φακέλου (1956)», Η Άλως, 3-4 (1996), σ. 107-127 και Γ. Κεντρωτής, «Αναδιφώντας τον Κίτρινο φάκελο», Διαβάζω, 256 (1991), σ. 66-70. 31 Βλ. Έ. Πέτκου, «Κ. Θεοτόκης, Κατάδικος, Μ. Καραγάτσης, Ο κίτρινος φάκελος: Τα εγκλήματα πάθους και η διαλεκτική μεταξύ αθωότητας και ενοχής», Θέματα Λογοτεχνίας, 26 (2004), σ. 159-173. 32 R. Beaton, An Introduction to Modern Greek Literature, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1994, σ. 145. Η μετάφραση των κειμένων από το βιβλίο του Beaton είναι δική μου. Το βιβλίο αυτό έχει μεταφραστεί στην ελληνική γλώσσα, βλ. R. Beaton, Εισαγωγή στη νεότερη ελληνική λογοτεχνία. Ποίηση και πεζογραφία, 1821-1992, μτφρ. Ε. Ζουργού-Μ. Σπανάκη, Αθήνα: Νεφέλη, 1996. 33 R. Beaton, An Introduction to Modern Greek Literature, ό.π., σ. 236. 34 Αυτόθι, σ. 236-237. 35 Αυτόθι, σ. 144. 36 Μ. Καραγάτσης, «Μοναχικό ταξίδι στα Κύθηρα», στο Το Μεγάλο Συναξάρι, Αθήνα: Εστία, 1951, σ. 72. 37 Βλ. ενδεικτικά Martha Nussbaum, ‘Eros and the Wise: The Stoic Response to a Cultural Dilemma’, στο J. Sihvola and T. Engberg-Pedersen (eds) The Emotions in Hellenistic Philosophy, Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1998, σ. 271-304· M. Nussbaum & J. Sihvola, (eds), The Sleep of Reason. Erotic Experience and Sexual Ethics in Ancient Greece and Rome, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2002. 38 Δ. Τσάκωνας, Η γενιά του 30: Τα πριν και τα μετά, Αθήνα: Κάκτος, 1989, σ. 69. 39 Βλ. Paul Ricoeur, Ο ίδιος ο εαυτός ως άλλος, μτφρ. Βίκυ Ιακώβου, επιμ. Γιώργος Ξηροπαΐδης, Αθήνα: Πόλις, 2008. 40 Στην σύγχρονη ηθική φιλοσοφία ένα από τα επιχειρήματα που έχουν διατυπωθεί κατά κανονιστικών ηθικών θεωριών όπως ο ωφελιμισμός και η δεοντολογία είναι ότι έχουν υπερβολικές απαιτήσεις από το ηθικό υποκείμενο με το να ζητούν από αυτό να αποτελέσει ένα είδος «ηθικού αγίου», αγνοώντας όμως τις πραγματικές ανάγκες του

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και υπονομεύοντας κατ’ αυτόν τον τρόπο την ηθική ακεραιότητά του. Το επιχείρημα αυτό διατυπώθηκε για πρώτη φορά από την Susan Wolff. Βλ. S. Wolff, ‘Moral Saints’, στο R. Crisp and M. Slote (eds), Virtue Ethics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, σ. 79-98. 41 Βλ. L. Sperry, Handbook of Diagnosis and Treatment of the DSM-IV Personality Disorders, Brunner/Mazel, 1995, κεφ. 2, 4, & 7. Λ.χ., ένα από τα χαρακτηριστικά της αντικοινωνικής ή κοινωνικοπαθούς, όπως αλλιώς ονομάζεται, προσωπικότητας είναι ότι χρησιμοποιεί τους άλλους ανθρώπους για να εξυπηρετήσει ό,τι καλύτερα σκοπεύει στην προώθηση του προσωπικού της συμφέροντος. Θα ήταν, νομίζω, ιδιαίτερα ενδιαφέρον να επιχειρηθεί μια συστηματική απόπειρα αντιστοίχισης των ηρώων του Καραγάτση με τους διάφορους τύπους παρεκκλινουσών προσωπικοτήτων, κάτι όμως που δεν είναι δυνατόν, για πρακτικούς λόγους, να επιχειρηθεί στη μελέτη αυτή. 42 Μ. Χρυσανθόπουλου, «Κυριαρχία και διαστροφή. Ερωτικά πάθη και δολοπλοκίες στον Κίτρινο Φάκελο», ό.π., σ. 13-14. 43 Μ. Καραγάτσης, 1908-2008. Εκατό χρόνια από τη γέννησή του, «Χρονολόγιο», Αθήνα: Εθνικό Κέντρο Βιβλίου, Υπουργείο Πολιτισμού, 2008, σ. 15. 44 Για παράδειγμα, πουθενά στο έργο του Καραγάτση ο έρωτας δεν αντιμετωπίζεται με την τρυφερότητα της περιγραφής του Stendhal στο γνωστό δοκίμιό του για τον έρωτα: «Καταβάλλω κάθε δυνατή προσπάθεια για να είμαι στεγνός. Θέλω να επιβάλλω σιωπή στην καρδιά μου, που νομίζει ότι έχει πολλά να πει. Τρέμω διαρκώς μην τυχόν έχω γράψει έναν αναστεναγμό εκεί που πιστεύω ότι έχω σημειώσει μιαν αλήθεια» (Stendhal, Περί έρωτος, μτφρ.-εισ.-σημ. Ε. Κορομηλά, Αθήνα: Πατάκη, 2008, σ. 58). 45 «Οι μοναδικές ομορφιές είναι προνόμιο του θανάτου», θα πει ο Κωστής Ρούσσης («Από το ημερολόγιο του Κωστή Ρούση», Το Μεγάλο Συναξάρι). Η φράση αυτή κοσμεί το μνημείο στο Πρώτο Νεκροταφείο Αθηνών στο οποίο αναπαύεται ο Καραγάτσης, ο οποίος, μετά από πολύωρη κρίση ταχυκαρδίας, πέθανε στις 14 Σεπτεμβρίου του 1960, σε ηλικία μόλις 52 χρόνων. Βλ. Μ. Καραγάτσης, 1908-2008. Εκατό χρόνια από τη γέννησή του, «Χρονολόγιο», ό.π., σ. 21. Ο ίδιος ο Καραγάτσης χαρακτηρίζει με καυστικό και αυτοσατυρικό τρόπο την πορεία της ζωής του και της λογοτεχνικής παρουσίας του: «Έγραψα πολλά και διάφορα, διηγήματα, νουβέλες, μυθιστορήματα, έργα υψηλού ηθικοπλαστικού περιεχομένου, πολύ κατάλληλα για παρθεναγωγεία και βιβλιοθήκες οικογενειών με αυστηρά αστικά ήθη. Οι ήρωές μου –Λιάπκιν, Μαρίνα Ρείζη και ιδίως ο Γιούγκερμαν– είναι άνθρωποι αγνοί, αθώοι, ιδεολόγοι και στέκουν ψηλότερα από τις αθλιότητες του χαμερπούς υλισμού. Απορώ πως το εκπαιδευτικό συμβούλιο δεν εισήγαγε ακόμα τα βιβλία μου για αναγνωστικά στα σχολεία του κράτους, εξίσταμαι πώς η Ακαδημία δεν μου έδωσε ακόμα το βραβείο της Αρετής, πώς δεν με κάλεσε ακόμα να παρακαθίσω στους ενάρετους κόλπους κοντά στον κ. Μελά. Δεν επείραξα ποτέ μου συνάδελφο και είμαι συμπαθέστατος στους λογοτεχνικούς κύκλους. Αυτό θα αποδειχθεί στην κηδεία μου όπου θα έρθει κόσμος και κοσμάκης να πεισθεί ιδίοις όμμασι ότι πέθανα, ότι θάφτηκα, ότι πήγα στον διάολο. Και θα φύγει από το νεκροταφείο ο κόσμος και ο κοσμάκης βγάζοντας στεναγμούς ανακούφισης. Είμαι βέβαιος πως ο θεός θα με κατατάξει μεταξύ των αγίων στον Παράδεισο. Αμήν» («Σατιρικές αυτοβιογραφίες των λογίων και λογοτεχνών μας. Ο κ. Μ. Καραγάτσης»). 46 Μ. Καραγάτσης [1956], Κίτρινος Φάκελλος, ό.π., σ. 51. 47 R. Scruton, Sexual Desire. A Philosophical Investigation, London: Continuum, 2006, σ. 213. 48 Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, transl. by R. D. Hicks, vol. II,

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Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1931, VII, 110. Βλ. επίσης σχετικά Christopher Gill, ‘Stoic Erōs –Is there such a thing?’, στο E. Sanders, C. Thumiger, C. Carey, & N. J. Lowe (eds), Erôs in Ancient Greece, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2013, σ. 143-157. 49 Βλ. S. Sauvé Meyer, Ancient Ethics. A Critical Introduction, London: Routledge, 2008, σ. 161. 50 M. Schofield, The Stoic Idea of the City, with a new Foreword by M. C. Nussbaum, Chicago & London, The University of Chicago Press, 1991, σ. 31, υπ. 7. Βλ. επίσης Eleni Leontsini, ‘Sex and the City: Plato, Aristotle, and Zeno of Kition on Erôs and Philia’, στο E. Sanders, C. Thumiger, C. Carey, & N. J. Lowe (eds), Erôs in Ancient Greece, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2013, σ. 129-141. 51 Stobeaus, II 66. 11-13, στο H. von Arnim, Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, Leipzig, 1903-5. 52 Seneca, Επιστολαί, 116.5 (Panaetius fr. 114, part). 53 «Ήταν ερωτευμένος; Όχι. Μια έντονη ερωτική διάθεση τον ωθούσε προς τη χαριτωμένη γυναίκα. Σαν εγωκεντρικός, δεν μπορούσε ποτέ να ερωτευτεί με πάθος εξουδετερωτικό του αυτοελέγχου· αλλά κι ο τυχόν έρωτάς του, ο ψυχο-εγκεφαλικά ισορροπημένος, μόνον αν έβρισκε άνετη ανταπόκριση μπορούσε να πάρη υπόσταση» (Κίτρινος Φάκελλος, ό.π., σ. 124). 54 «Ο Μάνος εξετίμησε απόλυτα το τι πολύτιμο του χάριζε, κι αποφάσισε να το αντιμετωπίσει άξια και τίμια. Ποτέ ίσαμε σήμερα δεν χάρηκε σύνθετα μια τέτοια γυναίκα. Το κεφάλαιο έρωτας άρχισε να του παρουσιάζεται πίσω από νέο πρίσμα γοητευτικό. Και πίεζε τον εαυτό του να νιώθει ευτυχισμένος, γιατί η λογική του του’ λεγε πως όλες οι προϋποθέσεις υπήρχαν» (Κίτρινος Φάκελλος, ό.π., σ. 132). 55 Ο εγωισμός και η «αυτολατρεία», όπως την ονομάζει, είναι έκδηλα και στα νεανικά μυθιστορήματα του Καραγάτση, όπως στους Δύο έρωτες: «Η μανία της λατρείας μου ικανοποιόταν, και ο άδειος εγωισμός μου άλλο τόσο, γιατί έλεγε πως μ’ αγαπούσε» (Βλ. Β. Αθανασόπουλος, Οι μάσκες του ρεαλισμού, τόμ. Β΄, ό.π., σ. 596). 56 Αυτή η τυραννική σχεδόν συμπεριφορά μας θυμίζει την συζήτηση στο 577c-580e της Πολιτείας του Πλάτωνα για την τυραννική ψυχή, τον τυραννικό ανθρώπινο χαρακτήρα και τον τύραννο, ο οποίος «κατ’ ανάγκην, λόγω της εξουσίας που θα έχει στα χέρια του, θα είναι, και θα γίνεται ακόμη περισσότερο απ’ ότι ήταν πρωτύτερα, φθονερός, δόλιος, άδικος, χωρίς φίλους, χωρίς ιερό και όσιο, ένα δοχείο που δέχεται και καλλιεργεί κάθε λογής κακία, και που εξαιτίας όλων αυτών θα είναι πρωτίστως ο ίδιος δυστυχισμένος, αλλά και πηγή δυστυχίας, έπειτα, για τους γύρω του» (580e) [Πλάτων, Πολιτεία, εισαγ. - μτφρ. Ν. Μ. Σκουτερόπουλος, Αθήνα: Πόλις, 2002]. 57 Γ. Ν. Περαντωνάκης, «Ο Κίτρινος φάκελος και η σκηνοθεσία των ζώντων προσώπων», ό.π., σ. 692. 58 Βλ. Β. Αθανασόπουλος, «Ο άγνωστος ποιητής Δ. Γ. Ροδόπουλος», Νέα Εστία, τ. 130, τχ. 1536 (1 Ιουλίου 1991), σ. 851-859. 59 Β. Αθανασόπουλος, Οι μάσκες του ρεαλισμού, τόμ. Β΄, ό.π., σ. 595. Βλ. επίσης Κωνσταντίνος Δ. Δημάδης, «Αναζητώντας τις πηγές έμπνευσης και τις πρώτες μορφές έργων του Μ. Καραγάτση», Νέα Εστία, 164, 1815 (2008), σ. 694-709. 60 Για τον σεξουαλισμό της πεζογραφίας του Καραγάτση, βλ. Μ. Γ. Μερακλής, «Τρεις παράγραφοι της καραγατσικής πεζογραφίας», Τετράδια Ευθύνης, Επανεκτίμηση του Μ. Καραγάτση: Είκοσι χρόνια από τον θάνατό του, 14 (1981), σ. 53-63. 61 Α. Καραντώνη, «Ένας πεζογράφος. Μια γόνιμη εικοσαετία: 1935-1955», Τετράδια Ευθύνης, Επανεκτίμηση του Μ. Καραγάτση: Είκοσι χρόνια από τον θάνατό του, 14 (1981), σ. 127. Για την ερμηνεία της σεξουαλικής επιθυμίας στο έργο του Καραγάτση

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ως αμαρτία βλ. Κ. Ε. Τσιρόπουλου, «Για τον Καραγάτση», Τετράδια Ευθύνης, Επανεκτίμηση του Μ. Καραγάτση: Είκοσι χρόνια από τον θάνατό του, 14 (1981), σ. 114-118. 62 M. Vitti, Ιστορία της νεοελληνικής λογοτεχνίας, μτφρ. Μ. Ζορμπά, Αθήνα: Οδυσσέας, 1987, σ. 378. 63 Βλ. M. Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire. Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics, Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1994. 64 Ένα χαρακτηριστικό παράδειγμα από τον Κίτρινο φάκελο για τον Μάνο Τασάκο: «Έφτασε σπίτι του κι απόθεσε το χειρόγραφο των ‘Κατόχων’ πάνω στο γραφείο του. Κατόπι ξάπλωσε στη μεγάλη πολυθρόνα, άνοιξε το ραδιόφωνο κι απόμεινε ν’ ακούη τα ‘Τρελά καμώματα’ του Τιλ Οϋλενσπίγκελ. Αυτό το κομμάτι του έδινε πάντοτε ιδιαίτερη ευχαρίστηση· το αδιάπτωτο και ψυχρά εγκεφαλικό κέφι του, ταίριαζε σφικτά στην ιδιοσυγκρασία του. Κανείς αισθηματισμός ή λυρισμός· μόνο μια απολλώνεια ευφορία νοήμονος εγκεφάλου, που ξέσπαγε σε μελωδίες υψηλής σατιρικής –αλλά κι αγαθής– υφής. —Δύναμη, αυτοκυριαρχία και ψυχική υγεία, συλλογίστηκε. Αυτό είναι… (Μ. Καραγάτσης, Κίτρινος φάκελος, ό.π. σ. 137). 65 «It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them» (P. G. Wodehouse, ‘The Man Upstairs’, 1914). Για μια πρόσφατη φιλοσοφική ανάλυση της απολογίας και της συγγνώμης όπου υποστηρίζεται το dictum αυτό του Wodehouse, βλ. L. Bovens, ‘Apologies’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, CVIII (2008), σ. 219-239. 66 Adam Smith [1759], The Theory of Moral Sentiments, D. D. Raphael και A. L. MacFie (eds), Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1976, Part I, Sect. I, Ch. I: ‘Of Sympathy’, §1. Η μετάφραση είναι δική μου. 67 Βλ. F. Nietzsche, Έτσι μίλησε ο Ζαρατούστρα, «Ο Πρόλογος του Ζαρατούστρα», μτφρ. Ά. Δικταίος, Αθήνα: Δωδώνη, 1980, σ. 40 (KSA 4:14). Για μια εκτενή αιτιολόγηση της καθόδου του νιτσεϊκού Ζαρατούστρα από το βουνό βλ. Α. Α. Πέτρου, Το πέρασμα του Νίτσε: Αλήθεια, Τέχνη και Πολιτισμός, πρόλ. Χαρά Μπακονικόλα, [Επίμετρο: Φρ. Νίτσε, Σημειώσεις πάνω στην Αρχαία Τραγωδία και το Σύγχρονο Δράμα (1870), μτφρ. Δ. Δολαψάκης], Θεσσαλονίκη: Ζήτρος, 2007, σ. 132- 139. 68 Αριστοτέλης, Ρητορική Β, 3, 1380b35-1381a10. Πβ. E. Leontsini, The Appropriation of Aristotle in the Liberal-Communitarian Debate, with a foreword by Richard Stalley, Athens: Saripolos Library, 2007, σ. 159-209. 69 Για την κριτική του Nietzsche στην Ποιητική του Αριστοτέλη και γενικότερα για μια ενδιαφέρουσα απόπειρα σύνδεσης των δύο φιλοσόφων, βλ. Τ. Πενζοπούλου- Βαλαλά, «Nietzsche και Αριστοτέλης. Γύρω από την Γέννηση της Τραγωδίας και την Ποιητική», στο Τ. Πεντζοπούλου-Βαλαλά (επιμ.), Ο Νίτσε και οι Έλληνες, Θεσσαλονίκη: Ζήτρος, 1997, σ. 99-134. 70 Για την νιτσεϊκή έννοια της «φιλίας ως αγώνος» και για μια ενδιαφέρουσα σύνδεση με την νεοαριστοτελική θεωρία, βλ. Α. Πέτρου, «Η θέση της φιλίας στην ηθική: Από τον Αριστοτέλη στον Νίτσε», στo Κ. Βουδούρης (επιμ.), Η ελληνική φιλοσοφία και η σχέση της με τα προβλήματα της εποχής μας, Πρακτικά του 20ου Διεθνούς Συνεδρίου Φιλοσοφίας (Χανιά, 12-17 Ιουλίου 2008), Διεθνής Εταιρεία Ελληνικής Φιλοσοφίας, Αθήνα: Ιωνία, 2009, σ. 210-225 71 Βλ. Ελένη-Λίζη Λασσιθιωτάκη, «Η αλήθεια στην ηθική του Νίτσε», στο Ε. Μαραγγιανού (επιμ.), Φιλοσοφίας Αγώνισμα, Μελέτες προς τιμήν του Καθηγητού Κωνσταντίνου Βουδούρη, Αθήνα: Ιωνία, 2004, σ. 250, υπ. 2. 72 Walter Otto, Dionysus Myth and Culture, trans. Robert Palmer, Bloomington, Ind.:

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Indiana University Press, 1965, σ. 415. Το παράθεμα είναι από το άρθρο του D. W. Conway, ‘Love’s Labor Lost: The Philosopher’s Versucherkunst’, στο S. Kemal, I. Gaskell and D. W. Conway (eds.), Nietzsche, Philosophy and the Arts, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, σ. 287. 73 Roger Scruton, Sexual Desire, ό.π., σ. 234. 74 Για την ποιητική μανία στον Πλάτωνα, βλ. Κ. Ι. Δεσποτόπουλου, Φιλοσοφία του Πλάτωνος, Αθήνα: Ακαδημία Αθηνών, Κέντρο Ερεύνης Ελληνικής Φιλοσοφίας, 1997, Βλ. επίσης Martha C. Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness, Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy, Cambridge, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1986, σ. 200-233, όπου υποστηρίζεται ότι «ο Πλάτων είχε ως άνθρωπος μία βαθιά κατανόηση για την ερωτική παρόρμηση και τα κίνητρα της και πως ο Φαίδρος αποτελεί ένα έργο που αναπτύσσει μία σύνθετη άποψη σχετικά μ’ αυτά τα κίνητρα και αποδέχεται ορισμένα από αυτά ως καλά. ένα έργο στο οποίο παραδέχεται ότι υπήρξε τυφλός απέναντι σε κάτι, την ποίηση και τον έρωτα, και γράφει το διάλογο για να ξαναβρεί το φως του, με τον ίδιο τρόπο που ο Στησίχορος έγραφε την παλινωδία του για την Ελένη της Τροίας για να ξαναβρεί το φως του που το έχασε επειδή την κατηγόρησε αδίκως». 75 Martha C. Nussbaum, ‘The Transfigurations of Intoxication: Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and Dionysus’, στο S. Kemal, I. Gaskell and D. W. Conway (eds.), Nietzsche, Philosophy and the Arts, ό.π., σ. 65. 76 F. Nietzsche, The Will to Power, Notes from the 1880’s (Wille zur Macht, 1906), μτφρ. Walter Kaufmann & R. J. Hollingdale, New York, Vilking, 1968, απ. 964, σ. 506. Η αναφορά αυτή είναι στο Α. Α. Πέτρου, Το πέρασμα του Νίτσε:Αλήθεια, Τέχνη και Πολιτισμός, ό.π., σ. 132. 77 Α. Α. Πέτρου, Το πέρασμα του Νίτσε: Αλήθεια, Τέχνη και Πολιτισμός, ό.π., σ. 134. 78 Απ’ όσο γνωρίζω, δεν έχει υπάρξει μέχρι σήμερα κάποια μελέτη από κάποιον μελετητή που να αναλύει συστηματικά τις φιλοσοφικές επιδράσεις του Nietzsche στο έργο του Μ. Καραγάτση. 79 Βλ. Ελένη-Λίζη Λασσιθιωτάκη, «Η αλήθεια στην ηθική του Νίτσε», ό.π., 250. 80 Βλ. Ελένη-Λίζη Λασσιθιωτάκη, «Η αλήθεια στην ηθική του Νίτσε», ό.π., σ. 248. 81 Φρ. Νίτσε, Έτσι μίλησε ο Ζαρατούστρα, «Ο Πρόλογος του Ζαρατούστρα», μτφρ. Ά. Δικταίος, Αθήνα: Δωδώνη, 1980, σ. 40 και σ. 43. 82 Α. Α. Πέτρου, Το πέρασμα του Νίτσε: Αλήθεια, Τέχνη και Πολιτισμός, ό.π., σ. 131. 83 Αλέξανδρος Νεχαμάς, Νίτσε: Η ζωή σαν λογοτεχνία, μτφρ. Α. Παπακωνσταντίνου & Αρχ. Κόρκα, Αθήνα: Αλεξάνδρεια, 2002, σ. 297-345. 84 Βλ. Ρ. Αργυροπούλου, «Η πρόσληψη των ιδεών του Νίτσε στην Ελλάδα», στο Ε. Μαραγγιανού (επιμ.), Φιλοσοφίας Αγώνισμα, Μελέτες προς τιμήν του Καθηγητού Κωνσταντίνου Βουδούρη, Αθήνα: Ιωνία, 2004, σ. 79-89 (ανατύπωση στο Ρ. Δ. Αργυροπούλου, Προσεγγίσεις της Νεοελληνικής Φιλοσοφίας, Θεσσαλονίκη: Βάνιας, 2004, σ. 230-243). Βλ. επίσης Ρ. Αργυροπούλου (επιμ.), Η φιλοσοφική σκέψη στην Ελλάδα από το 1828 ως το 1922, τόμ. Β΄, Η φιλοσοφία μεταξύ επιστήμης και θρησκείας, 1876-1922, Αθήνα: Γνώση, 1995, σ. 43-50. Για την υποδοχή των ιδεών του Νίτσε στην Ελλάδα, βλ. επίσης και Δ. Λαμπρέλλης, Η συνειδητοποίηση του Ελληνισμού ως «νιτσεϊσμός». Τα περιοδικά «Τέχνη» και «Διόνυσος», Θεσσαλονίκη: Νέα Πορεία, 1993 και Του Ιδίου, «Ο Νίτσε στην Ελλάδα. Ένα όνομα για όλα και για τίποτα», στο Τ. Πεντζοπούλου-Βαλαλά (επιμ.), Ο Νίτσε και οι Έλληνες, Θεσσαλονίκη: Ζήτρος, 1997, σ. 137-156. 85 Ρ. Αργυροπούλου, «Η πρόσληψη των ιδεών του Νίτσε στην Ελλάδα», ό.π., σ. 80. 86 Αυτόθι, σ. 81.

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87 Αυτόθι, σ. 82 κ.έ. 88 Μ. Καραγάτσης, Κίτρινος Φάκελλος, ό.π., σ. 173-174. 89 Α. Νεχαμάς, Η τέχνη του βίου, Σωκρατικοί στοχασμοί: από τον Πλάτωνα στον Φουκώ, μτφρ. Β. Σπυροπούλου, επιμ. Στ. Βιρβιδάκης, Αθήνα: Νεφέλη, 2001, σ. 30. 90 Αυτόθι. 91 Δ. Λαμπρέλλης, Η συνειδητοποίηση του Ελληνισμού ως «νιτσεϊσμός». Τα περιοδικά «Τέχνη» και «Διόνυσος», ό.π., σ. 152-153. 92 B. Williams, ‘The Women of Trachis: Fictions, Pessimism, Ethics’, στο B. Williams, The Sense of the Past. Essays in the History of Philosophy, edited with an introduction by Myles Burnyeat, Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2006, σ. 58. 93 Τζίνα Πολίτη, ό.π., σ. 140. 94 Βλ. B. Williams, ‘The Women of Trachis: Fictions, Pessimism, Ethics’, ό.π., σ. 59.

References Αθανασόπουλος, Β., «Ο άγνωστος ποιητής Δ. Γ. Ροδόπουλος», Νέα Εστία, τ. 130, τχ. 1536 (1 Ιουλίου 1991), σ. 851-859. Αθανασόπουλος, Β., Οι μάσκες του ρεαλισμού. Εκδοχές του νεοελληνικού αφηγηματικού λόγου, τόμ. Β΄, Αθήνα: Καστανιώτης, 2003. Aristotelis, Ethica Nicomachea, I. Bywater (ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1894. Aristotelis, Politica, W.D. Ross (ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1957. Aristotelis, Ars Rhetorica, W.D. Ross (ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959. Aristotelis, Ethica Eudemia, R.R. Walzer and J.M. Mingay (eds.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. Αργυροπούλου, Ρ. (επιμ.), Η φιλοσοφική σκέψη στην Ελλάδα από το 1828 ως το 1922, τόμ. Β΄, Η φιλοσοφία μεταξύ επιστήμης και θρησκείας, 1876-1922, Αθήνα: Γνώση, 1995. Αργυροπούλου, Ρ. «Η πρόσληψη των ιδεών του Νίτσε στην Ελλάδα», στο Ε. Μαραγγιανού (επιμ.), Φιλοσοφίας Αγώνισμα, Μελέτες προς τιμήν του Καθηγητού Κωνσταντίνου Βουδούρη, Αθήνα: Ιωνία, 2004, σ. 79-89 (ανατύπωση στο Ρ. Δ. Αργυροπούλου, Προσεγγίσεις της Νεοελληνικής Φιλοσοφίας, Θεσσαλονίκη: Βάνιας, 2004, σ. 230-243). Bacon, F. [1597], «Για τον έρωτα», στο Δοκίμια, μτφρ. Σπύρος Φέγγος, επιμ. Ι.Σ. Χριστοδούλου, Θεσσαλονίκη: Ζήτρος, 2000. Beaton, R., An Introduction to Modern Greek Literature, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1994 (μτφρ. στην ελληνική R. Beaton, Εισαγωγή στη νεότερη ελληνική λογοτεχνία. Ποίηση και πεζογραφία, 1821-1992, μτφρ. Ε. Ζουργού-Μ. Σπανάκη, Αθήνα: Νεφέλη, 1996).

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Blanchot, M., L’espace littéraire, Paris: Gallimard, 1968. Βιβιλάκης, Ι., «Ο θεατρικός Καραγάτσης», Παράβασις, 1 (1995), σ. 227-243. Bovens, L., ‘Apologies’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, CVIII (2008), σ. 219-239. Γλυκοφρύδη-Λεοντσίνη, A., «Αισθητική στάση και θεατρική πράξη», στο Νεοελληνική Φιλοσοφία. Πρόσωπα και θέματα, Αθήνα: Αφοι Τολίδη, 1993. Carroll, N., ‘The Wheel of Virtue: Art, Literature, and Moral Knowledge’, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 60, 1 (2002), σ. 3-26. Cavell, S., Must We Mean What We Say? A Book of Essays, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976. Cavell, S., The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and Tragedy, New York: Oxford University Press, 1979. Caws, M. A., ‘Moral-Reading, or Self-Containment with a Flaw’, New Literary History, 15, 1, Literature and / as Moral Philosophy (1983), σ. 209-215. Conway, D. W., ‘Love’s Labor Lost: The Philosopher’s Versucherkunst’, στο S. Kemal, I. Gaskell and D. W. Conway (eds.), Nietzsche, Philosophy and the Arts, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Δεσποτόπουλου, Κ. Ι., Φιλοσοφία του Πλάτωνος, Αθήνα: Ακαδημία Αθηνών, Κέντρο Ερεύνης Ελληνικής Φιλοσοφίας, 1997, Δημάδης, Κ. Δ., «Αναζητώντας τις πηγές έμπνευσης και τις πρώτες μορφές έργων του Μ. Καραγάτση», Νέα Εστία, 164, 1815 (2008), σ. 694-709. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, transl. by R. D. Hicks, vol. II, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1931. Gill, C., ‘Stoic Erōs –Is there such a thing?’, στο Sanders, E., Thumiger, C., Carey, C., and Lowe, N.J. (eds), Erôs in Ancient Greece, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013, σ. 143-157. Hyman, L. W., ‘Moral Attitudes and the Literary Experience’, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 38, 2 (1979), σ. 159-165. Kalin, J., ‘Knowing Novels: Nussbaum on Fiction and Moral Theory’, Ethics, 103 (1992), σ. 135-151. Kannicht, R., Η παλαιά διαμάχη ποίησης και φιλοσοφίας, μτφρ. Δ. Ιακώβ, Αθήνα: Λωτός, 1988. Καραγάτσης, Μ., Το Μεγάλο Συναξάρι, Αθήνα: Εστία, 1951. Καραγάτσης Μ. [1956], Κίτρινος Φάκελλος, 2 τόμ., Αθήνα: Εστία, 6η έκδ., 1984. Καραγάτσης, Μ., Κριτική θεάτρου 1946 1960, πρόλ. Κ. Γεωργουσόπουλος, εισαγ.-επιμ. Ι. Βιβιλάκης, Αθήνα: Εστία, 1999. Καραγάτσης, Μ., 1908-2008. Εκατό χρόνια από τη γέννησή του, «Χρονολόγιο», Αθήνα: Εθνικό Κέντρο Βιβλίου, Υπουργείο Πολιτισμού, 2008.

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Nietzsche, F., The Will to Power, Notes from the 1880’s (Wille zur Macht, 1906), μτφρ. Walter Kaufmann & R. J. Hollingdale, New York: Vilking, 1968. Nietzsche, F., Έτσι μίλησε ο Ζαρατούστρα, «Ο Πρόλογος του Ζαρατούστρα», μτφρ. Ά. Δικταίος, Αθήνα: Δωδώνη, 1980. Nussbaum, Μ., The Fragility of Goodness, Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Nussbaum, M., The Therapy of Desire. Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994. Nussbaum, M., ‘Eros and the Wise: The Stoic Response to a Cultural Dilemma’, στο J. Sihvola and T. Engberg-Pedersen (eds) The Emotions in Hellenistic Philosophy, Dordrecht: Kluwer 1998, σ. 271-304. Nussbaum, M., Love’s Knowledge. Essays on Philosophy and Literature, New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. Nussbaum, M. & Sihvola, J. (eds), The Sleep of Reason. Erotic Experience and Sexual Ethics in Ancient Greece and Rome, Chicago: Chicago University Press 2002. Nussbaum, Μ., ‘The Transfigurations of Intoxication: Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and Dionysus’, στο S. Kemal, I. Gaskell and D. W. Conway (eds.), Nietzsche, Philosophy and the Arts, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. O’ Rourke, F., ‘Philosophy and Poetry in Aristotle, Interpreting and Imitating Nature’, στο Α. Γλυκοφρύδη-Λεοντσίνη (επιμ.), Βίος Θεωρητικός. Αφιερωματικός τόμος εις τον καθηγητή Δημήτριον Ν. Κούτραν, Αθήνα: Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών, 2006, σ. 385-404. Otto, W., Dionysus Myth and Culture, trans. Robert Palmer, Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1965. Παπανούτσου, Ε. Π., Αισθητική, 4η έκδ., Αθήνα, 1969. Palmer, F., Literature and Moral Understanding. A Philosophical Essay on Ethics, Aesthetics, Education, and Culture, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992. Πεντζοπούλου-Βαλαλά, Τ. (επιμ.), Ο Νίτσε και οι Έλληνες, Θεσσαλονίκη: Ζήτρος, 1997. Πενζοπούλου-Βαλαλά, Τ., «Nietzsche και Αριστοτέλης. Γύρω από την Γέννηση της Τραγωδίας και την Ποιητική», στο Τ. Πεντζοπούλου-Βαλαλά (επιμ.), Ο Νίτσε και οι Έλληνες, Θεσσαλονίκη: Ζήτρος, 1997, σ. 99-134. Περαντωνάκης, Γ. Ν., «Ο Κίτρινος φάκελος και η σκηνοθεσία των ζώντων προσώπων», Νέα Εστία, 164, 1815 (2008), σ. 682-693. Πέτκου, Έ., «Κ. Θεοτόκης, Κατάδικος, Μ. Καραγάτσης, Ο κίτρινος φάκελος: Τα εγκλήματα πάθους και η διαλεκτική μεταξύ αθωότητας και ενοχής», Θέματα Λογοτεχνίας, 26 (2004),σ. 159-173. Πέτρου, Α. Α., Το πέρασμα του Νίτσε: Αλήθεια, Τέχνη και Πολιτισμός, Θεσσαλονίκη: Ζήτρος, 2007.

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Πέτρου, Α. Α., «Η θέση της φιλίας στην ηθική: Από τον Αριστοτέλη στον Νίτσε», στo Κ. Βουδούρης (επιμ.), Η ελληνική φιλοσοφία και η σχέση της με τα προβλήματα της εποχής μας, Πρακτικά του 20ου Διεθνούς Συνεδρίου Φιλοσοφίας (Χανιά, 12-17 Ιουλίου 2008), Διεθνής Εταιρεία Ελληνικής Φιλοσοφίας, Αθήνα: Ιωνία, 2009, σ. 210-225. Πλάτων, Πολιτεία, εισαγ. - μτφρ. Ν. Μ. Σκουτερόπουλος, Αθήνα: Πόλις, 2002. Πολίτη, Τζ., «Ο κίτρινος φάκελλος ή η παραγραφή της μυθιστορίας», στο Η ανεξακρίβωτη σκηνή, Αθήνα: Άγρα, 2001, σ. 111-167. Rader, M., & Jessup, B., Art and Human Values, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1976. Radford, C. & Weston, M, ‘How can we be Moved by the Fate of Anna Karenina?’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 69 (1975), σ. 67-93. Ricoeur, P., Ο ίδιος ο εαυτός ως άλλος, μτφρ. Βίκυ Ιακώβου, επίμ. Γιώργος Ξηροπαΐδης, Αθήνα: Πόλις, 2008. Sauvé Meyer, S., Ancient Ethics. A Critical Introduction, London: Routledge, 2008. Schofield, M., The Stoic Idea of the City, with a new Foreword by M. C. Nussbaum, Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press, 1991. Scruton, R., Sexual Desire. A Philosophical Investigation, London: Continuum, 2006. Σεφέρης, Γ., «Διάλογος πάνω στην ποίηση», «Μονόλογος πάνω στην ποίηση», «Το τέλος ενός διαλόγου», στο Δοκιμές Α΄ (1936-1947), 5η έκδ., Αθήνα: Ίκαρος, 1984, σ. 82-165. Σεφέρης, Γ., Δοκιμές Α΄ (1936-1947), 5η έκδ., Αθήνα: Ίκαρος, 1984. Shoemaker, S. & Swinburne, R., Personal Identity, Oxford: Blackwell, 1985. Smith, A. [1759], The Theory of Moral Sentiments, D. D. Raphael και A. L. MacFie (eds), Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1976. (μτφρ. στην ελληνική: Adam Smith, Η θεωρία των ηθικών συναισθημάτων, μτφρ.-επιμ. εισαγ. Διονύσης Γ. Δρόσος, πρόλ. Μιχάλης Ψαλιδόπουλος, Αθήνα: Παπαζήσης, 2012]. Sperry, L., Handbook of Diagnosis and Treatment of the DSM-IV Personality Disorders, Brunner/Mazel, 1995. Stendhal, Περί έρωτος, μτφρ.-εισ.-σημ. Ε. Κορομηλά, Αθήνα: Πατάκη, 2008. Τσάκωνας, Δ., Η γενιά του 30: Τα πριν και τα μετά, Αθήνα: Κάκτος, 1989. Τσάτσος, Κ., «Πριν από το ξεκίνημα, Προπύλαια (Απρίλης και Μάης, Ιούνιος, 1983) και «Ένας διάλογος για την ποίηση», Προπύλαια (Οκτώβρης- Δεκέμβρης 1983), [αναδημοσίευση στο Δοκίμια Αισθητικής και Παιδείας, Αθήνα: Δίφρος, 1960, σ. 95-126]. Τσιρόπουλου, Κ. Ε., «Για τον Καραγάτση», Τετράδια Ευθύνης, Επανεκτίμηση του Μ. Καραγάτση: Είκοσι χρόνια από τον θάνατό του, 14 (1981), σ. 114-

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Figure from Greek Antiquity Diptych Κωνσταντίνος4 5 6 Παρθένης Culture

Panayota Nazou University of Sydney

Αυτοαντίληψη και Aυτοπαρουσίαση: η αυτοβιογραφία της Μελίνας Μερκούρη, Γεννήθηκα Ελληνίδα1 Self-perception and Self-presentation: Melina Mercouri’s autobiography I Was Born Greek

Abstract This article explrores Melina Mercouri’s singular autobiographical work I Was Born Greek (1971). The title of the autobiography is part of the famous answer given by Melina Mercouri, in the morning of July 12, 1967, when it was announced that Stylianos Pattakos2 - one of the three dictators of the military regime of the 21 April 1967, in Greece, - revoked her Greek citizenship and confiscated her property. The complete ‘legendary’ answer was: “I was born Greek, I shall die a Greek. Mr. Pattakos was born a fascist. He will die a fascist.” (1971: 177 & 1983: 348)

The aim of this article is to investigate the tactics and strategies of self- perception and self-presentation as articulated in Melina Mercouri’s autobiography. Towards this goal, basic concepts, such as “citizenship”, “personal” and “national identity” are discussed, together with what degree these concepts identify an individual as a citizen of a state, or rather as a human being with existential autonomy. Also, we discuss the concepts of self-perception and self-presentation and their interconnectedness; whether the first is a basic requirement of the second, or if the two are complementary; whether they are influenced by ‘internal’ (e.g. spiritual, emotional, psychological), or/and external (e.g., political, social, gender, and cultural) factors. Furthermore, we investigate

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whether autobiography is not only a process of self-perception and self- presentation, but also a process of self-discovery, and even of self-construction. More specifically, we investigate if, the way in which Mercouri presents herself, is the result of conscious choices with specific purposes, or rather the result of internal, emotional and psychological needs of an author to articulate her subjectivity, or both. Finally we examine whether Mercouri’s autobiography presents a self- image that corresponds to the artistic, cultural and political symbol which we identify her name with the name today.

1. Ιθαγένεια, ταυτότητα και αυτοπροσδιορισμός του ατόμου: μια εισαγωγική συζήτηση Εμμένοντας σε ένα βασικό επίπεδο προσδιορισμού των εννοιών ‘ιθαγένεια’ και ‘ταυτότητα’ και της σχέσης μεταξύ τους, θα λέγαμε ότι: ‘Iθαγένεια’3 (nationality) είναι ο δια νόμου καθορισμένος δεσμός μεταξύ ατόμου και κράτους. Μέσω αυτού το άτομο εξασφαλίζει δι- καιώματα, αλλά και του επιβάλλονται υποχρεώσεις απέναντι στο κράτος και στους συμπολίτες του. Η ιθαγένεια συνήθως αποκτάται με βάση τον τόπο όπου γεννήθηκε κάποιος, αλλά και με την εξ αί- ματος συγγένεια, π.χ. ένας από τους γονείς έχει την ιθαγένεια αυτού του κράτους. Ο όρος ‘ιθαγένεια’ (nationality) θεωρείται στις περισσό- τερες περιπτώσεις (όχι πάντοτε) ταυτόσημος και με τον όρο ‘υπηκο- ότητα’ (citizenship), έτσι την ιθαγένεια ή υπηκοότητα ενός κράτους μπορεί να αποκτήσει κανείς και οικειοθελώς, με τη διαδικασία της πολιτογράφησης, εφόσον πληροί τις ανάλογες νομικές προϋποθέσεις, που ορίζονται από τις διατάξεις του κράτους. Σε ένα θεωρητικό επίπεδο, οι δύο έννοιες -‘ιθαγένεια’ και ‘υπη- κοότητα’- αντιδιαστέλλονται, αφού η πρώτη παραπέμπει σε εθνικές συνδηλώσεις, δηλαδή σε φυλετική καταγωγή και εθνικές ρίζες -εμπε- ριέχει δηλαδή χαρακτηριστικά της εθνικής ταυτότητας του ατόμου-, ενώ η δεύτερη παραπέμπει σε απολυταρχικά συστήματα (π.χ. αυταρ- χικά μοναρχικά, αποικιοκρατικά, και γενικώς καταπιεστικά), και σε άνιση σχέση ατόμου με το κράτος-εξουσία, η οποία στηρίζεται από νομοθεσίες και διατάγματα. Προσπερνώντας τις διάφορες απόψεις που έχουν εκφραστεί από την εποχή του Ηροδότου4 μέχρι σήμερα, και ιδιαίτερα από τον

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19ο αιώνα και μετά, περί έθνους και εθνικής, αλλά και ατομικής ταυ- τότητας (πρβλ. Anderson: 1983, βλ. και Πρυνεντύ, 2000: 51-54), θα υποστηρίζαμε πως σήμερα οι όροι ‘έθνος’, ‘εθνικότητα’ και ‘εθνική ταυτότητα’ έχουν περισσότερο ηθικο-πολιτισμική και ελάχιστα νομι- κο-πολιτική σημασία. Παρόλα αυτά, η εννοιολόγησή τους επηρεάζε- ται, ανάλογα με το ποιος τους χρησιμοποιεί, για ποιο σκοπό και πότε. Για παράδειγμα, οι όροι αυτοί προσλαμβάνουν ιδιαίτερα νοήματα, (π.χ. της φυλετικής καθαρότητας ή πολιτισμικής ανωτερότητας) όταν εξυπηρετούν εθνικιστικούς, ρατσιστικούς, ή και πολιτικούς σκοπούς. Βέβαια, το υπαρξιακό και οντολογικό ερώτημα του «ποιος εί- μαι» ως άτομο ή «ποιοι είμαστε» ως ομάδες/κοινότητες, πάντα ετί- θετο, τίθεται και θα τίθεται, ιδιαίτερα σε στιγμές ατομικής ή και συλλογικής κρίσης (πρβλ. Hall, Held, McGrew, 2003:403 & Hall, 1996:1-17, Δρακόπουλος, 2011: 114). Στην προκειμένη περίπτωση, και όσον αφορά το θέμα μας, η κατάλυση ενός δημοκρατικού συστή- ματος και η επιβολή ενός δικτατορικού, όπως και η βίαια αφαίρεση της ιθαγένειας ενός πολίτη κράτους, δεν μπορούν παρά να αποτε- λούν στιγμές συλλογικής κρίσης για ένα έθνος, αλλά και ατομικής κρίσης για ένα άτομο. Ειδικότερα για την ελληνική περίπτωση, και όσον αφορά την ιθαγένεια ενός πολίτη, το άρθρο 4 του Ελληνι- κού Συντάγματος (1.975/1.986/2.001μ.α.χ.χ.), παράγραφος 3, ΜΕΡΟΣ ΔΕΥΤΕΡΟ περί ατομικών και κοινωνικών δικαιωμάτων, ορίζει ότι «Επιτρέπεται να αφαιρεθεί η ελληνική ιθαγένεια μόνο σε περίπτωση που κάποιος απέκτησε εκούσια άλλη ιθαγένεια ή που ανέλαβε σε ξένη χώρα υπηρεσία αντίθετη προς τα εθνικά συμφέροντα, με τις προϋποθέσεις και τη διαδικασία που προβλέπει ειδικότερα ο νόμος.» Δηλαδή, όπως γίνεται φανερό, η ιθαγένεια, είναι δυνατόν να αφαι- ρεθεί από ένα άτομο δια νόμου, ακόμη και όταν είναι ‘κληρονομημέ- νη’, με βάση την πολιτειακή και νομική εννοιολόγηση του όρου, και όχι με βάση την γενεαλογική, συνειδησιακή, συναισθηματική ή και ιστορική. Μάλιστα αν κάποιος δεν έχει δεύτερη ιθαγένεια, διατρέχει τον κίνδυνο να καταστεί, τουλάχιστον από νομικής πλευράς, ‘ανιθα- γενής’, ‘ανέστιος’ ή και ‘άπατρις’. Το εύλογο ερώτημα που γεννάται σε αυτή την περίπτωση είναι, πώς αυτοπροσδιορίζεται κανείς, όχι όταν εκουσίως επιλέγει μία δεύτερη ιθαγένεια και του αφαιρείται η πρώτη, αλλά όταν του αφαιρείται η πρώτη και μόνη ιθαγένειά του,

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από ένα αυταρχικό και βίαιο καθεστώς, όπως δηλαδή συνέβη με την περίπτωση της Μελίνας Μερκούρη, την 12η Ιουλίου του 1967;

2. Η αυτοβιογραφία ως μέσο αυτοπροσδιορισμού Όπως γίνεται φανερό από τα παραπάνω, το θέμα της ταυτότη- τας και του αυτοπροσδιορισμού του ατόμου καθίσταται περισσότερο περίπλοκο εξαιτίας της σημασιοσιολογικής ρευστότητας των ίδιων των εννοιών. Από την άλλη, επίσης είναι φανερό ότι, μέσα από τους χώρους της ψυχανάλυσης, των κοινωνικών, πολιτισμικών και πολι- τικών επιστημών, έχει αναπτυχθεί ένας κριτικός λόγος για το θέμα της ταυτότητας και του αυτοπροσδιορισμού του ατόμου που μας έχει οδηγήσει πολύ μακριά και από τις αντιλήψεις που επικρατούσαν στην εποχή του Αναγεννησιακού ουμανισμού και του Διαφωτισμού περί ενός αυτόνομου, αδιαίρετου και αυτο-νοηματοδοτούμενου εαυ- τού. Ιδιαίτερα στις μέρες μας –στην εποχή του μεταδομισμού και του μεταμοντέρνου-, ο προσδιορισμός και η εννοιολόγηση των όρων ‘ταυτότητα’ (ατομική, εθνική, πολιτισμική, φυλοτική κ.λπ.), ‘άτομο’, ‘Υποκείμενο’ και ‘εαυτός’ βρίσκονται πάλι στο επίκεντρο θεωρητι- κών συζητήσεων που αφορούν στη φύση και τις διαδικασίες διαμόρ- φωσης ταυτοτήτων, ως μια απάντηση στις κοινωνικο-οικονομικές αλλαγές και το μοντέλο μιας οικουμενικής ή συλλογικής ταυτότητας που προτείνεται μέσα από την ιδεολογία της παγκοσμιοποίησης. Πιο συγκεκριμένα, η μετανεωτερική κριτική, ενώ από τη μία αναγνωρί- ζει στο ‘Υποκείμενο’ (=το άτομο που δρα) απεριόριστες δυνατότητες για αυτο-ορισμό και αυτο-συγκρότηση, από την άλλη το τοποθετεί σε έναν κόσμο κατακερματισμένο, «που χαρακτηρίζεται από απουσία συνολικών οραμάτων και κεντρικών ισχυρών λόγων». Σε ένα τέτοιο τοπίο, οι ταυτότητες «δεν μπορεί παρά να είναι ρευστές, άστατες, θραυσματικές, υβριδικές, ...». (Πρβλ. Γκέφου-Μαδιανού, 2006: 18-20 και Hall, 1996) Γι’ αυτό και, ενώ από τη μία προτείνεται ακόμη και η παντελής κατάργηση του όρου ‘ταυτότητα’, από την άλλη καθίστα- ται περισσότερο επιτακτική η αναζήτηση μεθόδων εννοιολόγησης του ‘εαυτού’ και του ‘Αλλου’ και η κατανόηση των τακτικών διαφύ- λαξης ή και συγκρότησης ‘ταυτοτήτων’.5 Από αυτή την άποψη, η αυ- τοβιογραφία αποτελεί σίγουρα μία μέθοδο διερεύνησης του ‘εαυτού’ και του ‘΄Αλλου’, και έναν τρόπο αυτοπροσδιορισμού του ατόμου.

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3. Ο τίτλος Γεννήθηκα Ελληνίδα: μία εύλογη απάντηση στις ‘παρενέργειες’ της αντιφατικής εννοιολόγησης του όρου ‘ιθαγένεια’ Ο Ζακύ Πρυτεντύ, στο κείμενό του «Πολιτισμική ταυτότητα: μεταξύ μύθου και πραγματικότητας» (σσ. 53-54), υποστηρίζει ότι ο τίτλος του βιβλίου της Μερκούρη Γεννήθηκα Ελληνίδα δεν έχει νό- ημα εκτός και «εάν παραδεχτούμε τη θεώρηση του Έθνους ως ‘βιο- λογικής οντότητας’ όπου ο σημερινός άνθρωπος καθορίζεται από το παρελθόν της κοινότητάς του.» Για τον Πρυτεντύ, δεν γεννιέται κα- νείς Έλληνας, αλλά γίνεται δια της παιδείας, «μέσα στους κόλπους μιας οικογένειας, μιας γλώσσας, μιας κοινότητας, ενός συνόλου αξιών και μιας κοινής μοίρας ...» Εξίσου, για τον ίδιο, η δήλωση «είμαι Ελληνίδα» δεν αποτελεί παρά μια ταυτολογία, εφόσον μπορεί να ερ- μηνευτεί ως «δεν είμαι κάτι άλλο», που συνεκδοχικά και «αναπόφευ- κτα» σχετίζεται με τάσεις εθνικιστικές και την αφαιρετική έννοια του «Έθνους». Ο τίτλος ενός έργου έχει οριστεί σημειολογικά ως το «περίγραμ- μα» του περιεχομένου του, και στην προκειμένη περίπτωση, το περι- εχόμενο της αυτοβιογραφίας Γεννήθηκα Ελληνίδα κάθε άλλο παρά διαπραγματεύεται τη θεώρηση του Έθνους ως μιας ‘βιολογικής οντό- τητας’, ή υποστηρίζει μια εθνική ταυτότητα και πολιτισμική παρά- δοση που είναι ‘αμιγής’, ‘εθνικιστική’ και πολύ περισσότερο ‘εχθρική’ προς το ‘Αλλο’.6 Αντιθέτως μάλιστα, το περιεχόμενο της αυτοβιογρα- φίας αναφέρεται και στο θέμα της εθνικής εχθρότητας (συγκεκριμέ- να μεταξύ Ελλήνων, Βούλγαρων και Τούρκων), στον τρόπο με τον οποίο εμποτίζονται οι λαοί με αυτή, και τις πολιτικές σκοπιμότητες που εξυπηρετεί. ΄Οπως ήδη αναφέρθηκε, οι θεωρητικές αναζητήσεις και ο κρι- τικός λόγος που προέκυψε από τη συνομιλία της δομικής γλωσσολο- γίας και των μεταδομικών προσεγγίσεων στους χώρους της ψυχανά- λυσης, της κοινωνιολογίας, της ανθρωπολογίας και των πολιτισμικών σπουδών, των τελευταίων δεκαετιών, προτείνουν πως η συνείδηση του εαυτού διαμορφώνεται από ευρύτερες δυνάμεις και δομές, όπως είναι η γλώσσα, οι κοινωνικές σχέσεις, αλλά και το ασυνείδητο, οπό- τε και η υποκειμενικότητα ή η αντικειμενικότητα του Υποκειμένου μένουν πάντα εκτεθειμένα, από τη μία στους εκάστοτε πολιτικούς,

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πολιτισμικούς και ιστορικο-κοινωνικούς παράγοντες, και από την άλλη σε ψυχολογικούς, συναισθηματικούς, πνευματικούς κ.λ. παρά- γοντες. Λαμβάνοντας υπόψη τα παραπάνω αλλά και τους λόγους που οδήγησαν τη Μερκούρη στη συγγραφή του Γεννήθηκα Ελληνίδα, η επιλογή του τίτλου αυτού μπορεί να ερμηνευτεί και ως μια εύλογη απάντηση, πλήρη συνεκδοχικών νοημάτων, στις ‘παρενέργειες’ της αντιφατικής εννοιολόγησης του όρου ‘ιθαγένεια’. Με αυτό εννοούμε ότι, εφόσον η ιθαγένεια αποκτάται πρωτίστως με την εξ αίματος συγγένεια και είναι δυνατόν να αφαιρεθεί, πρωτίστως πάλι, δια νο- μικών διαταγμάτων, είναι επόμενο να ενυπάρχει μια «λανθάνουσα σύγκρουση» στις ιδιότητες του πολίτη ως νομικό και πολιτικό άτο- μο και του ανθρώπου ως φυσιολογική, συναισθηματική, ψυχολογική και πνευματική οντότητα. Ιδιαίτερα μάλιστα όταν αυτά τα νομικά διατάγματα προέρχονται από ένα πολιτικό σύστημα δικτατορικό, το οποίο βασίζεται στην κατάλυση της έννοιας της ελευθερίας στην όποια της μορφή, τότε οι ιδιότητες του πολίτη μπορούν να μεταλ- λαχτούν σε εκείνες του υποταγμένου υπηκόου ή του θυμωμένου7/ πληγωμένου/επαναστατημένου ‘ανιθαγενή’ και καθόλου υποχρεω- τικά εθνικιστή. Στην περίπτωση της Μελίνας Μερκούρη ισχύει το δεύτερο. Συγκεκριμένα η Μερκούρη θα διευκρινίσει στην αρχή και προς το τέλος της αυτοβιογραφίας της πως γράφει για δύο κυρίως λόγους: α) για την αγάπη της προς την Ελλάδα -ως τόπος, φύση και άνθρωποι- και β) από τον θυμό της προς τους πολιτικούς της (τους οποίους χαρακτηρίζει ‘σιχαμερούς’), που τους την στέρησαν. Όπως επίσης γίνεται φανερό από το σύνολο του έργου, ο αυτοπροσδιορι- σμός της δεν είναι παρά το αποτέλεσμα της σχέσης της με όλα αυτά: «Εκείνο που αγαπώ περισσότερο στον κόσμο είναι η Ελλάδα, αλλά δεν μπορώ να δω τη θάλασσά της, τους λόφους της, τον ήλιο της, [...]. Δεν μου επιτρέπεται να γυρίσω στην Ελλάδα. Γι’ αυτό γράφω αυτό το βιβλίο. Η ιστορία αφορά εμένα και τους ανθρώπους που γνωρίζω. Αφορά την Ελλάδα και την πολιτική της, τις επανειλημμένες απογοητεύσεις του λαού μου στην προσπάθειά του να πετύχει ανεξαρτησία από την ξένη κυριαρχία και τους σιχαμερούς Έλληνες πολιτικούς που υπηρετούν αυτές τις δυνάμεις.

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Δεν θα γράψω με ταπεινοφροσύνη ή με επιφύλαξη, γιατί δεν είμαι ούτε ταπεινόφρων ούτε επιφυλακτική. Κι αν τη μια στιγμή φαίνεται πως είμαι μια αχαλίνωτη ηδονίστρια και την άλλη η Ιωάννα της Λωραίνης, αυτό συμβαίνει γιατί είμαι μια ηδονίστρια και είμαι η Ιωάννα της Λωραίνης. Πρέπει να προσθέσω γρήγορα, πως είμαι ηξ Ιωάννα της Λωραίνης μόνο από το 1967. Αυτή ήταν η χρονιά που έπεσε στην Ελλάδα η κατάρα των Συνταγματαρχών.» [...] « Καταλαβαίνω ότι μερικές φορές οι μεταφραστές πρέπει να κάνουν αλλαγές. Τους δίνω το ελεύθερο. Αυτό που ζητώ να κρατήσουν αναλλοίωτο είναι ο θυμός μου. Ο θυμός μου είναι ο λόγος γι’ αυτό το βιβλίο.» (Μερκούρη, 1983:13-14)

4. Αυτοπροσδιορισμός μέσω γενεαλογικών και φυλοτικών ταυτίσεων και αποταυτίσεων Ο Giddens (1991: 53) υποστηρίζει πως η ταυτότητα δεν συγκρο- τείται με βάση ορισμένα συγκεκριμένα χαρακτηριστικά, αλλά «είναι ο εαυτός που γίνεται κατανοητός αναστοχαστικά με βάση τη βιο- γραφία του». Δηλαδή μέσα από τις βιωμένες εμπειρίες του το άτομο ανακαλύπτει τον εαυτό του. Η αναστοχαστική και δι-υποκειμενική προσέγγιση του εαυτού επιτρέπει στο άτομο να «διαπραγματευτεί και να ερμηνεύσει» τις εμπειρίες του και να οδηγηθεί ευκολότερα στον αυτοπροσδιορισμό του. Επιπλέον προτείνει πως η ταυτότητα και τα συναισθήματα είναι έννοιες στενά συνδεδεμένες μεταξύ τους και πως δεν μπορεί να υπάρξει κοινωνική ή ατομική ταυτότητα χω- ρίς κάποια συναισθηματικά στοιχεία. Κατά την ανάγνωση της αυτοβιογραφίας Γεννήθηκα Ελληνί- δα, γίνεται φανερό ότι ο πρώτης μορφής αυτοπροσδιορισμός που επιχειρεί η συγγραφέας είναι γενεαλογικός και φυλοτικός. Ειδικό- τερα, η συγγραφέας προσδιορίζει τον εαυτό της μέσω της ταύτισης ή αποταύτισής της με ορισμένα άτομα του στενού τους αρχικά οικο- γενειακού περιβάλλοντος, των εμπειριών που βίωσε μαζί τους, των συναισθημάτων που έτρεφε για αυτά και του τρόπου που συνέβαλαν

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στην συνειδητοποίηση του εαυτού της φυσιολογικά, οντολογικά και, πολύ περισσότερο, φυλοτικά. Για παράδειγμα, το κύριο πρότυπο με το οποίο επιζητεί να ταυτιστεί η Μερκούρη, στην παιδική της ηλικία, είναι αυτό του δυναμικού, γοητευτικού, προστατευτικού, αξιοαγάπη- του, δίκαιου και αδιαμφισβήτητου για τις ικανότητές του να υποτάσ- σει αλλά και να υποτάσσεται συναισθηματικά, παππού Μερκούρη ή αλλιώς του Μεγάλου Σπύρου Μερκούρη.8 Ο παππούς Μερκούρης είναι ο πρώτος ‘μεγάλος έρωτας’ στη ζωή της Μελίνας. Μέσω αυτού αντιλαμβάνεται, μεταξύ άλλων, τι σημαίνει δημόσια αποδοχή αλλά και κοινωνική ισότητα, έκφραση αγάπης και αναγνώριση φιλίας, σχέ- σεις και θέση των δύο φύλων μέσα σε μια πατριαρχικά ταξινομημένη κοινωνία. Οι δύο γονεϊκές μορφές -η ταύτιση με τις οποίες, κατά τον Φρόυντ, αποτελούν την πρωιμότερη έκφραση συναισθηματικού δε- σμού-, στην περίπτωση της Μερκούρη κατέχουν δευτερεύουσα θέση, συγκρινόμενες με αυτή του παππού. Ο πατέρας Σταμάτης Μερκού- ρης9 -που «χαρόσουν να τον βλέπεις», γιατί «είχε γεννηθεί κομψός» και με «υπέροχη κορμοστασιά» (σ. 284)-, θεωρείται εφάμιλλος του Μεγάλου Μερκούρη, ή μάλλον τον ξεπερνά, μόνο σε ό,τι αφορά το θέμα του γυναικοκατακτητή και των εξωσυζυγικών σχέσεων. Αυτό, όπως μαρτυρεί η Μερκούρη (σ. 18), στην Ελλάδα «δεν εθεωρείτο ούτε θεωρείται κατακριτέο. Αντίθετα, εθεωρείτο και θεωρείται σωστό για τη διατήρηση της αντρικής τιμής.» Μάλιστα, για τον «εντυπωσια- κό κατάλογο από απιστίες αλλά και για το ανέμελο θάρρος του», ο πατέρας της ονομαζόταν «Ντ’ Αρτανιάν» (σ. 19). Όσον αφορά τη μη- τέρα της, ενώ από τη μία έχουμε αναφορές θαυμασμού και αγάπης ,10 από την άλλη, το μητρικό, ή μάλλον το γυναικείο πρότυπο που προτείνεται μέσω αυτής, δεν αποτελεί εξαίρεση συγκρινόμενο με το υπόλοιπο θηλυκού γένους οικογενειακό και εξω-οικογενειακό σύνο- λο, το οποίο είναι πάντα υποχωρητικό, υπομονετικό, εξυπηρετικό στις σχέσεις του με το ανδρικό φύλο. Η Μερκούρη, τουλάχιστον από αυτή την άποψη, θα αρνηθεί εξαρχής να ταυτιστεί μαζί τους και θα κάνει τις επιλογές της. Γράφει σχετικά: Ακόμη και σαν παιδί αναγνώριζα το άδικο αυτών των διπλών κριτηριών. Υπήρχαν πολλοί «Ντ’ Αρ τανιάν» στην Αθήνα, αλλά όχι αρκετές «Μυλαίδες». Αποφάσισα να γίνω η «Μυλαίδη» ή η

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Λαίδη Χάμιλτον ή η Μεγάλη Αικατερίνη, αλλά ασφαλώς να μην δεχθώ τη ζωή της μητέρας μου ή της γιαγιάς μου. Με λόγα λόγια, ήθελα ν’ αλλάξω την εποχή. Αμφιβάλλω αν ήμουν εγώ υπεύθυνη γι’ αυτό, αλλά οι καιροί έχουν αλλάξει. (σ. 19) Το θέμα τού ποιος είναι υπεύθυνος για τη συγκρότηση του εαυτού και τον χαρακτήρα του απασχόλησε σοβαρά και μελετητές στο χώρο της κοινωνικής και πολιτισμικής ανθρωπολογίας. ( Γκέφου- Μαδιανού, 2006:31) Μεταξύ άλλων υποστηρίζεται από αυτούς και η άποψη «του καλά συγκροτημένου εαυτού», ο οποίος τολμά να αμφισβητεί παγιωμένες καταστάσεις και προτεινόμενα πρότυπα. Η περίπτωση ειδικά της Μελίνας Μερκούρη, θα μπορούσαμε να υποστηρίξουμε πως συγκέντρωνε αρκετές προϋποθέσεις για έναν αρκετά καλά «συγκροτημένο εαυτό» -που θα ήταν δηλαδή τολμηρός, αποφασιστικός και με πλήρη αυτοπεποίθηση-, ώστε να αρνούνταν να υποταχθεί σε συλλογικές αξίες και κοινωνικά πρότυπα. Ο τρόπος και το περιβάλλον μέσα στο οποίο έζησε τα παιδικά της χρόνια,11 και οι μετέπειτα επιλογές της στην εντελώς προσωπική της ζωή (π.χ. οικογενειακές, φιλικές, ερωτικές και συζυγικές σχέσεις της), αλλά και στην καλλιτεχνική και πολιτική της ζωή, όπως τις εκθέτει η ίδια στην αυτοβιογραφία της, το αποδεικνύουν αυτό σε μεγάλο βαθμό.

5. Αυτοπροσδιορισμός μέσω της ανακάλυψης του πολιτικού της προσώπου Στην Ελλάδα, όπως και σε αρκετές άλλες ‘συντηρητικές’, από πολιτικής άποψης, κοινωνίες, υπάρχει η παράδοση των οικογενειακών πολιτικών δυναστειών ή «τζακιών». Η οικογένεια Μερκούρη, αν και μετείχε στην πολιτική αρένα της Ελλάδας για έναν περίπου αιώνα, με κανέναν τρόπο δεν θα μπορούσε να της αποδοθεί ο χαρακτηρισμός της ‘πολιτικής δυναστείας’. Πρώτον διότι και τα τέσσερα ‘πολιτικά’ της πρόσωπα δεν επρόσκειντο σε μία αποκλειστικά πολιτική παράταξη και δεύτερον γιατί το καθένα από αυτά παρουσίαζε μια προσωπική πολιτική μετεξέλιξη.12 Έτσι, για την κάθε περίπτωση, θα μπορούσαμε μάλλον να μιλήσουμε για ‘ανακάλυψη’, και όχι ‘κληροδότηση’, του πολιτικού τους προσώπου. Ιδεολογικά η οικογένεια Μερκούρη επρόσκειντο, από τον 19ο αι., στην συντηρητική παράταξη, και ήταν ένθερμοι υποστηρικτές της

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μοναρχίας στην Ελλάδα. Η ίδια η Μελίνα Μερκούρη δεν αποτελούσε μια εξαίρεση. Όπως θα δηλώσει στην αυτοβιογραφία της (σ. 55), στα πρώτα χρόνια της ζωής της σκεφτόταν την πολιτική μόνο όταν κάποιο άτομο της οικογένειάς της ήταν υποψήφιος σε εκλογές. Γενικά όμως ήταν συντηρητική, δεξιά και φίλη της μοναρχίας. Μάλιστα ένιωσε μεγάλη απογοήτευση όταν ο παππούς της, ο ‘Μεγάλος Σπύρος’, άλλαξε παράταξη και έγινε φιλοβενιζελικός. Χαριτολογώντας, μας αποκαλύπτει την έλλειψη προσωπικής πολιτικής συνείδησης -σε αντίθεση με τον αδερφό της που ήταν και μικρότερός της- , κατά την νεαρή της ηλικία, παρά τον ‘παιδικό φανατισμό’ της. Όπως δηλώνει, αναγκάστηκε να μπει στην ‘αντιπολίτευση’ όταν ο Μεταξάς δημιούργησε τη δική του «χιτλερική νεολαία». Μάλιστα θα διευκρινίσει πως «αν και οι λόγοι ήταν περισσότερο ενδυματολογικοί και αισθητικοί και λιγότερο πολιτικοί, δεν ήταν λιγότερο παθιασμένοι». Έτσι, θα προσθέσει, «Σε ηλικία έντεκα χρονών έγινα αμετάπιστη αντιφασίστρια και αμφίβολη βασιλόφρων».13(σ. 39) Σε ώριμη πια ηλικία (των 50 ετών), και όταν γράφει την αυτοβιογραφία της βρισκόμενη εκτός Ελλάδας, ζυγίζει, κρίνει τα πολιτικά δρώμενα εντός και εκτός της Ελλάδας και ασκεί ‘αυστηρή’ αυτοκριτική, όσον αφορά το «αμαρτωλό» -όπως το χαρακτηρίζει- πολιτικό παρελθόν της, ιδιαίτερα κατά την περίοδο της κατοχής και του εμφυλίου πολέμου στην Ελλάδα, όταν δηλαδή ήταν τότε ηλικίας 20-30 ετών. Για εκείνη την περίοδο της ζωής της δηλώνει πως νιώθει ντροπή και ενοχή. (σσ. 93 και 111) Όμως, την εποχή που η Μερκούρη γράφει την αυτοβιογραφία της (το έτος 1970) και εξωτερικεύει τις σκέψεις και τα συναισθήματά της, είναι πια μια αναγνωρισμένη διεθνώς αγωνίστρια κατά του δικτατορικού καθεστώτος στην Ελλάδα, πλήρης πολιτικής αυτογνωσίας και αυτοπεποίθησης, και αυτό πιστεύουμε πως συνέβαλε αποφασιστικά, ώστε να μην διστάζει και να ‘αυτο-εκτεθεί’. Σήμερα μπορούμε να υποθέσουμε πως ο αγώνας της κατά των συνταγματαρχών λειτούργησε και ως αυτοκάρθαρση, χωρίς καθόλου με αυτό να υπονοούμε ότι στην αυτοβιογραφία της διακρίνουμε κάποια ίχνη εγωκεντρισμού ή καιροσκοπισμού. Θα δηλώσει τότε σχετικά η Μερκούρη για τον εαυτό της και την ‘προσωπική της ντροπή’:

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«....Μπορώ να μιλήσω για μένα, ακόμα κι αν αυτό με κάνει ν’ ανατριχιάζω. Υπήρχαν Έλληνες που συνεργάστηκαν. Ήταν λίγοι. Υπήρχαν Έλληνες που αντιστάθηκαν. Ήταν πολλοί. Υπήρχαν εκείνοι που τους διέφθειρε ο φόβος κι η παρουσία του θανάτου. Υπήρχαν εκείνοι που αποφάσισαν να ζήσουν κάθε μέρα μέχρι τέλους και να στείλουν στο διάβολο όλα τ’ άλλα, μαζί με τα ιδανικά και τις ελπίδες για απελευθέρωση. Ήμουν ανάμεσα σ’ αυτούς. Δεν είχα δικαιολογίες. Ήξερα τι έκανα. Είχα πολλά παραδείγματα κοντά μου για να μην ξέρω.» (Μερκούρη, 1983:67-68) Κατά μήκος της αυτοβιογραφίας μάς αποκαλύπτεται, με άμεσο και έμμεσο τρόπο, η διαδικασία της προσωπικής πολιτικής μετεξέλι- ξης της Μερκούρη. Θα μπορούσαμε μάλλον να μιλήσουμε για στάδια ιδεολογικής αφίπνυσης και εσωτερικής πολιτικής ωρίμανσης, μέσα από τις εμπειρίες της στην καλλιτεχνική και προσωπικής της ζωής. Για παράδειγμα, γρήγορα αναγνωρίζει την αξία του συνδικαλισμού και της συναδελφικής αλληλεγγύης (σ. 144), όταν ζει η ίδια την εκ- μετάλλευση στο χώρο εργασίας της και βλέπει συνεργάτες της να καταδιώκονται για πολιτικές τους πεποιθήσεις. Θαυμάζει ή κρίνει πολιτικά πρόσωπα, ανεξάρτητα από την πολιτική τους παράταξη, με βάση το έργο τους και τις υπηρεσίες τους στον ελληνικό λαό και την Ελλάδα, και δεν διστάζει να αλλάξει άποψη για αυτά, στο δι- άστημα της δικής τους πολιτικής πορείας αλλά και της δικής της πολιτικής ωρίμανσης (π.χ. απόψεις για Έλληνες πολιτικούς όπως ο Κωνσταντίνος Καραμανλής, ο Γεώργιος Παπανδρέου, ο Ανδρέας Πα- πανδρέου, αλλά και για ξένους, ιδίως Αμερικανούς). Ενημερώνεται ιστορικά και πολιτικά, και αντιλαμβάνεται σταδιακά την υποκρισία συμμάχων κυβερνήσεων (π.χ. Αμερικής, Γαλλίας αλλά και Σοβιετι- κής Ένωσης) που θυσιάζουν στο βωμό του οικονομικού και πολιτικού τους συμφέροντος την ελευθερία λαών, υποστηρίζοντας δικτατορικά καθεστώτα, όπως αυτό της 21ης Απριλίου του ΄67 στην Ελλάδα (σσ. 69-77, 90, 96-97, 235, 370-71 κ.λ.). Δηλώνει ευθέως και χωρίς αναστο- λές ότι οι κύριοι αίτιοι για όλα τα δεινά της Ελλάδας, στην ιστορική της πορεία, είναι οι ίδιοι οι πολιτικοί της. Εξίσου όμως τώρα κα-

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τανοεί πως ο φόβος που προκαλεί ο πόλεμος στις ψυχές των αν- θρώπων, όπως και τα διάφορα καταπιεστικά καθεστώτα, μπορεί να τους μετατρέψει σε «κουνέλια, πρόβατα και βατράχους» (σ. 335) ή και σε ήρωες –όπως στην περίπτωση κάποιων επώνυμων αλλά και χιλιάδων άλλων ανώνυμων αγωνιστών14-, και σε «Ιωάννα της Λωραί- νης» –ακόμη κι αν ένας τέτοιος ρόλος δεν τους ταιριάζει, όπως στην περίπτωσή της. (σσ. 13-14) Θα μπορούσαμε να υποστηρίξουμε πως, σε σχέση με τη Μερ- κούρη και τα όσα η ίδια μαρτυρεί, καταλυτικό ρόλο για τη συμμε- τοχή της ή μη στα πολιτικά δρώμενα, έπαιξαν επίσης οι άντρες με τους οποίους συνδέθηκε στη ζωή της. Μέχρι και τη γνωριμίας της με τον πραγματικό σύντροφο της ζωής της, Τζούλυ/Ζυλ/Ζιλ Ντα- σέν, το 1955, και τον μετέπειτα πολύπλευρο δεσμό τους (ερωτικό, καλλιτεχνικό, συντροφικό/ συζυγικό), οι άνδρες με τους οποίους είχε προηγουμένως συνδεθεί, μάλλον συνέβαλαν στο να ενισχυθεί, ποικι- λοτρόπως, ο συντηρητισμός της, ο εγωκεντρισμός της και η πολιτική της απραξία.15 Ακόμη και η μητέρα της θα ενισχύσει αυτή τη στάση. Αρκετές φορές μάλιστα θα δηλώσει πως η κόρη της δεν γνωρίζει από πολιτική, και όταν κυρήχθηκε η δικτατορία στην Ελλάδα, θα τη συμβουλέψει να μην μιλήσει εναντίον, και γενικώς να απέχει, προ- τάσσοντας ως δικαιολογία την προσωπική της ασφάλεια και της οι- κογένειάς της. (σσ. 321, 331-32) Από την άλλη, στην αυτοβιογραφία έμμεσα γίνεται αντιληπτό πως η σχέση της Μερκούρη με τον Ντα- σέν16 επηρέασε απόψεις και στάσεις της όσον αφορά τον ίδιο της τον εαυτό, τις σχέσεις της με τους άνδρες, την πολιτική, τους συνεργάτες της, ακόμη και το ρόλο του καλλιτέχνη και της τέχνης γενικότερα.17 Αλλά και άμεσα θα δηλώσει η Μερκούρη ότι η σχέση της με τον Ντα- σέν είχε αλλάξει τις συνήθειές της («υπήρχε μια σπιτίσια τάξη στη ζωή μου», «είχα δεχτεί ένα μικρό μέτρο πειθαρχίας» (σσ. 223-224)), και το πιο σημαντικό, τη βοήθησε για να ξεπεράσει την μέχρι τότε άγνοιά της πάνω σε θέματα πολιτικής και ιστορίας: «Κατάλαβα πως αν επρόκειτο να μείνω μ’ αυτόν τον άνθρωπο, έπρεπε να μελετήσω πολύ. Με βοήθησε. Μου πρότεινε βιβλία για να διαβάσω». (σ. 208) Τέλος, και όσον αφορά τον πολιτικό (αυτο)προσδιορισμό της Μερκούρη, θα υποστηρίζαμε ότι, όταν το 1967 -και ενώ βρισκόταν στο Μπρόντγουεϊ, ως πρωταγωνίστρια του θεατρικού μιούζικαλ

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Illya Darling-, πληροφορείται την επιβολή του δικτατορικού καθε- στώτος στην Ελλάδα, ο πόλεμος που κηρύσσει εναντίον των συνταγ- ματαρχών ήταν αποτέλεσμα συνδυασμού της πολιτικής της ωριμότη- τας αλλά και του τολμηρού της χαρακτήρα, που στο παρελθόν την οδηγούσε σε εντελώς αντίθετης κατεύθυνσης, από πολιτικής άποψης, στάσεις και επιλογές. Η αφαίρεση της ιθαγένειάς της από τους συ- νταγματάρχες, την καθιστά μόνο περισσότερο μαχητική και αποφα- σιστική. Η ανακάλυψη του πολιτικού της προσώπου είχε επιτευχθεί σταδιακά και σε μεγάλο χρονικό διάστημα, μέσα από τις εμπειρίες της καθημερινής και καλλιτεχνικής της ζωής, αλλά και μέσα από την πολιτική και ιστορική πληροφόρηση και αφύπνιση. Θα ολοκληρωθεί αργότερα με την ένταξή της στο νεοσύστατο σοσιαλιστικό κόμμα της Ελλάδας Π.Α.Σ.Ο.Κ., και την εκλογή της ως βουλευτή, το 1977, και υπουργού πολιτισμού το 1981-1989 και 1993-1994, που έρχεται ο θάνατό της. Παρά την πληθώρα των κυβερνητικών ανασχηματισμών, σε όλο αυτό το χρονικό διάστημα διακυβέρνησης και αντιπολίτευσης του Π.Α.Σ.Ο.Κ., η Μερκούρη ήταν η μόνη που παρέμεινε αδιαμ- φισβήτητη στη θέση της, όπως παρατήρησε και ο ίδιος ο Ανδρέας Παπανδρέου. Κάποιοι διέβλεψαν, έστω και με σαρκαστικό τρόπο,18 ότι αν δεν είχε πεθάνει πρόωρα, θα είχε επιλεγεί για το ανώτατο πο- λιτικό αξίωμα της χώρας, αυτό της Προέδρου της Ελληνικής Δημο- κρατίας. Πολλοί περισσότεροι πιστεύουν πως θα της άξιζε πιο πολύ από τον καθένα.

6. Αυτοπροσδιορισμός μέσω αναζητήσεων της πολιτισμικής και καλλιτεχνικής της ταυτότητας Ο Georges Gusdorf, θεωρείται ο ‘πατέρας’ των σπουδών της αυτοβιογραφίας, από την άποψη ότι «έθεσε τα θεμέλια ενός είδους γραφής που μέχρι τότε θεωρούνταν περιθωριοποιημένο» (πρβλ. Susan Stanford Friedman, 1988:34). Στο σπερματικό του κείμενο “Conditions and Limits of Autobiography” (1956), ο Gusdorf υπο- στηρίζει ότι «η αυτοβιογραφία δεν είναι δυνατή σε ένα πολιτιστικό περιβάλλον, [...], όπου δεν υπάρχει συνείδηση του εαυτού», ως μια «διακριτική», «απομονωμένη ύπαρξη» και «σημαντική μονάδα» της κοινωνίας ( εδώ, Gusdorf, 1980:30). Και ενώ είναι πολλοί οι θεω- ρητικοί στο χώρο της αυτοβιογραφίας που στηρίζουν το «μοντέλο

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της ξεχωριστής και μοναδικής εαυτότητας» που προτείνει ο Gusdorf (π.χ. Onley, 1980 και 1972, και Mehlman, 1974) , η Susan Stanford Friedman που προέρχεται από το χώρο της φεμινιστικής κριτικής, θα χαρακτηρίσει αυτού του είδους την αυτοσυνειδησία ως «ατομικι- στική» (Susan Stanford Friedman, 1988: 34-35), ‘ανδροκεντρική’ και ως «το ώριμο προϊόν ενός συγκεκριμένου πολιτισμού», που δεν εί- ναι άλλος από τον μετα-Αναγεννησιακό Δυτικό πολιτισμό (Stanford Friedman, 1988: 29). Σύμφωνα με την ίδια, το μοντέλο της ξεχωρι- στής και μοναδικής αυτοβιογραφούμενης εαυτότητας που προτείνει ο Gusdorf, «θέτει τις βάσεις για μια μεροληπτική κριτική που οδηγεί στη λανθασμένη ανάγνωση και στην περιθωριοποίηση αυτοβιογρα- φικών κειμένων γυναικών και μειονοτήτων, σε μια διαδικασία για τη δημιουργία ενός κανόνα.» (Stanford Friedman, 1988: 34) Διευκρινίζει μάλιστα πως δύο είναι οι λόγοι για την ανεφαρμοσιμότητα αυτού του μοντέλου: πρώτον, γιατί δεν λαμβάνει υπόψη του τη σημασία για τις γυναίκες και τις μειονότητες της πολιτισμικά επιβαλλόμενης ομαδι- κής ταυτότητας, και δεύτερον, παραβλέπει τις διαφορές κοινωνικο- ποίησης κατά τη διαδικασία κατασκευής της φυλοτικής ταυτότητας του άνδρα και της γυναίκας (Stanford Friedman, 1988: 35). Έτσι, η Friedman, αντιστρέφοντας τον τρόπο που ορίζει ο Gusdorf την κουλτούρα που δεν διαθέτει τις προϋποθέσεις για αυτοβιογραφία, επανατοποθετεί, όπως υποστηρίζει, τα έργα των γυναικών στο κέ- ντρο του αυτοβιογραφικού κανόνα. Δηλαδή, για την Friedman, η αυ- τοβιογραφία είναι δυνατή όταν «το άτομο/η γυναίκα δεν αισθάνεται ότι υπάρχει από μόνο του έξω από τους άλλους, και ακόμη λιγότερο ενάντια στους άλλους, αλλά πολύ περισσότερο με τους άλλους, ως μια αλληλοεξαρτώμενη ύπαρξη που επιβεβαιώνει τους ρυθμούς της παντού μέσα στην κοινότητα ... όπου οι ζωές είναι τόσο πολύ εμπλεγ- μένες μεταξύ τους ώστε η κάθε μία τους να έχει το κέντρο της παντού και την περιφέρειά της πουθενά. Έτσι, η σημαντική μονάδα δεν είναι ποτέ το απομονωμένο ον.» (Stanford Friedman, 1988: 38) Τέλος, αντι- παραθέτοντας το μοντέλο του αυτοβιογραφικού εαυτού του Gusdorf με εκείνο που προτείνουν γνωστές θεωρητικοί που προέρχονται από το χώρο της φεμινιστικής κριτικής, θα καταλήξει: «Ακριβώς αυτή η αίσθηση της ταύτισης, της αλληλοεξάρτησης και της κοινότητας που ο Gusdorf αποκλείει από τον αυτοβιογραφικό

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εαυτό, αποτελούν τα βασικά στοιχεία για την ανάπτυξη της γυναικείας ταυτότητας, σύμφωνα με τις θεωρητικούς Rowbothan και Chodorow. Τα μοντέλα τους για τη γυναικεία εαυτότητα επισημαίνουν την ασυνείδητη ανδρική προκατάληψη του Gusdorf και άλλων ατομικιστικών παραδειγμάτων.» (Stanford Friedman, 1988: 38, πρβλ. Rowbothan, 1973 και Chodorow, 1978) Αν κατά την ανάγνωση της αυτοβιογραφίας της Μελίνας Μερ- κούρη, Γεννήθηκα Ελληνίδα, επιζητούσαμε να ανακαλύψουμε ένα από τα δύο μοντέλα αυτοβιογραφικού εαυτού (αυτό του «απομο- νωμένου» και «μοναδικού» του Gusdorf, ή το άλλο της «ομαδικής ταυτότητας» για τη γυναικεία συνείδηση του εαυτού19), θα αντιμετω- πίζαμε μεγάλο πρόβλημα. Μάλλον, στην περίπτωση της Μερκούρη θα λέγαμε πως ταιριάζει το μοντέλο της «νέας συνείδησης» του αυτοβιογραφικού εαυτού, που προτείνει η Rowbothan, ή και εκείνο που διαθέτει «το χάρισμα της ‘δεύτερης ματιάς’» του μαύρου, μέσα στον Αμερικάνικο κόσμο, που είχε προτείνει στις αρχές του 20ού αι. ο Du Bois.20 Δηλαδή, σε αυτή την περίπτωση, η γυναίκα ή ο μαύρος μη αναγνωρίζοντας τον εαυτό τους στις πολιτισμικές αντανακλάσεις που τους προτείνουν οι καθρέφτες «της πολιτισμικής αίθουσας» μιας ανδροκρατούμενης ή και γενικά καταπιεστικής, συντηρητικής κοινω- νίας, αναπτύσσουν «μια διττή συνείδηση» του εαυτού – «τον εαυτό που ορίζεται μέσα από την κουλτούρα και τον εαυτό ως διαφορετικό από τις πολιτισμικές περιγραφές.» Συγκεκριμένα, και όπως ήδη συζητήθηκε, η αυτοβιογραφία της Μερκούρη προτείνει ότι η ίδια ‘ανακαλύπτει’ τη φυλοτική της, και ως εκ τούτου και την πολιτισμική ταυτότητα, επιλέγοντας να ταυτι- στεί με έναν εαυτό που ήταν αντίθετος των αντανακλάσεων της γυ- ναίκας, μέσα από τους καθρέφτες της «πολιτισμικής αίθουσας» της ανδροκρατούμενης και καθεστηκυίας κοινωνίας της εποχής της. Από αυτή την άποψη, ήταν, όπως το δηλώνει και η ίδια, «μία αποστάτις». Εξασφαλίζει την ατομική της ελευθερία και πετυχαίνει τις καλλι- τεχνικές της επιδιώξεις μέσα από έναν παραδοσιακό πολιτισμικό θεσμό υποτέλειας – το γάμο- αντιστρέφοντας τη λειτουργία του, σε σχέση με τον εαυτό της. Βιώνει για ένα χρονικό διάστημα το αί- σθημα του ‘αποκλεισμού’ και της ‘απόρριψης’ από την καλλιτεχνική και πολιτιστική κοινότητα της Ελλάδας αρχικά, και της Γαλλίας

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αργότερα –κυρίως λόγω της μεγαλοαστικής καταγωγής της και της απειρίας, όπως υποστηρίζει η ίδια, ή και εξαιτίας του ‘τυχοδιωκτι- κού’ της χαρακτήρα, όπως υποστηρίζουν κάποιοι άλλοι. Καταφέρνει όμως να οδηγηθεί σε μια φυλοτική, πολιτισμική και καλλιτεχνική χειραφέτηση σπάνια στο είδος της και ίσως μοναδική για την εποχή της και το πολιτισμικό περιβάλλον μέσα στο οποίο ζούσε, τουλάχι- στον μέχρι και τα μέσα της δεκαετίας του ‘50. Όλα αυτά πιστεύουμε πως τα πετυχαίνει ακριβώς γιατί είχε το «χάρισμα της δεύτερης ματιάς» που της εξασφάλισε τη «νέα συ- νείδηση» του εαυτού της. Δεν θα μπορούσαμε όμως να υποστηρί- ξουμε πως αυτή η «νέα συνείδηση» συνέβαλε και στην απόκτηση συναίσθησης του μέλους μιας ομαδικής φυλοτικής ή και πολιτισμικής ταυτότητας. Αντίθετα, την οδήγησε στο να πετύχει αυτή την πολύ- πλευρη ‘μοναδικότητα’, δηλαδή να μετατραπεί σε σταρ στο χώρο της έβδομης τέχνης, σε πολιτικό και πολιτισμικό σύμβολο, και κυρίως σε φυλοτικό σύμβολο χειραφέτησης, για τις νεαρές γυναίκες των επό- μενων γενεών, και όχι της εποχής της. Οι περισότερες γυναίκες της ‘καλής κοινωνίας’ στην Ελλάδα του ’50 –όπως και η μητέρα της-, έτειναν, όπως υποστηρίζει και η ίδια η Μερκούρη, να μην εγκρίνουν τον τρόπο ζωής της, και αρκετές από αυτές να την ταυτίζουν με τους ρόλους της (π.χ. της πόρνης) στο θέατρο και στον κινηματογράφο. Κάποιοι/ες συνεχίζουν να το κάνουν αυτό ακόμη και σήμερα.21 Επεξηγηματικά και όσον αφορά στον αυτοπροσδιορισμό της πο- λιτισμικής και καλλιτεχνικής ταυτότητας της Μερκούρη, θα προσθέ- ταμε ότι, πέρα από την μεγαλοαστική καταγωγή της, και η ‘αρρενωπή’ θηλυκότητά της22 και ο ‘προκλητικός’ για την εποχή εκείνη ερωτισμός της23, επενήργησαν αρχικά, όπως μας πληροφορεί και η ίδια στην αυτο- βιογραφία της, μάλλον αρνητικά στις καλλιτεχνικές της αναζητήσεις και στην επίτευξη της πολιτιστικής/πολιτισμικής της αυτοσυνειδησίας. Η καλλιτεχνική της ‘φλέβα’ και η ερωτική της ζωή ερμηνεύτηκαν ως εγωκεντρισμός και ως ‘προσβολή’ και πρόκληση για τις συντηρητικές αρχές της καθεστηκυίας Αθηναϊκής κοινωνίας, ως έλλειψη επαγγελ- ματισμού και συναδελφικής αλληλεγγύης, από συνεργάτες ηθοποιούς αλλά και κριτικούς του θεάτρου, και ως έλλειψη πολιτικής (για την αριστερή ιδεολογικά παράταξη) και πολιτιστικής/πολιτισμικής συνεί- δησης (για τους ‘φύλακες’ της πολιτιστικής μας κληρονομιάς).

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Αλλά, και όπως η ίδια η Μερκούρη ομολογεί, κατά την περίοδο του ‘αμαρτωλού’ πολιτικού της παρελθόντος, δεν ήταν σε θέση να διακρίνει τη σχέση που υπάρχει μεταξύ πολιτισμικότητας και πολι- τικής (ή και οικονομικής) υποδούλωσης, όπως και μεταξύ της δικής της καλλιτεχνικής κατεύθυνσης (π.χ. πίστευε ότι της ταίριαζε μόνο η κωμωδία του βουλεβάρτου) και της πολιτισμικής της συνείδησης. Το μόνο που την ενδιέφερε αυτή την περίοδο ήταν η προσωπική της καλλιτεχνική ανάδειξη. Αργότερα (αρχές του ’50), και ενώ είχε αρ- χίσει να αποκτά «τις ιδιότητες του πολίτη» (Μερκούρη, 1983: 141), πίστευε, και θα συνεχίσει να πιστεύει μέχρι και το 1967, ότι μεταξύ άλλων, ρόλος της τέχνης και του καλλιτέχνη είναι και η ανάδειξη/δι- αφήμιση της Ελλάδας στο εξωτερικό –ως φύση, πολιτισμός και κουλ- τούρα-, με απώτερο σκοπό την οικονομική και πολιτιστική ενίσχυσή της. Τα επιχειρήματα - αριστερής στην ιδεολογία συναδέλφου και φίλης της (Μερκούρη, 1983:144-146 και 150-151) που αποδείκνυαν24 ότι η καλλιτεχνική κίνηση στην Ελλάδα αποτελούσε «αντανάκλαση της πολιτικής και κοινωνικής [της] κατάστασης», όπως επίσης και ότι η οικονομική εξάρτηση οδηγεί και στην πολιτική και πολιτισμι- κή-, δεν πείθουν τη Μερκούρη αυτή την εποχή. Η ίδια θα αγωνιστεί για αυτά που πίστευε και θα αναδειχθεί επίσης, μέσω των καλλιτε- χνικών της επιτυχιών, της φυσιογνωμίας και του χαρακτήρα της, σε σύμβολο της «χαράς της ζωής» και του «νεοελληνικού ψυχισμού». Οι οικονομικοί και πολιτικοί παράγοντες του έθνους θα της αναθέσουν το ρόλο της «ανεπίσημης πρέσβειρας» στο εξωτερικό, προβάλλοντας όμως έναν ελληνικό πολιτισμό περισσότερο του εμπορίου και της πολιτικής και ελάχιστα της μεταπολεμικής βασανισμένης ελληνικής κοινωνίας. Εκείνη, πιστεύοντας πως βοηθάει τον τόπο της, θα τον αποδεχτεί.25 Αργότερα, με τη δικτατορία, θα κατανοήσει την πλάνη της και θα τον αρνηθεί. Από την άλλη, όπως γίνεται επίσης φανερό, η σταδιακή καλλι- τεχνική ωρίμανση της Μερκούρη την οδηγεί σε μιας άλλης μορφής πολιτισμική και πολιτιστική αυτοσυνειδησία. Μέσα από τις καλλιτε- χνικές της αναζητήσεις (στο θέατρο αρχικά και στον κινηματογράφο αργότερα) , ανακαλύπτει πλευρές του ελληνικού πολιτισμού και της παιδείας που ήταν μέχρι τότε άγνωστες, ή και απορριπτέες, όχι μόνο για την ίδια, αλλά και για τους περισσότερους Έλληνες - ιδιαίτερα

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για εκείνους που αρέσκονταν να βλέπουν σε κάθε έκφανση του νεο- ελληνικού πολιτισμού, κλασικιστικές ρίζες. Μέσα από τις εμπειρίες της στη δραματική σχολή του Εθνικού Θεάτρου θα ανακαλύψει ότι η εμμονή σε άκαμπτες κλασικές τεχνικές εμποδίζουν τις ανανεωτικές τάσεις στο χώρο της τέχνης (π.χ. βλέπε αντιπαράθεση του μεγάλου κλασικιστή, στην τεχνική του θεάτρου, Δημήτρη Ροντήρη με τον νε- ωτεριστή Κάρολο Κουν), όπως επίσης ότι και ο μεγαλύτερος και πιο θαυμαστός δάσκαλος μπορεί να ‘τρώει τα παιδιά του’, κρατώντας τα αιχμάλωτα (περίπτωση Ροντήρη), λόγω της τελειομανίας και με- γαλομανίας του.26 Η ‘απόδραση’ τής Μερκούρη από το ‘ασφυκτικό αγκάλισμα’ του κλασικιστή Ροντήρη και η συνεργασία της με τον νε- ωτεριστή Κουν την βοήθησαν να σκέφτεται περισσότερο φιλελεύθε- ρα όσον αφορά την τέχνη της, και να ανακαλύψει τις καλλιτεχνικές της ικανότητες μέσα από ‘πιο σύγχρονους’ θεατρικούς χαρακτήρες, με τους οποίους μπορούσε να ταυτιστεί. Όπως για παράδειγμα μας λέει η ίδια, δεν γνώριζε απλώς τον ρόλο της Μπλανς στο «Λεωφορείο ο Πόθος» του Τένεσι Ουίλιαμς, αλλά «ήταν η Μπλανς»: «Ω Θεέ μου!», είπα, «την Μπλανς!». «Πρέπει να ξέρεις το ρόλο της Μπλανς», λέει η Δώρα [Στράτου] και με κοιτάζει απορημένη γιατί κλαίω. «Αν ξέρω την Μπλανς;», είπα κλαίγοντας με λυγμούς. «Είμαι η Μπλανς. Αλλά δεν μπορώ να την παίξω.» [...] «Ο Ροντήρης δεν θα με συγχωρούσε ποτέ.» «Δεν θα συγχωρήσεις ποτέ τον εαυτό σου αν δεν την παίξεις». (Μερκούρη, 1983: 116) Η είσοδος της Μερκούρη στον χώρο του κινηματογράφου -τον οποίο μεγάλοι ‘πατέρες’ του θεάτρου, όπως ο Δημήτρης Ροντήρης, θεωρούσαν ως βέβηλο- θα μπορούσε να θεωρηθεί και ως φυσικό επα- κόλουθο των παραπάνω εξελίξεων. Αυτός ο νέος ή και συγγενικός καλλιτεχνικός χώρος οδήγησε τη Μερκούρη στην ανακάλυψη μιας άλλης, περιθωριοποιημένης πλευράς της πολιτισμικής της κληρονο- μιάς –αυτής που σχετίζονταν με τη λαϊκή μουσική και το τραγούδι, τις σκοτεινές λαϊκές ταβέρνες του Πειραιά, τις εργατικές συνοικίες της Αθήνας και της Θεσσαλονίκης -με αυτό δηλαδή που αποτελούσε τον ελληνικό «λαϊκό ψυχισμό», που η ‘καλή’ αστική όμως ελληνι-

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κή κοινωνία ταύτιζε και με τον υπόκοσμο. Η γνωριμία, οι επαφές και συνεργασία με προσωπικότητες και καλλιτέχνες όπως η Δώρα Στράτου, ο Μάνος Χατζηδάκις, ο Τσιτσάνης, ο Μίκης Θεοδωράκης, ο Μιχάλης Κακογιάννης κ.λ., της αποκάλυψαν τη μαγεία του μπου- ζουκιού και των λαϊκών οργάνων, τις απελευθερωτικές δυνάμεις του ζεϊμπέκικου, την αξία γενικά της λαϊκής μας παράδοσης, όπως και τις καλλιτεχνικές προκλήσεις του κινηματογράφου, σε αντιπαράθε- ση με το θέατρο. (Μερκούρη, 1983: 151-160) Η Μερκούρη από εκεί και πέρα θα ταυτιστεί και θα ανακαλύψει πλευρές του εαυτού της, πολύ περισσότερο μέσα σε αυτές τις νέες, για την ίδια, εκδοχές του ελληνικού πολιτισμού και λιγότερο σε εκείνες που της είχαν προ- ταθεί και είχε βιώσει μέχρι και τα μέσα της δεκαετίας του ’50. Ση- μαντικά κινηματογραφικά έργα όπως η Στέλλα (1955) και Never on Sunday (1959), στα οποία πρωταγωνιστεί η Μερκούρη εκείνη την περίοδο, και που γεννήθηκαν μέσα από αυτή την όψη του νεοελληνι- κού ‘ψυχισμού’, θεωρούνται μέχρι σήμερα σταθμός για τον ελληνικό και ξένο κινηματογράφο, και για την νεοελληνική κουλτούρα και τον πολιτισμό. Από την άλλη, δεν θα πρέπει να αγνοήσουμε το γεγονός ότι η ίδια η Μερκούρη, ως χαρακτήρας και ψυχισμός, ενέπνευσε στην γένεση κινηματογραφικών χαρακτήρων, όπως αυτών της Στέλλας27 και της Ίλλυας, που με τη σειρά τους την κατέστησαν σύμβολο φυλο- τικό, καλλιτεχνικό και πολιτισμικό, σε παγκόσμια κλίμακα.

7. Αντί συμπεράσματος: Η αυτοβιογραφία, μία αυτοεικόνα εν τω γίγνεσθαι Η αυτοβιογραφία ως είδος λόγου και γραφής συνδέεται άμεσα με τις έννοιες της αυτοαντίληψης και της αυτοπαρουσίασης. Για πολλούς η αυτοαντίληψη θεωρείται ταυτόσημη της (ε)αυτογνωσίας ενώ για άλλους η αυτοαντίληψη ‘χτίζεται’ επάνω στην αυτογνωσία. (πρβλ. Λεονταρή, 1998 και Goleman, 1998)28 Οι αρχαίοι Έλληνες φι- λόσοφοι έθεταν ως βάση της ηθικής προαγωγής του ανθρώπου το δελφικό «Γνώθι σαυτόν», την εις βάθος δηλαδή γνώση του εαυτού (πρβλ. Πλάτων, Φαίδρος: 230 Α), πράγμα το οποίο όμως αμφισβήτη- σαν τόσο η Λογική όσο και η Ψυχολογία. Για τη Λογική το ίδιο άτο- μο δεν γίνεται να καταστεί ταυτόχρονα υποκείμενο και αντικείμενο, παρατηρητής και παρατηρούμενος, ενώ για την Ψυχολογία ο άνθρω-

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πος δεν επιθυμεί, ή και δεν έχει την ψυχική δύναμη να γνωρίσει όλες τις πλευρές του εαυτού του και για αυτό πολλές φορές αυταπατάται και οδηγείται σε λάθος συμπεράσματα. (Διαμαντόπουλος, 1993: 104- 106) Προέκταση αυτών των αντιλήψεων μπορεί να θεωρηθεί και η πρώιμη έρευνα της Ψυχολογίας και Κοινωνιολογίας πάνω στο θέμα της αυτοπαρουσίασης, η οποία εστίαζε την προσοχή της κυρίως στα κίνητρα -και ιδιαίτερα στο πώς το άτομο προσαρμόζει τη συμπερι- φορά του για να ανταποκριθεί στις προτιμήσεις ή τις προσδοκίες του κοινού-, ενώ αγνοούσε γενικότερα το θέμα της προσωπικότη- τας (Goffman, 1959, πρβλ. Baumeister, 1986: 29 VII). Τις τελευταί- ες δεκαετίες, το ενδιαφέρον για την αυτοπαρουσίαση επεκτάθηκε, σε συνδυασμό με την αύξηση του ενδιαφέροντος της έρευνας του ‘εαυτού’30. Όπως συγκεκριμένα παρατηρούν και οι Baumeister & Tice (1986:63), «Η αυτοπαρουσίαση άρχισε να θεωρείται από ορισμέ- νους επιστήμονες ως μια από τις κύριες διαδικασίες του εαυτού. Ο Schlenker (1980) περιέγραψε την αυτοπαρουσίαση ως μία υπόθεση διεκδίκησης ταυτότητας, ενώ ο Hogan (1982) την περιέγραψε ως μία από τις 2-3 σημαντικότερες διαδικασίες της προσωπικότητας. Το ση- μαντικό από αυτές τις απόψεις είναι ότι η αυτοπαρουσίαση είναι ου- σιώδης και απαραίτητη υπόθεση της διαδικασίας για να γίνομε αυτό που θέλομε. Κατά έναν σημαντικό τρόπο, ο εαυτός υπάρχει καθώς παρουσιάζεται στους άλλους.» Σήμερα αρκετοί μελετητές της αυτοβιογραφίας, όπως και η ίδια η Friedman παραδέχονται πως, μία από τις πιο σημαντικές προτά- σεις του ‘πατέρα’ των σπουδών της αυτοβιογραφίας Georges Gusdorf ήταν ότι ο αυτοβιογραφικός εαυτός δομείται/δημιουργείται κατά την διαδικασία της γραφής, και έτσι δεν μπορεί να αναπαράγει ακριβώς πλευρές του εαυτού, έτσι όπως τις έζησε στο παρελθόν. (Gusdorf: 35 και 41, πρβλ. Friedman, 34 και Onley,1980: 25) Εμείς, από την πλευ- ρά μας υποστηρίζουμε ότι, κατά τη διαδικασία της αυτοπαρουσίασης αποκαλύπτουμε, ανακαλύπτομε, ή και δομούμε/κατασκευάζουμε μια αυτοεικόνα που μπορεί να πλησιάζει λίγο, πολύ ως και καθόλου, σε αυτό που θα μπορούσαμε να αποκαλέσουμε ως ‘πραγματική εικόνα’ του εαυτού μας στο παρελθόν ή και σήμερα ακόμα. Τα κίνητρα και οι προθέσεις του συγγραφέα - που μπορεί να είναι συνειδητά ή και

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ασυνείδητα- σίγουρα παίζουν το ρόλο τους, για την αυτοεικόνα που μας παρέχεται, όμως για τον μελετητή, στην προκειμένη περίπτωση, η μόνη ‘πραγματικότητα’ είναι η αυτοβιογραφία που έχει μπροστά του. Το αν θα την αντιμετωπίσει ως ιστορικό ντοκουμέντο ή ως μυθοπλα- σία -γυρεύοντας ‘αλήθειες’ ή ‘μύθους’-, ή ως κάτι που κινείται ανάμεσα στα δύο αυτά είδη λόγου και γραφής –οπότε η ‘πραγματική αλήθεια’ πάντα θα μας διαφεύγει-, έγκειται στον εκάστοτε μελετητή. Αναφορικά με ετούτη την ανάγνωση της αυτοβιογραφίας της Μελίνας Μερκούρη, Γεννήθηκα Ελληνίδα, θα λέγαμε συμπερασμα- τικά ότι εστιάσαμε την προσοχή μας περισσότερο στις όψεις και τα- κτικές δόμησης της αυτοεικόνας που εκείνη μας προτείνει, χωρίς να επιμείνουμε σε προθέσεις, αλήθειες, ανακρίβειες, ή και εσκεμμένες μυθοποιήσεις. Σε μια πολύ επιφανειακή σύγκριση της ίδιας της αυτο- βιογραφίας της Μερκούρη με τη βιογραφία τής Φρίντας Μπιούμπι, Μελίνα: μία Θεά με το Διάβολο μέσα της , θα παρατηρούσαμε ότι η δεύτερη μας προτείνει μία θέαση εκ των έξω31, μιας προσωπικότητας που μπορεί βιολογικά ο κύκλος της να έχει κλείσει, όμως η λάμψη της και η επήρειά της, ως καλλιτεχνικού, πολιτισμικού και πολιτι- κού συμβόλου, παραμένουν αισθητά σε παγκόσμια κλίμακα.

Notes 1 Πρώτη έκδ. στα αγγλικά, με τίτλο I Was Born Greek. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1971. (Πρώτη έκδοση στα ελληνικά, με τίτλο Γεννήθηκα Ελληνίδα, Αθήνα: Ζάρβανος, 1974 . Οι αναφορές που γίνονται εδώ βασίζονται στην επανέκδοση του 1983, στα ελληνικά). 2 Την εποχή εκείνη ο Παττακός, μεταξύ άλλων, διατελούσε και καθήκοντα Υπουργού Εσωτερικών της στρατοκρατούμενης Ελλάδας. 3 Για τον όρο ‘ιθαγενής’, και κατ’επέκταση και ‘ιθαγένεια’, και τη σημασιολογία του, ο Μπαμπινιώτης (1998:779-80)) δίνει δύο πιθανές ετυμολογικές εξηγήσεις: α) ότι το πρώτο συνθετικό ί-θα< έν-θα, οπότε η λέξη θα σήμαινε ‘αυτόχθων’, και β) ότι το ίθα<ίθαι (τότε πιθανώς να συνδέεται με το ‘ιθαρός’ = αγνός, καθαρός), οπότε η λέξη ‘ιθαγενής’ θα σήμαινε «ο νομίμως γεννηθείς, ο ευγενής», σημασία με την οποία τη συναντούμε στον Όμηρο. Ο όρος ‘ιθαγένεια’ μαρτυρείται στα Ελληνικά από το 1848, και θεωρείται απόδοση του γαλλικού όρου ‘nationalité’. 4 Στον Ηρόδοτο, η λέξη ‘έθνος’ σήμαινε το σύνολο των ανθρώπων που διακρίνονται γοα το «όμαιμον», «ομόγλωσσον», και έχουν κοινή θρησκεία και κοινά ήθη και έθιμα. 5 O Hall (1996) υποστηρίζει ότι ο όρος δεν δύναται να καταργηθεί, εφόσον μέχρι σήμερα δεν έχει προταθεί κάτι το καλύτερο. Από την άλλη, η Moore (1994: 81) προτείνει να αντικατασταθεί με τον όρο «υβριδιακά υποκείμενα». Πρβλ. Γκέφου- Μαδιανού, σσ. 20-21.

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6 Ίσως εδώ αξίζει να αναφερθεί πως μεταξύ των εννοιών του διεθνισμού και του εθνικισμού υπάρχει και εκείνη του πατριωτισμού, και ήδη έχει ειπωθεί πως καλύτερος πατριώτης είναι ο μεγαλύτερος διεθνιστής, ή όπως αλλιώς το έθεσε ο Ζαν Ζορές «Λίγος διεθνισμός σ’ απομακρύνει απ’ την πατρίδα, πολύς διεθνισμός σε ξαναφέρνει σ’ αυτήν». (πρβλ. Αξιώτη, 1983:182) 7 Βλ. σ. 384 αυτοβιογραφίας όπου και γράφει σχετικά «... Καταλαβαίνω ότι μερικές φορές οι μεταφραστές πρέπει να κάνουν αλλαγές. Τους δίνω το ελεύθερο. Αυτό που ζητάω να κρατήσουν αναλλοίωτο είναι ο θυμός μου. Ο θυμός μου είναι ο λόγος γι’ αυτό το βιβλίο.» 8 Σπύρος Μερκούρης ή ο Μεγάλος Σπύρος (1856-1939), δήμαρχος Αθηναίων, κατά την ίδια τη Μερκούρη για 30 ολόκληρα χρόνια. Βέβαια οι χρονολικοί υπολογισμοί δείχνουν αλλιώς, δηλαδή διετέλεσε δήμαρχος Αθηναίων περίπου 18 χρόνια (1/12/1899-31/3/1914 και 1/9/1929-31/3/1932). Το όνομα ‘Μεγάλος Σπύρος’ πρέπει μάλλον να το χρησιμοποιούσαν στο στενό οικογενειακό περιβάλλον, όταν αναφέρονταν στον παππού Σπύρο Μερκούρη, για δύο λόγους. Ο ένας ήταν για να τον διαχωρίζουν από τον νεότερο Σπύρο Μερκούρη, αδερφό της Μελίνας Μερκούρη, και ο άλλος πρέπει να είναι διότι ταίριαζε στην προσωπικότητά του. Όπως γράφει η Μερκούρη στην αυτοβιογραφία της (σ. 15), «Ο Σπύρος [ο Μεγάλος] ήταν η ανώτατη εξουσία. Όλοι ήμασταν σκλάβοι του αλλά ήταν μια γλυκιά σκλαβιά». 9 Σταμάτης Μερκούρης: βουλευτής συντηρητικής (αντιβενιζελικής) παράταξης από τα 22 του χρόνια. Για ένα μικρό διάστημα (10/10-3/11/1935) υφυπουργός παρά τω πρωθυπουργώ. Την εποχή αυτή συνέβαλε στην επαναφορά της βασιλείας στην Ελλάδα. Εξορίστηκε κατά την περίοδο Μεταξά. Διετέλεσε υπουργός δημοσίας τάξεως , 22/11/1945-27/2/1946 και δημοσίων έργων 27/2/1946-11/3/1946. Το 1950, βουλευτής Ε.Π.Ε.Κ., και το 1952 με τον Συναγερμό Παπάγου. Συμμετείχε χωρίς επιτυχία στις εκλογές του 1951 με το Κόμμα Φιλελευθέρων, και το 1956 με την Ε.Ρ.Ε.. Το 1958, 1963, 1964 βουλευτής Ε.Δ.Α. Η ίδια η Μερκούρη θα δηλώσει πως ήταν πολύ ευχαριστημένη που «είχε μεταπηδήσει στην αριστερά», έναν προοδευτικό συνασπισμό, χωρία όμως να είναι και κομμουνιστής, όπως τον χαρακτήριζε ο τύπος της δεξιάς. (σ. 284) 10 Γράφει στην αυτοβιογραφία της η Μερκούρη, «Λάτρευα τη μητέρα μου. Ήταν νέα. Ήταν όμορφη και θαυμάσια στη συντροφιά. Οι άνθρωποι που με ξέρουν πραγματικά ξέρουν πως σ’ όλη μου τη ζωή μιμούμαι τη μητέρα μου, και ιδιαίτρα τον τρόπο που γελάει.» (σ. 41) Αλλού βέβαια έχουμε διαφορετικού είδους αναφορές, π.χ. ότι σχεδόν πάντοτε η μητέρα της ήταν αντίθετη στις αποφάσεις και στον τρόπο ζωής που επέλεγε η Μελίνα. 11 Εδώ θα πρέπει να τεθεί το ερώτημα, πώς ορίζεται ένας «καλά συγκροτημένος εαυτός» και τι συμβάλλει στη δόμησή του. Από την άλλη επίσης θα πρέπει να αναφερθεί ότι η Μερκούρη, ενώ αναφέρεται στο βαθμό που επηρέασε τον παιδικό της ψυχισμό ο ερωτικός δεσμός του παππού της με μια άλλη γυναίκα -την οποία μάλιστα εκείνος έδειχνε πως αγαπούσε-, από την άλλη δεν κάνει καμία αναφορά αν επηρεάστηκε ή όχι από την εγκατάλειψή τους από τον πατέρα της. Αντίθετα, αναφέρεται στο πόσο επεδίωκε να μην ξαναπαντρευτεί η μητέρα της. 12 Ο Σπυρίδων Μερκούρης ή Μεγάλος Σπύρος από συντηρητικός φιλοβασιλικός έγινε φιλοβενιζελικός. Διετέλεσε δήμαρχος Αθηναίων τις περιόδους 1899-1914 και 1929- 1932. Το 1929 εξελέγη και βουλευτής Αττικοβοιωτίας. Το 1916 κατηγορήθηκε για τα Νοεμβριανά, καταδικάστηκε σε θάνατο και εξορίστηκε στην Κορσική. Για τα στάδια της πολιτικής καριέρας του Σταμάτη Μερκούρη, βλ. παραπάνω σημ. 9.

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Ο νεότερος Σπύρος Μερκούρης και αδερφός της Μελίνας, αν και δεν πολιτεύτηκε άμεσα, φαίνεται πως από νεαρά ηλικία διέθετε, κατά τη Μελίνα πάλι, κριτικό πολιτικό νου και είχε πιο ξεκάθαρες πολιτικές επιλογές. Συμμετείχε στην εθνική αντίσταση και σε οργανώσεις κατά των συντηρητικών καθεστώτων στην Ελλάδα, και ήταν ένα από τα ιδρυτικά μέλη του Π.Α.Σ.Ο.Κ.. Η ίδια η Μελίνα από συντηρητική, φιλοβασιλική, μετεξελίχθηκε σε σύμβολο του αντιδικτατορικού αγώνα, κατά την περίοδο 1967-1974. Συνακόλουθα αποτέλεσε ένα από τα κύρια στελέχη του Π.Α.Σ.Ο.Κ., επί πρωθυπουργίας Ανδρέα Παπανδρέου, ως βουλευτής και υπουργός Πολιτισμού, μέχρι το θάνατό της. Το τέταρτο άτομο-πολιτικός της οικογένειας Μερκούρη είναι ο μεγαλύτερος γιος του Σπυρίδωνος Μερκούρη και θείος της Μελίνας, Γεώργιος Μερκούρης. Το 1915 εξελέγη βουλευτής Αττικοβοιωτίας με το Λαϊκό Κόμμα. Και εκείνος εξορίσθηκε στην Κορσική, λόγω των πολιτικών του πεποιθήσεων, το 1920. Το 1922 επανεξελέγη βουλευτής. Το 1932 αποχώρησε από το Λαϊκό Κόμμα, του οποίου ήταν αντιπρόεδρος, και αλλάζει πολιτική κατεύθυνση. Ίδρυσε το Εθνικοσοσιαλιστικόν Κόμμα Ελλάδος, που ανήκε στη φασιστική παράταξη και λειτούργησε κατά την περίοδο της Κατοχής. Συνεργάστηκε με τον Γιάννη Ράλλη ο οποίος ίδρυσε τα «Σώματα Ασφαλείας» και το 1943 έγινε πρωθυπουργός. Ο Ράλλης τον διόρισε, το 1943, διοικητή της Εθνικής Τράπεζας της Ελλάδος, αλλά μέσα στον ίδιο χρόνο πέθανε. Ο μικρότερος αδερφός του και πατέρας της Μελίνας, Σταμάτης Μερκούρης, καθώς και ο αδερφός της, Σπύρος Μερκούρης, αρνήθηκαν να παραβρεθούν στην κηδεία του, εξαιτίας των φασιστικών του πεποιθήσεων. (βλ. και σσ. 75-76) 13 Η ΕΟΝ (Εθνική Οργάνωση Νεολαίας) ιδρύθηκε το 1936, από τον Μεταξά, οπότε η Μερκούρη ήταν τότε ηλικίας 16 ετών. Τέτοιου είδους χρονολογικές ανακρίβειες διακρίνουμε και άλλες στο βιβλίο. Στο θέμα αυτό θα αναφερθούμε παρακάτω. 14 Η Μερκούρη αναφέρεται στις περιπτώσεις Μπελογιάννη, Γλέζου και Παναγούλη, αλλά και στην Έλλη, τον Αλέξη και τον Μήτσο, σε αντιπαράθεση με εκείνους που συνεργάστηκαν με τους Γερμανούς, όπως ο θείος της ο Γιώργος. (σσ. 69-76, 146-48) 15 Ο πρώτος άνδρας της, Πάνος Χαροκόπος, με το γάμο τους της χάρισε την προσωπική της ελευθερία, αλλά στις κρίσιμες ώρες της πατρίδας του παρέμεινα απαθής και αμέτοχος. Το ίδιο διάστημα, ο ερωτικός της σύντροφος, με το ψευδώνυμο Αλέξης (=Φειδίας Γιαδικιάρογλου) – συνεργάτης Γερμανών και μαυραγοριτών-, της διδάσκει να ζει το σήμερα, γιατί το αύριο μπορεί να μην υπάρχει γι’ αυτούς. Αργότερα η ίδια η Μερκούρη θα παρατηρήσει πως όλα αυτά που ζούσε εκείνη την εποχή ήταν «εκτεθειμένα στη ματαιότητα και την ασημαντότητα.» και πως το μόνο που την ενδιέφερε ήταν η δική της επιβίωση και των φίλων της. (σ. 88) Ο επόμενος σύντροφός της, Πύρος Σπυρομίλιος -όμορφος, γεμάτος όρεξη για ζωή, αισιοδοξία και αισθησιασμό-, όπως ομολογεί η ίδια η Μερκούρη, «μ’ έκανε γυναίκα και με δίδαξε τι είναι η ηδονή» -τίποτε όμως για την πολιτική κατάσταση της Ελλάδας, αν και ο ίδιος ήταν στρατιωτικός και είχε παρασημοφορηθεί για τον ηρωισμό του. (σ. 128) 16 Ο Τζούλυ Ντασέν -γνωστός Αμερικανός συγγραφέας και σκηνοθέτης, στο χώρο του θεάτρου και του κινηματογράφου-, ήταν δηλωμένος αριστερός και περιελαμβανόταν στη ‘μαύρη λίστα του Χόλυγουντ’. Το 1955, που γνωρίζεται με τη Μερκούρη, βρίσκεται εξόριστος και ‘ανιθαγενής’ στη Γαλλία, και υφίσταται όλες τις συνέπειες στην επαγγελματική και προσωπική του ζωή, εξαιτίας του μακαρθισμού στην Αμερική. 17 Πρβλ. τον τρόπο με τον οποίο ο Ντασέν ανταπέδωσε στη Μερκούρη το χαστούκι που εκείνη έδωσε σε συνεργάτη τους, κατά την διάρκεια του γυρίσματος της ταινίας Ποτέ την Κυριακή (σσ. 239-242). Επίσης, τον τρόπο με τον οποίο αρνείται να εκμεταλλευτεί τεχνικούς και ηθοποιούς κατά τα γυρίσματα των ταινιών Αυτός που

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πρέπει να πεθάνει και Ποτέ την Κυριακή, ενώ αντιμετωπίζει μεγάλα οικονομικά προβλήματα ο ίδιος (σσ. 200 και 239). Επίσης βλ. σ. 271 απόψεις του Ντασέν για τον ‘διδακτικό’ και ‘ανυψωτικό’ ρόλο του κινηματογράφου, όπως και τον τρόπο με τον οποίο είχε επηρεάσει τη Μερκούρη και άλλα άτομα του στενού της κύκλου (π.χ. τη μητέρα της, τη φίλη της κ.λ.), ώστε να αναρωτιούνται γιατί πιστεύουν σε κάτι, και αν θα πρέπει να τους αρέσει μια ταινία (σσ. 224-25). 18 Πρβλ. κατασυκοφαντικό κείμενο Πετρίτη, 2012. 19 Πρβλ. κείμενο της Sukenic (1977: 28-44), “On Women and Fiction”, σ. 28, όπου μας παραπέμπει στην άποψη αυτή του Georg Simmel., και Stanford Friedman, σ. 39, όπου και η αναφορά. 20 Βλ. Rowbotham, 1973: 26-46 και Du Bois, 1903, reprint in Abraham Chapman (ed.), 1968. Βλ. Susan Stanford Friedman, όπ.π, σσ. 30-40. 21 Πρβλ. κείμενο Πετρίτη,αλλά και την εξής προσωπική εμπειρία: Όταν τον Ιούλιο του 2012, βρισκόμενη στην Ελλάδα, ανέφερα σε φιλική σύναξη ότι το καινούργο μου ερευνητικό πρόγραμμα αφορούσε στην προσωπικότητα της Μερκούρη, μία κυρία της ‘καλής’ Αθηναϊκής κοινωνίας, χήρα πρώην στρατηγού και λίγο νεώτερη στην ηλικία από τη Μερκούρη μου απάντησε: «Εσείς, μια σοβαρή κυρία, είναι δυνατόν να ασχοληθείτε με μία πόρνη;» 22 Η ίδια η Μερκούρη δήλωνε πως η φυσιολογική της κατατομή (ύψος, στόμα, άκρα, τρόπος βαδίσματος κ.λ.) δεν ανταποκρίνονταν στο πρότυπο θηλυκότητας της εποχής της. Επιπλέον πίστευε πως δεν έχει την απαραίτητη, για μία σταρ του κινηματογράφου, φωτογένεια. 23 Η Μερκούρη δηλώνει, στην αρχή της αυτοβιογραφίας της (σ. 14) πως ήταν μια ηδονίστρια. Όμως η βιογράφος της, Φρίντα Μπιούμπι, υποστηρίζει εντελώς το αντίθετο, ότι δηλαδή «δεν φαίνεται να ήταν ένα εξαιρετικά σεξουαλικό άτομο», ενώ είχε «πράγματι συγκλονιστικό σεξ απήλ» και «ήταν άκρως γοητευτική», «φλέρταρε διαρκώς τους πάντες,αλλά δεν ήταν η γυναίκα που πέφτει εύκολα στο κρεβάτι μ’ έναν άντρα.» Παλιές φίλες της λένε... “Ασκούσε τη γοητεία της μόνο για να κατακτήσει, μόνο για να δει στα μάτια του άλλου το ενδιαφέρον, την αποδοχή ή την αγάπη. Αυτό ήταν η ικανοποίησή της, της αρκούσε”[…]» (1996:43) 24 Ένα από τα επιχειρήματα ήταν ότι από τα εξήντα θεατρικά έργα στα οποία συμμετείχε η Μερκούρη για μία δεκαετία (1944-1954) μόνο τα τέσσερρα ήταν ελληνικά. Το ελληνικό θέατρο αυτή την εποχή ‘τρέφεται και συντηρείται’ από πνευματικές προτάσεις ξένων συγγραφέων και σκηνοθετών. 25 Η Μερκούρη γράφει σχετικά : «Μ’ έλεγαν «επαγγελματία Ελληνίδα» και δεν με πείραζε. Είχα δεχτεί να δουλεύω σαν ένα είδος ανεπίσημης πρέσβειρας για τον ελληνικό τουρισμό. Ήμουν απλούστατα μια πλασιέ που ταξίδευε από χω΄ρα σε χώρα, λέγοντας στους ανθρώπους πως δεν είχαν ζήσει αν δεν είχαν δει την Ελλάδα. Ήταν μια δουλειά αλλά μ’ έκανε ευτυχισμένη.» (σ. 270) Επίσης βλ. και σ. 332 όπου αναφέρεται στις αφίσεις τουριστικών γραφείων στην Αμερική, με την ίδια και την Ακρόπολη, καθώς και την κυβερνητική δεξίωση λίγο πριν το πραξικόπημα, όπου την είχαν συστήσει ως την «ανεπίσημη διεθνή πρέσβειρα». Επίσης βλ. και τη σχετική ταινία/ντοκιμαντέρ Melina’s Greece. American Broadcasting Corporation, 1964. Ένα ημίωρο ντοκιμαντέρ για την Ελλάδα, για την αμερικάνικη τηλεόραση, αντίστοιχα του οποίου ήταν: Η ρώμη της Σοφίας Λόρεν και το Λονδίνο της Ελίζαμπεθ Ταίηλορ. Βλ. σχετικά και σ. 285 στο Γεννήθηκα Ελληνίδα. 26 Βλ. σχετικά στην αυτοβιογραφία σ. 83, όπου η Μερκούρη χαρακτηρίζει τον Ροντήρη «μεγαλοφυία» αλλά και «μεγαλομανή», όπως και σσ. 84-87 για το πώς τη μύησε στην

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αρχαία τραγωδία, αλλά και για το πόσο απαιτητικός και τυραννικός ήταν. Επίσης σσ. 117-124 για τον τρόπο προσέγγισης του ρόλου από την ηθοποιό, τις διαφορετικές τεχνικές σκηνοθεσίας Ροντήρη-Κουν, καθώς και τους διαφορετικούς τρόπους συνεργασίας σκηνοθέτη και ηθοποιών, π.χ. ο Ροντήρης ήταν «δεσποτικός» ενώ ο Κουν «πρωτοπόρος, νεωτεριστής, ήταν ανοιχτός σ’ όλους τους ανθρώπους, σε όλες τις ιδέες [...] δούλευε σε μια ατμόσφαιρα ζεστασιάς και διασκέδασης.» (σσ. 120-121). 27 Πρβλ. αναφορά της Μερκούρη, στην αυτοβιογραφία της (σ. 158), για τον τρόπο γένεσης του σεναρίου τής Στέλλας: «Ο Καμπανέλλης είπε: “Μελίνα, είσαι η πιο χειραφετημένη γυναίκα στην Ελλάδα. [...] Θα γράψω ένα έργο για σένα.”» 28 Η Λεονταρή, ασχολείται επισταμένως με τις έννοιες του εαυτού και της αυτοαντίληψης, όπως ορίζονται διαχρονικά από τις διάφορες φιλοσοφικές θεωρίες. 29 Όπως μας λέει ο Baumeister, «για τον κόσμο του [κοινωνιολόγος] Goffman, οι άνθρωποι είναι ηθοποιοί που μπορεί να αλλάζουν τις μάσκες αλλά ποτέ δεν μπορούν να απαλλαγούν από αυτές.» 30 Σύμφωνα με τους Baumeister & Tice (1986:63-68) οι τέσσερις εννοιολογικές μονάδες που συνιστούν τους διάφορους εαυτούς αυτοπαρουσίασης είναι: ο δημόσιος εαυτός, ο ιδιωτικός εαυτός (ή ο εαυτός όπως τον αντιλαμβανόμαστε οι ίδιοι), ο ‘πραγματικός’ εαυτός και ο ιδεώδης εαυτός. 31 Η Μπιούμπι βασίζει τη βιογραφία της κυρίως σε πληροφορίες/μνήμες συγγενών, φίλων, συνεργατών αλλά και άλλων προσωπικοτήτων που είχαν την τύχη να γνωρίζουν αρκετά καλά τη Μερκούρη. Καταγράφει, λεπτομερώς, θετικές και αρνητικές απόψεις για το χαρακτήρα και το έργο της Μερκούρη, δημιουργώντας στον αναγνώστη την εντύπωση μιας αποστασιοποιημένης και αρκετά αντικειμενικής προσέγγισης. Κατά την άποψή μας, η Μπιούμπι εμμένει περισσότερο στο ιδιωτικό και προσωπικό επίπεδο του φαινομένου Μελίνα Μερκούρη.

References Ελληνόγλωσση Αξιώτη, Μ. (1983). Μία Καταγραφή στην Περιοχή της Λογοτεχνίας. ‘Απαντα, τόμος ΣΤ’. Αθήνα : Κέδρος. Γκέφου-Μαδιανού, Δ. (2006). «Εννοιολογήσεις του Εαυτού και του ‘Άλλου’: ζητήματα ταυτότητας στη σύγχρονη ανθρωπολογική θεωριά», στο Γκέφου-Μαδιανού, Δ. (επιμ.), Εαυτός και ‘Άλλος’. Αθήνα: Gutenberg, σσ. 15-110. Διαμαντόπουλος, Δ.Π. (1993). Λεξικό Βασικών Εννοιών. Αθήνα: Εκδόσεις Πατάκη. Goleman, D. (1998). Η Συναισθηματική Νοημοσύνη. Αθήνα: Ελληνικά Γράμματα. Δρακόπουλος, Α. (2011), «Ταυτότητα και Διαφορά: Με Αφορμή τον Ελληνισμό του Γιώργου Σεφέρη και του Κ.Π. Καβάφη», στο A Journal for Greek Letters, “Collapsing Representations: Crisis in History, Literature and Thinking”, Vol. 15: 114-130, Modern Greek Studies, Australia an New Zealand. Λεονταρή, Α. (1998). Αυτοαντίληψη. Αθήνα: Ελληνικά Γράμματα. Μερκούρη, Μ. (1983). Γεννήθηκα Ελληνίδα. Αθήνα: Ζάρβανος. Μπιούμπι, Φρ. (1996). Μελίνα: Mια Θεά με το Διάβολο Mέσα της. Αθήνα: Terzo Books.

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Hall, St., Held, D., McGrew, A. (2003), Η Νεωτερικότητα Σήμερα. Μτφ. Θ. Τσακίρης & β. Τσακίρης. Αθήνα: Σαββάλας. Πετρίτης, Χρ. (2012). «Ο ανύπαρκτος μύθος για τη δήθεν αντίσταση της Μελίνας Μερκούρη», στο Σύγχρονη Ελληνική Ιστορία. Τρίτη, 18 Σεπτεμβρίου 2012. Ανακτήθηκε στις 5/02/2014 από http://historia-hellas.blogspot.gr/2012/09/blog-post. html . Πρυνεντύ, Ζ. (2000). «Πολιτισμική ταυτότητα: Μεταξύ μύθου και πραγματικότητας», στο Χρ. Κωνσταντοπούλου, Λ. Μαράτου-Αλιπράντη, Δ. Γερμανός, Θ. Οικονόμου (επιμ.), «εμείς» και οι «άλλοι»: αναφορά στις τάσεις και τα σύμβολα. Εθνικό Κέντρο Κοινωνικών Ερευνών. Αθήνα: Τυπωθήτω, σσ. 40-60.

Ξενόγλωσση Anderson, B. (1983). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London:Verso. Baumeister, R.F. (ed.) (1986). Public and Private Self. New York, Berlin, Heidelberg, London, Paris, Tokyo: Springer-Verlag . Baumeister, R.F. & Tice D. M. (1986). “Four Selves, Two Motives, and a Substitute Process Self-Regulation Model”, στο Baumeister, R.F. (ed.), Public and Private Self. New York, Berlin, Heidelberg, London, Paris, Tokyo: Springer-Verlag , σσ. 63-74. Chodorow, N. (1978). Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender. Berkeley: University of California Press. Coffman, E. (1959). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Anchor Books. Du Bois, W.E.B.(1η έκδ. 1903). The Souls of Black Folk. Εδώ στο Chapman A. (ed.) (1968). Black Voices: An Anthology of Afro-American Literature. New York: New American Library. Friedman, Stanford S. (1988). “Women’s Autobiographical Selves: Theory and Practice”, στο Shari Benstock (ed.). The Private Self: Theory and Practice of Women’s Writings. London: Routledge, σσ. 34-62. Giddens, A. (1991), Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Cambridge: Polity Press. Gusdorf, G. (1980, 1st published 1956), “Conditions and Limits of Autobiography”, στο James Olney (ed.). Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and Critical. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, σσ. 28-48. Hall, St. (1996), “Introduction: Who Needs ‘Identity’?” στο Hall, St. & du Gay, P. (eds). Questions of Cultural Identity. London; Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage, σσ. 1-17. Hall, St. (1995), “Fantacy, identity, politics”, στο Carter, J. D., Squites, J. (eds). Cultural Remix: Theories of Politics and the Popular. London and New York: Routledge. Mehlman, J. (1974). A Structural Study of Autobiography: Proust, Leiris, Sartre, Lévi- Strauss. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Mercouri, M. (1971). I Was Born Greek. London, Sydney, Auckland, Toronto: Hodder and Stoughton. Onley, J. (1972). Metaphors of Self: the Meaning of Autobiography. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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Onley, J. (1980). “Autobiography and the Cultural Moment: A Thematic, Historical, and Bibliographical Introduction”, in James Onley (ed.), Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and Critical. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, pp. 3-27. Onley, J. (1980). “Some Versions of Memoir/Some Version of Bios: The Ontology of Autobiography”, στο James Onley (ed.). Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and Critical. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, σσ. 236-267. Rowbothan, C. (1973). Woman’s Consciousness, Man’s World. London: Penguin. Sukenic, L. (1977). “On Women and Fiction”, στο Diamond, A. & Edwards, L.R. (eds), The Authority of Experiences: Essays in Feminist Criticism. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, σσ. 28-44.

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allegorical scene 4Κωνσταντίνος 8 4 Παρθένης, 1955 Culture

Michael Tsianikas Flinders University

C.P.Cavafy: Anthonism

Intermezzo The word intermezzo is mainly understood as musical terminology. The “archaeology” of this word is rich from the Renaissance to today. It describes a piece of music, which inserts itself into the middle of a musical performance and stirs up feelings that are almost unfathomable. The 19th century, in particular, enriched it with a more lyrical and intrusive character, making it more surprising and almost independent from the rest of the work to which is belonging. Mendelssohn inspired the famous Shakespear- ean “midsummer night’s dream”; Brahms attached more emotion to it; and Puccini made use of an intermezzo in his opera Madame Butterfly, which introduced a new dimension into his work, pleasant and traumatic. Perhaps no other intermezzo is so intrusive and enigmatic as that of Shostakovich in String Quartet 15, which lasts a little more than a minute. What, then, is the essence of intermezzos? Are they just for fun and relaxation? Are they different from the rest of the work that they are contained in? I believe they represent the essence of a distilled and “organic” music, full of freeing lyri- cism, that accompanies a profound transformation which transcends everything and from which a totally new situation will arise. This new situation is going out of control, as if the music itself is revealing the force of a musical “matter” which could be almost touched like an object. Here inevitably we encounter the poetry of Cavafy. His “musical” moments always raise the reader’s interest suddenly, not only when they

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directly refer to musical outbursts but in particular when “voices” —an interesting type of music in Cavafy’s case — are heard, when things are changing or “passing” to something else. As proof we could refer to many of his poems in which “passing” is a strong and repetitive point of reference in the context of a dramatic change. The poem Passage suffices as an example: Εκείνα που δειλά φαντάσθη μαθητής, είν’ ανοιχτά, φανερωμένα εμπρός του. […] Κ’ έτσι ένα παιδί απλό γένεται άξιο να το δούμε, κι απ’ τον Υψηλό της Ποιήσεως Κόσμο μια στιγμή περνά κι αυτό — το αισθητικό παιδί με το αίμα του καινούριο και ζεστό. (A: 86)

Anthonism The above poem captures a common topos in Cavafy. To proceed by listing poems or verses where Cavafy uses the word “passage” or other synonymous words would be to engage in pointless archival tedium. We need only refer to another peculiar “passage”, this one aesthetic and sensual, expressed in the poem “When stimulated” (A: 81), which is also pivotal for the approach taken here: “Προσπάθησε να τα κρατήσεις, ποιητή, όταν διεγείρνται μες στο μυαλό σου, την νύχτα ή μες στην λάμψι του μεσημεριού”. There is almost always a moment in the poetry of Cavafy in which something suddenly starts, out of control, like intermezzo, after the flow of events is interrupted. It is as though the flow of one rhythm stops and another one begins. This observation, which applies to most of his poems, underlines the fact that precisely the art of Cavafy furtively captures the unique moment when something becomes something else. And because this moment is rather rare — not because it occurs infrequently but because the subject meets with it only by chance, or often after a lengthy conscious or unconscious process — within Cavafy’s poetry it has a «collectible», tactible and «hard» significance (“Η τιμιότερές μου μέρες είν’ εκείνες / που την αισθητική αναζήτησιν αφίνω, /που εγκαταλείπω τον ωραίο και σκληρόν ελληνισμό», Β: 9). Art for him is nothing but this “stimulation” in the mind or the body, in the evening or at noon, when you can feel as

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if touching a shiny aesthetic object: the hedonic joy of touching. Perhaps the most famous poem by Cavafy, after the “Ithaca” and the “Barbarians” is “God forsaking Anthony”(Απολείπειν ο θεός Αντώνιον): Σαν έξαφνα, ώρα μεσάνυχτ’, ακουσθεί αόρατος θίασος να περνά με μουσικές εξαίσιες, με φωνές— την τύχη σου που ενδίδει πια, τα έργα σου που απέτυχαν, τα σχέδια της ζωής σου που βγήκαν όλα πλάνες, μη ανωφέλετα θρηνήσεις. […] Σαν έτοιμος από καιρό, σα θαρραλέος, σαν που ταιριάζει σε που αξιώθηκες μια τέτοια πόλι, πλησίασε σταθερά προς το παράθυρο, κι άκουσε με συγκίνησιν, αλλ’ όχι με των δειλών τα παρακάλια και παράπονα, ως τελευταία απόλαυσι τους ήχους, τα εξαίσια όργανα του μυστικού θιάσου, κι αποχαιρέτα την, την Aλεξάνδρεια που χάνεις (Α:20). Here we are involved with a “stimulation,” an aesthetic “erection” in the course of historical events. This historical “erection” is not ultimately about the particular historical figure (Anthony), and illustrates Cavafy’s engagement with this idea in most, if not all, of his poems. It is just the final moment that history reveals herself as an ultimate “presence” (not re-presentation) manifested in a final, almost erotic delirium; history becomes the “blood and body” of the subject. The presence of Dionysus, which recalls the sacred ritual of wine, serves only to emphasize the “stimulation” which is the somatization of history as the last religious- erotic ritual. It is as though the wine (οινό-πνευμα (and other distilled drinks1 in Cavafy’s poetry) produces the miracle. Furthermore this is a quite subversive moment, when Dionysus is not only abandoning Anthony but also the city, going back to his wildness, marching backwards, becoming city-less. Anthonism is a persisting theme in Cavafys’s poetry (this is not a surprise for an excessively persistent and “obsessive” poet) and becoming a “contaminating” syndrome, absorbing totally the subject to something that is uncontrollable revelation: the poet Fernazis too was affected by the same syndrome:

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“Όμως μες σ’όλη του την ταραχή και το κακό, επίμονα κ’η ποιητική ιδέα πάει κι έρχεται” (“Δαρείος”, B: 19); or again in Caesarion, where a hedonic enlightenment and fleshy revelation is experienced in the middle of the night, after a significant reading engagement and finally “abandonment” to something which is out of control: Και τόσο πλήρως σε φαντάσθηκα, που χθες την νύχτα αργά, σαν έσβυνεν η λάμπα μου —άφισα επίτηδες να σβύνει— εθάρρεψα που μπήκες μες στην κάμαρά μου, με φάνηκε που εμπρός μου στάθηκες· (A: 70). Let’s discuss further here the notion of “abandonment”. In the poem “God forsaking Anthony”, the poet does not say that god is “abandoning” Anthony but that he “leaves him behind” (απολείπειν). Cavafy prefers the oldest verb and leaves us with the impression that Anthony is pushed backwards to face what he really is or better was. The verbal archaeology here (απο-λείπειν) reveals the “archaeology” of the psychological construction of a subject through time, and by pushing it in “backwards” is forcing it to realise that passing now means watching towards the past, while everything is un-done in front of his eyes. According to Cavafy we could then argue that looking properly is watching backwards really, no other option available to human experience. And yet again the subject lives in a limbo, in between, as we can read in “Θάλασσα του πρωϊού” (Α:52): Εδώ ας σταθώ. Κι ας γελασθώ πως βλέπω αυτά (τα είδ’ αλήθεια μια στιγμή σαν πρωτοστάθηκα)· κι όχι κ’ εδώ τες φαντασίες μου, τες αναμνήσεις μου, τα ινδάλματα της ηδονής. Where Cavafy exposes that what he will be seeing is what he saw in a moment in the past (“I really did see them for a moment, soon after I had stopped”). It was a sudden, unexpected and unconscious revelation, which makes him believe that he is in a position to experience it in the future. The ambiguity of the whole idea about how and what I can see and experience lies between “ας σταθώ – πρωτοστάθηκα»: although the subject has already stopped he is about to decide to do so in the forthcoming now. The point here is that the subject is unable to control anything: he saw some

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natural landscapes really but he has to “pretend”, “make-believe” (“And let me pretend I see all this”) that he is seeing them now. Clearly, the subject is overcome by all sort of uncontrollable experiences and paradoxically the outcome of this intensive situation, because it is so intensive, could manifest itself as hedonism. The same is happening regarding Anthony’s experience: the “abandonment” to the events, overcoming him, will at the end bring aesthetic pleasure and hedonism. This is something that transcends Cavafy’s poetry. Let’s mention here another poem, «Ήλθε για να διαβάσει» (B: 40), where the subject is “abandoning” itself to an overwarming hedonism: Ήλθε για να διαβάσει. Είν’ ανοιχτά δυο, τρία βιβλία· ιστορικοί και ποιηταί. Μα μόλις διάβασε δέκα λεπτά, και τα παραίτησε. Στον καναπέ μισοκοιμάται. Aνήκει πλήρως στα βιβλία — αλλ’ είναι είκοσι τριώ ετών, κ’ είν’ έμορφος πολύ· και σήμερα το απόγευμα πέρασ’ ο έρως στην ιδεώδη σάρκα του, στα χείλη. Στη σάρκα του που είναι όλο καλλονή η θέρμη πέρασεν η ερωτική· χωρίς αστείαν αιδώ για την μορφή της απολαύσεως ..... In order to “have” something it is essential to be “abandoned” to it, and, in the process, to lose it. You can’t “have” something when you are possessing it. To possess something is to experience its “being” which is the real substance of “having” and this is what could reveal an ultimate hedonism when the being («ήσαν») could become tangible having («φέρε με»): “Μνήμη μου, φύλαξέ τα συ ως ήσαν. Και, μνήμη, ό,τι μπορείς από τον έρωτά μου αυτόν, ό,τι μπορείς φέρε με πίσω απόψι” (Α: 88) At that particular moment that the subject is exposed at that decisive abandonment, usually as a surprise, comes also the hedonism of experiencing freedom, as Jean-Luc Nancy points out: “Freedom does not exist if it is not absolute and can not be absolute if it comes as result of any causality or [... ] as an understanding as a result of a causality. Because it is

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the thing itself which may be absolute and not the cause of it; the presence and not the substance; it is the existence and not the being » (Nancy, 1988: 138). Although this is something that goes behind any rational description in Cavafy’s poetry too is always expressed as a quest and pro-ject of freedom: Δεν εδεσμεύθηκα. Τελείως αφέθηκα κ’ επήγα. Στες απολαύσεις, που μισό πραγματικές, μισό γυρνάμενες μες στο μυαλό μου ήσαν, επήγα μες στην φωτισμένη νύχτα. Κ’ ήπια από δυνατά κρασιά, καθώς που πίνουν οι ανδρείοι της ηδονής. (“Επήγα”, Α:59) Freedom in essence is only experienced in an extreme situation, almost out of space and time, as “abandonment” to something that happens suddenly — in the middle of the “illumined night” (Τσιανίκας, 2007). The hedonic pleasure also is nothing else but a symptom of a sudden experience, unchallenged, unchecked, real and tangible. Authentic hedonism is free because it is defined by itself only as the absolute “other” which surprises us, so identical to our body yet so radically different from it. The experience of something like that makes the subject ec-static: Εν εκστάσει βλέπω νυν του Ενδυμίωνος την φημισμένην καλλονήν. Ιάσμων κάνιστρα κενούν οι δούλοι μου· κ’ ευοίωνοι επευφημίαι εξύπνησαν αρχαίων χρόνων ηδονήν (…...) In the «Constitution of Hedonism» (2003: 168) Cavafy states that “when hedonism arrives, do not turn your back to it, because this is the time to accept it as a “heritage” that was given to you without you asking for it: as life is a heritage and you did not do anything to earn it as reward, so heritage should be considered Hedonism”. The real and most important “heritage” then, is not something that binds you to something else; but rather what is liberating you; because it is bringing to you a free and not negotiable “gift” that gives you the highest pleasure and satisfaction. In the same way words, languages and sentences are bringing to you the pleasure of using something so personal and yet so impersonal because is part of “your” heritage. This is actually why Cavafy indicates great weakness for the sophists who lived in the «intermediate» space of languages, who, according to

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Cavafy, they were keeping their distance from the big philosophical ideas of the day from one hand and the prosaic reality of the other: “They were like the artists of our days because they developed the love for the external beauty of the artistic objects. The idea could be very important; it could be simple to understand. But its expression ought to be perfect. They were drunk with ‘sculptural’ expression and the music of words» (2003: 238-239). Finally this is the way to understand also the liberating sexuality in Cavafy’s poetry, when the language itself expresses feelings and hedonic sounds, almost detached from the speaking/writing subject: the language is speaking disconnected by the order of the conventional “I” and enjoy the hedonism of freedom. Then we could assume that all Cavafy’s poems, verses and words, expressing an overflowing and almost artificial hedonism is just a metaphor exposing the moment of experiencing the freedom, a “uproar” of forthcoming events. Here we join again the anthonism described above: Η ακοή αυτών κάποτε εν ώραις σοβαρών σπουδών ταράττεται. Η μυστική βοή τούς έρχεται των πλησιαζόντων γεγονότων. Και την προσέχουν ευλαβείς. Ενώ εις την οδόν έξω, ουδέν ακούουν οι λαοί. (A: 17) The “wise” person can hear approaching events, when the common mob hears nothing: “αυτών κάποτε εν ώραις σοβαρών σπουδών ταράτ- τεται.» Most importantly, the “wise” do not react, do not get upset, because what is happening is objective and inevitable and so they simply «listen to the secret uproar [and] watch piously”: nothing else. The same happens in the poem “God forsaking Anthony”: πλησίασε σταθερά προς το παράθυρο, κι άκουσε με συγκίνησιν, αλλ’ όχι με των δειλών τα παρακάλια και παράπονα, ως τελευταία απόλαυσι τους ήχους, τα εξαίσια όργανα του μυστικού θιάσου […] “Σαν έξαφνα, ώρα μεσάνυχτ’ ακουστεί»: If you do not experience hedonism as a surprise, then hedonism it is not. In “One Night” (A: 55), a strong hedonic past experience, in a sordid room, while popular rhythms sound from afar, years later — but as it is now — the experience emerges suddenly, but totally transformed:

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Η κάμαρα ήταν πτωχική και πρόστυχη, κρυμένη επάνω από την ύποπτη ταβέρνα. Aπ’ το παράθυρο φαίνονταν το σοκάκι, το ακάθαρτο και το στενό. Aπό κάτω ήρχονταν η φωνές κάτι εργατών που έπαιζαν χαρτιά και που γλεντούσαν. Κ’ εκεί στο λαϊκό, το ταπεινό κρεββάτι είχα το σώμα του έρωτος, είχα τα χείλη τα ηδονικά και ρόδινα της μέθης — τα ρόδινα μιας τέτοιας μέθης, που και τώρα που γράφω, έπειτ’ από τόσα χρόνια!, μες στο μονήρες σπίτι μου, μεθώ ξανά. This is the result of re-enacting the experience and facing the most subversive hedonism by using “hard” words: «raunchy “, “suspect”, «unclean» “rose members», “drunkenness», «solitary house”: physical pleasures throughout. Thence springs sensual language, simulating the physical with words. This is the “last” opportunity, a “window” to receive your freedom as a gift: “Απ’ το παράθυρο φαίνονταν το σοκάκι». The same “window” of opportunity was offered to Anthony too: “πλησίασε σταθερά προς το παράθυρο». This poetry has no value or meaning beyond its literal words. Its value results from its “musical” texture, as a sudden intermezzo, as “having” something in the end: «Είχα το σώμα του έρωτος, είχα τα χείλη». The physical acquisition brings you the joy of ex-istence and the pleasure having/possessing something. In the “Days of 1896” (II: 57) — numbers are also voluptuous in Cavafy’s poetry — the pleasure of numbers “wakes” days of old, clear sounds: for this reason in another relevant poem, while an old experience is full of shame and psychological trauma, years later it emerges totally different, if someone could look at it from the point of view of the “body”. To be accurate here, the passage from one situation (psyche) to the next (body) is captured as a “third” position, where the body and flesh are considered as “pure”: Μια άποψις άλλη υπάρχει που αν ιδωθεί από αυτήν φαντάζει, συμπαθής· φαντάζει, απλό και γνήσιο του έρωτος παιδί, που άνω απ’ την τιμή,

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και την υπόληψί του έθεσε ανεξετάστως της καθαρής σαρκός του την καθαρή ηδονή. Almost the same is happening again in «In the dull village», where “αναμένει” becoming “αναμένη” (there are other similar example: “κώμη –κόμμι”, Β:41, “με τάξι-μετάξι”, Α: :50): στο πληκτικό χωριό όπου αναμένει — έπεσε στο κρεββάτι απόψι ερωτοπαθής, όλ’ η νεότης του στον σαρκικό πόθο αναμένη, εις έντασιν ωραίαν όλ’ η ωραία νεότης του. Και μες στον ύπνον η ηδονή προσήλθε· μέσα στον ύπνο βλέπει κ’ έχει την μορφή, την σάρκα που ήθελε (B: 47). In the poem «Hedonism», which is even more relevant here, reveals the ‘”objective” and “hard” experience of love by using the verb «keep»“κράτησα”): Χαρά και μύρο της ζωής μου η μνήμη των ωρών που ηύρα και που κράτηξα την ηδονή ως την ήθελα. Χαρά και μύρο της ζωής μου εμένα, που αποστράφηκα την κάθε απόλαυσιν ερώτων της ρουτίνας. Finally in the poem «Tyana Sculptor» (A: 42), a sculptor shows off all his works, but the one that stands out for him is an exciting Hermes, which again evokes an ecstatic intermezzo on a hot day: Μα να το έργον μου το πιο αγαπητό που δούλεψα συγκινημένα και το πιο προσεκτικά· αυτόν, μια μέρα του καλοκαιριού θερμή που ο νους μου ανέβαινε στα ιδανικά, αυτόν εδώ ονειρεύομουν τον νέον Ερμή. Cavafy is the intermezzo, the in between space, which is liberating the soul from itself, detached from its self; this duplication is an act of freedom and ultimate pleasure. The paradox in Cavafy’s poetry is that this is also the moment where matter and sensation are meeting each other producing real, sculptured “things” and the poet touching, showing or distributing them as a pedlar. In that way, any object could be the beginning of a transforming experience in life. The word “Cavafy” after all means a merchant who manufactures or sells second-class shoes. This is what makes him such a practical, tangible,

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folksy artist, who makes things with his hands. Thence arises in his poetry the abundance of hands, physical stimulation, voices, material experiences, marketability of flesh, and events, fabrics and of course the pedlar: Aπ’ την μικρή του, στα περίχωρα πλησίον, κώμη, και σκονισμένος από το ταξείδι ακόμη έφθασεν ο πραγματευτής. Και «Λίβανον!» και «Κόμμι!» «Άριστον Έλαιον!» «Άρωμα για την κόμη (B: 41). This is why Cavafy was able to conceive a poem about Ioannes Katakouzinos and Eirini Andronicus and «their artificial stones” (B: 44); the «Nice flowers and white to fit too» (B: 78-79). He immerses the poem in a materialistic environment of clothes, money, handkerchiefs and many other objects. From there comes the «Of the shop» (A: 50), a poem almost objectified, made with words that have no meaning other than what they declare: Τα ντύλιξε προσεκτικά, με τάξι σε πράσινο πολύτιμο μετάξι. Aπό ρουμπίνια ρόδα, από μαργαριτάρια κρίνοι, από αμεθύστους μενεξέδες. Ως αυτός τα κρίνει. Cavafy in the middle of his poetic engagement understands that he has to stand up to a big challenge: how to perform this “exquisite” anthonism by surrendering to the “uproars” of words. He resorts to the most original and productive method, that of analepsis (ανά-ληψη): there is no doubt that this is his favourite method, describing the same experience again and again until something completely different arises; by giving away everything; by accepting to be abandoned to anything; by “object-making” everything, beginning with the body. We can see it expressed in the poem «In the same place» (B: 80). Repetition, as ana-lepsis, can achieve the maximum aesthetic outcome: Οικίας περιβάλλον, κέντρων, συνοικίας που βλέπω κι όπου περπατώ· χρόνια και χρόνια. Σε δημιούργησα μες σε χαρά και μες σε λύπες: με τόσα περιστατικά, με τόσα πράγματα. Κ’ αισθηματοποιήθηκες ολόκληρο, για μένα. Anthony also will manage the final aesthetic “stimulation” as analepsis: «as long prepared, as if courageous.» The aesthetic analepsis and

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its hedonic integration could not be accomplished if they had not before been “captured” in the mind and the body. The same analeptic experience applies for “Ithaca”, which you will not find unless you already have it in your mind. It is thus revealed as the astonishing “other” of what was already known before. “In café’s entry” (A: 54), amidst a conventional routine, a sudden look is enough to reveal a Platonic revelation: “Κ’ είδα τ’ ωραίο σώμα που έμοιαζε σαν απ’ την άκρα πείρα του να τώκαμεν ο Έρως — πλάττοντας τα συμμετρικά του μέλη με χαρά· υψώνοντας γλυπτό το ανάστημα·”

Hypo-anthonism Inevitably, anthonism has its opposite: sometimes the process is “negative” and the negative-anthonism (not anti-anthonism) follows the inverse path. The subject reveals itself going backwards, without any profound alteration, decomposing itself only, which is no less revealing. “Waiting for the Barbarians” captures such a negative to “anthonism’: here is the excitement of the coming of the barbarians who, in the end, having abandoned us, are not coming and perhaps never existed. We have here an ageing world, “finished”, waiting for the catalytic coming of a sudden and unspecified change, which cannot occur due to the absence of analeptic maturity, there is nothing there to be reworked, revoked, re-enacted by the subjects themselves or the community concerned. As a result the subject will fester in an almost permanent state of ennui. It comes not as surprise then when so many poems of Cavafy insist upon expressing ennui. He “studied” and understood its place in the school of French symbolism brilliantly as if it were his own device — which it assuredly is not. The poem “Monotony” (A: 22) for instance, describes an ongoing ennui, without the possibility of escape: it seems impossible here for something “sudden” to happen which could dramatically change the burdensome situation: Μήνας περνά και φέρνει άλλον μήνα. Aυτά που έρχονται κανείς εύκολα τα εικάζει· είναι τα χθεσινά τα βαρετά εκείνα. Και καταντά το αύριο πια σαν αύριο να μη μοιάζει. 4 9 5 Culture

Here, the relevant subject does not have the strength, courage or intellect to reverse the situation, or even the theatrical art to reinvent the situation as analepsis. And yet all these poems are there, in the corpus of Cavafy’s poetry, to prepare the reader for a forthcoming anthonism perhaps in the next poem. But in the mid time some subjects are going through the “passage” from one stage to the next (as it was explained at the beginning of this essay), which could be achieved after intellectual and /or emotional maturity. The poem “Εν οδώ» describes the situation: Το συμπαθητικό του πρόσωπο, κομμάτι ωχρό· τα καστανά του μάτια, σαν κομένα· είκοσι πέντ’ ετών, πλην μοιάζει μάλλον είκοσι· με κάτι καλλιτεχνικό στο ντύσιμό του — τίποτε χρώμα της κραβάτας, σχήμα του κολλάρου — ασκόπως περπατεί μες στην οδό, ακόμη σαν υπνωτισμένος απ’ την άνομη ηδονή, από την πολύ άνομη ηδονή που απέκτησε. The young person is twenty five years old but it looks like twenty. He is missing five years of maturity and uncertainty and this is why he is waking like half asleep and he is feeling that his pleasure is «άνομη». With a little bit more of maturity, freedom and courage he is going to upgrade his hedonistic (not “άνομη”) pleasure to a totally perfect (“καθαρή”) one. Is there any possibility for this young man to do so? Yes and his most credible chance will arise from the fact that he has something artistic in his looking (“κάτι καλλιτεχνικό στο ντύσιμό του”). If this is something which could be described as hypo-anthonism we can claim then that there should be the opposite situation of a hyper-anthonism and in particular when something dominant is occurring, bringing the force of the uncontrolled “other” in our lives.

Pathantonism The unexpected always arises in Cavafy’s poetry, at times with excitement and stimulation but at others finding the subject totally unprepared, experiencing a sudden terror. The poems “Trojans”, for example, expresses it clearly:

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Είν’ η προσπάθειές μας σαν των Τρώων. Θαρρούμε πως με απόφασι και τόλμη θ’ αλλάξουμε της τύχης την καταφορά, κ’ έξω στεκόμεθα ν’ αγωνισθούμε. Όμως η πτώσις μας είναι βεβαία. Επάνω, στα τείχη, άρχισεν ήδη ο θρήνος. Των ημερών μας αναμνήσεις κλαιν κ’ αισθήματα. Πικρά για μας ο Πρίαμος κ’ η Εκάβη κλαίνε. We do not cry, but “the memories and feelings are crying”: and this make the situation even more uncontrollable, beyond any possibility to do something about it, when in other words the unknown, the “other”, becomes the subject of any forthcoming event. How is this done? What kind of «Freudian» alchemy is this, that permits the «other», the “ancient” self, to replace human initiative? In Cavafy’s poetry this happens all the time and the way he expresses these important situations was mistaken for a lack of proper knowledge of Modern Greek: consider what G. Seferis or G. Savidis were saying about the structure of his sentences or the interpretation of the meaning of his words. With Cavafy the opposite is actually happening, and the language, as the great other, reveals what a talking subject is not capable of achieving. This is why so many times in Cavafy’s poetry “voices” simply speak and reveal, usually in the middle of the night: Κάποτε μες στα όνειρά μας ομιλούνε· κάποτε μες στην σκέψι τες ακούει το μυαλό. Και με τον ήχο των για μια στιγμή επιστρέφουν ήχοι από την πρώτη ποίησι της ζωής μας — σα μουσική, την νύχτα, μακρυνή, που σβύνει (« Voices “, A: 95). So the «other» suddenly could arise in our life, beyond the “I”, as an intermezzo, in the night and reveals something which comes as a revealing, outside experience for the subject: Το είδωλον του νέου σώματός μου, απ’ τες εννιά που άναψα την λάμπα, ήλθε και με ηύρε και με θύμισε κλειστές κάμαρες αρωματισμένες, και περασμένην ηδονή— τι τολμηρή ηδονή!

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Κ’ επίσης μ’ έφερε στα μάτια εμπρός, δρόμους που τώρα έγιναν αγνώριστοι, κέντρα γεμάτα κίνησι που τέλεψαν, και θέατρα και καφενεία που ήσαν μια φορά! (A: 63). This is the way that will give access to something more unexpected. The poem “This One” (Ούτος Eκείνος) reveals with absolute clarity the “passage” of “I” from the dominate subject to the “other” as the real, most powerful one. This is the moment when the greatest antonism occurs, suddenly, after the “I” experiences a tedious revelation of not being itself: Άγνωστος — ξένος μες στην Aντιόχεια — Εδεσσηνός γράφει πολλά. Και τέλος πάντων, να, ο λίνος ο τελευταίος έγινε. Με αυτόν ογδόντα τρία ποιήματα εν όλω. Πλην τον ποιητή κούρασε τόσο γράψιμο, τόση στιχοποιία, και τόση έντασις σ’ ελληνική φρασιολογία, και τώρα τον βαραίνει πια το κάθε τι — Μια σκέψις όμως παρευθύς από την αθυμία τον βγάζει — το εξαίσιον Ούτος Εκείνος, που άλλοτε στον ύπνο του άκουσε ο Λουκιανός (“Ούτος εκείνος», Α: 45). Reading the poem carefully makes us identify a few items that have been hidden in the poem, which reveal much more than is obvious at first glance. The first element is that the poet is “unknown.” The bespoken ignorance is not only the fact that he was not known in Antioch, but also, and more significantly, that he is “unknown” (and unrecognizable) to himself: in particular, like all writers, he does not know why he writes. Secondly, he is writing in a foreign language: “tension in Greek phraseology.” This is not literally the case: the poetic language is always “unknown” to all poets, as though foreign, which comes to us as a surprise: suddenly. Finally, it seems that everything is once again happening at night, the suspected location of the “hard” and unexpected Freudian revelation: “For ‘I’ is someone else. […] That much is clear to me: I am a spectator at the blossoming of my own thought: I look at it and listen to it: I make a sweep with the baton and down in the depths the symphony begins to stir” (Rimbaud) Hedonism is always close by.

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The context of dreaming (“enypnio”: inside, in the middle of sleeping, like an intermezzo) in which Lucian’s glimpse is so significant, revealed as a foreign voice. It is almost the Dionysian desire again (to remember here Anthony) which erupts suddenly in the night again, and leads to the discovery that “This one [is] the Other.” («Ούτος, Εκείνος»). The “id” as “the other thing” arises almost always from all the poems of Cavafy and reveals the unknown after a long oblivion. The “other-one” is so subversive that it manifests itself physically: the body and the skin remembers, not the specific social subject, as we read it in the poem («Επέ- στρεφε» Α:56):

Επέστρεφε συχνά και παίρνε με, αγαπημένη αίσθησις επέστρεφε και παίρνε με— όταν ξυπνά του σώματος η μνήμη, κ’ επιθυμία παληά ξαναπερνά στο αίμα· όταν τα χείλη και το δέρμα ενθυμούνται, κ’ αισθάνονται τα χέρια σαν ν’ αγγίζουν πάλι. Επέστρεφε συχνά και παίρνε με την νύχτα, όταν τα χείλη και το δέρμα ενθυμούνται...

Νow we can understand that it is the «other-one» that dominates our lives: the «trivial» writings of Artemidoros, not taken into account by the arrogant “I” of Julius Caesar; the poem “Finished” (A19), placed by Cavafy next to the previous one, when a sudden disaster falls upon us and “μας συνεπαίρνει»: «Μέσα στον φόβο και στες υποψίες, με ταραγμένο νου και τρομαγμένα μάτια, λυώνουμε και σχεδιάζουμε το πώς να κάμουμε για ν’ αποφύγουμε τον βέβαιο τον κίνδυνο που έτσι φρικτά μας απειλεί. Κι όμως λανθάνουμε, […] Άλλη καταστροφή, που δεν την φανταζόμεθαν, εξαφνική, ραγδαία πέφτει επάνω μας, κι ανέτοιμους — πού πια καιρός — μας συνεπαίρνει”. In the poem «Dangerous» is also highlighted the fact that the young student thinks he can control his behaviour “fortified with theory and

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study”, when in fact other factors will decide for him. In the poem «Noesis» (A: 64) the artistic subject finds that he could not control his juvenile behaviour and this in fact resulted his artistic expression to take shape slowly and unconsciously as a secret source: Τα χρόνια της νεότητός μου, ο ηδονικός μου βίος — πώς βλέπω τώρα καθαρά το νόημά των. Τι μεταμέλειες περιττές, τι μάταιες .... Aλλά δεν έβλεπα το νόημα τότε. Μέσα στον έκλυτο της νεότητός μου βίο μορφώνονταν βουλές της ποιήσεώς μου, σχεδιάζονταν της τέχνης μου η περιοχή. And here we are facing again the fundamental notion of “abandonment” we have discussed at the beginning of the essay. Let’s consider for example the poem “Εκόμισα εις την τέχνη»: Κάθομαι και ρεμβάζω. Επιθυμίες κ’ αισθήσεις εκόμισα εις την Τέχνην— κάτι μισοειδωμένα, πρόσωπα ή γραμμές• ερώτων ατελών κάτι αβέβαιες μνήμες. Aς αφεθώ σ’ αυτήν. Ξέρει να σχηματίσει Μορφήν της Καλλονής• σχεδόν ανεπαισθήτως τον βίον συμπληρούσα, συνδυάζουσα εντυπώσεις, συνδυάζουσα τες μέρες (Β27). Concluding here let’s try a more general observation, going back to the medieval European culture and literary tradition. Dante constitutes the greatest intermezzo of the European consciousness. Not only because his poetry reflects have his own middle age as well as that of Europe, but also because everything in it happens in between heaven and earth. It is the experience of the journey, between its beginning and end, which reveals all sort of surprises. Dante revealed the intermediate and transforming trembling in the human body and real flesh. Although controversial, we could argue that his subjects primarily suffer not from mental passions but from physical, bodily, tangible tourna- ments. He puts the body under immense stress but he refuses to acknowl- edge that only the liberation of the body will deliver the pleasure of the soul and not another life, beyond the clouds. While Dante was pointing out this important "point", Italy was developing various intermezzi in music, who

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knows, perhaps to demonstrate another way of celebrating the importance of the passage from one stage to the next: full of enthusiasm, freedom and pleasures. Dionysus probably is not far away. In a sense the music is bringing back what it was missing so badly after centuries of all sort of suppres- sions. . Cavafy (and obviously other poets and artists) comes to bring the human flesh close to the earth and soil: amongst ourselves, our cities, our histories, where it truly belongs. Paraphrasing here the famous platonic line, in Alcibiades («ἆρ' οὖν, ὦ φίλε Ἀλκιβιάδη, καὶ ψυχὴ εἰ μέλλει γνώσεσθαι αὑτήν, εἰς ψυχὴν αὐτῇ βλεπτέον, καὶ μάλιστ' εἰς τοῦτον αὐτῆς τὸν τόπον ἐν ᾧ ἐγγίγνεται ἡ ψυχῆς ἀρετή, σοφία, καὶ εἰς ἄλλο ᾧ τοῦτο τυγχάνει ὅμοιον ὄν;») Cavafy tells us that if the soul wants to truly know itself it has to look at real flesh. And this is not by suffering and tormenting ourselves, as the Dante tradition would like to tell us, but by adopting the hedonism and all pleasures of concrete revelations, as when touching precious objects including word-objects. This is the majestic way from which real “bodies” of knowledge will be revealed in a radiant manner. Even death is celebrating the sensual body and this is a quite brave claim to do. For this reason, in the poem “Iasis’ Tomb” (A: 75), Iasis himself is asking to inscribe on his tomb- stone that his whole life was full of hedonism and pleasures. His beauty was admired by everybody in Alexandria : Κείμαι ο Ιασής ενταύθα. Της μεγάλης ταύτης πόλεως ο έφηβος ο φημισμένος για εμορφιά. Μ’ εθαύμασαν βαθείς σοφοί• κ’ επίσης ο επιπόλαιος, ο απλός λαός. Και χαίρομουν ίσα και για τα δυο. Μα απ’ το πολύ να μ’ έχει ο κόσμος Νάρκισσο κ’ Ερμή, η καταχρήσεις μ’ έφθειραν, μ’ εσκότωσαν. Διαβάτη, αν είσαι Aλεξανδρεύς, δεν θα επικρίνεις. Ξέρεις την ορμή του βίου μας• τι θέρμην έχει• τι ηδονή υπερτάτη. The hedonic Alexandria is the place of intimate mystagogy among sag- es and promiscuous people: like an intermezzo. Cavafy’s Alexandria emerges as the living flesh of poetry in the middle of the Mediterranean but also in the middle of amazing cultural changes, when the hedonic way of life will give way to the hegemony of life after death:

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Κ’ εξαίφνης με κυρίευσε μια αλλόκοτη εντύπωσις. Aόριστα, αισθάνομουν σαν νάφευγεν από κοντά μου ο Μύρης• αισθάνομουν που ενώθη, Χριστιανός, με τους δικούς του, και που γένομουν ξ έ ν ο ς εγώ, ξ έ ν ο ς π ο λ ύ• ένοιωθα κιόλα μια αμφιβολία να με σιμώνει: μήπως κι είχα γελασθεί από το πάθος μου, και π ά ν τ α τού ήμουν ξένος.— Πετάχθηκα έξω απ’ το φρικτό τους σπίτι, έφυγα γρήγορα πριν αρπαχθεί, πριν αλλοιωθεί απ’ την χριστιανοσύνη τους η θύμηση του Μύρη. (“Myris, Alexandria 340 AD”, B: 76) Perhaps hyper-anthonism is here to remind us that we are always for- eigners not only to Myris — or any Myris — but also to ourselves: this is the real and surprising revelation, which is waiting for us, suddenly, in the middle of the night, before departing Alexandria as a new hedonic variation of a very ancient pleasure.

Note 1 For example: «Η συνοδεία του Διονύσου» (Α:29), «Επήγα» (Α:59), «Εύνοια του Αλεξάνδρου Βάλα» (Β:23).

References Βεν Πωλ, 2013, Η Ελληνορωμαϊκή Αυτοκρατορία, (μετ. Ειρήνη Μητούση), Βιβλιοπωλείον της Εστίας, Αθήνα. Δασκαλόπουλος Δ., 2003, Βιβλιογραφία Κ.Π. Καβάφη (1886-2000), Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, Θεσσαλονίκη. Επίκουρος 2000: Κείμενα –Πηγές της Επικούρειας Φιλοσοφίας και Τέχνης του Ζην, εισαγωγή D.S. Hutchinson, Επιμ. Γ. Αβραμίδης, Θύραθεν, Θεσσαλονίκη. Ιουλιανός 2004, Κατά Χριστιανών. Για την Απέχθεια προς τα Γένια ή Μισοπώγων, Θύραθεν, Θεσσαλονίκη. Καβάφης Κ. Π., 1974, Ποιήματα (Α,Β), Ίκαρος (επιμ. Γ.Π. Σαββίδης), Αθήνα Καβάφης Κ. Π., 2003, Τα Πεζά (1882;-1931), Ερμής, Αθήνα

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Καραλής Βρασίδας, 2000, «Ενδοπολιτισμικές διαφοροποιήσεις στην ποίηση του Κ.Π. Καβάφη. Ο ελληνισμός ως σωματική επιφάνεια»», Η Ποίηση του Κράματος. Μοντερνισμός και Διαπολιτισμικότητα στο Έργο του Καβάφη, Πανεπιστημιακές εκδόσεις Κρήτης (επιμ. Μιχ. Πιερής), Ηράκλειο, 9-28. Νίτσε, Φρ. 2013, Η Φιλοσοφία στα Χρόνια της Αρχαιοελληνικής Τραγωδίας. Οι Προσωκρατικοί Φιλόσοφοι και Σημειώσεις (1867-75), (Πρόλογος –Μετάφραση-Σχόλια Βαγγέλης Δουβαλέρης, φιλ επιμ,. Ήρκος Ρ. Αποστολίδης), Gutenberg, Αθήνα. Σεφέρης Γιώργος, 1999, Δοκιμές, Πρώτος Τόμος (1936-1947), Ίκαρος, Αθήνα. Τζαβάρας Γιάννης 2007, Ανθολόγιο Αισθητικής, Gutenberg, Αθήνα. Τσιανίκας Μιχάλης, 2007, Καβαφικές Φωτοθυμίες, Κανάκη, Αθήνα.

Athanassiadi Polymnia, 2013, «From man to god, or the mutation of a culture (300B.C.-A.D.762), Heaven and Earth. Art Byzantium from Greek Collections, Benaki Museum and Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Athens, 29-43. Derrida Jacques, 1968, La Voix etre le Phénomène, PUF, Paris Foucault Michel, 1989, Résumé des Cours, 1970-1982, Conférences Essais et Leçons du Collège de France, Julliard, Paris Nancy Jean-Luc, 1988, L’ Expérience de la Liberté, Galilée, Paris

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allegorical scene 5Κωνσταντίνος 0 4 Παρθένης, 1955 Culture

Tatjana Aleksic University of Michigan

The Body of a Political Masochist: Torture, Performance and Power in Elias Maglinis’ The Interrogation

In November 2013 Russian conceptual artist Petr Pavlensky nailed his testicles to the icy cobbles of the Red Square in Moscow and sat there until the police and health services intervened. This protest/performance act rounded off a politically inspired “trilogy” that over two years involved various methods of body brutalization. The two performances preceding this one were a rather obvious act of Pavlensky’s sewing his lips shut, in protest at the incarceration of Pussy Riot members and the silencing of Russian dissidents, while the other one had him lying naked in a roll of barbed wire in front of the Legislative Assembly, in protest of Russian censorship, the notorious anti-gay legislation and a few other recent controversial laws.1 Resorting to such excruciating performances was part of his many attempts at drawing attention as much to the complacency with which contemporary Russians tolerate the corruption and bureaucratic impenetrability of Vladimir Putin’s rule, as Pavlensky’s own reaction as an artist to the commodification and mainstreaming of art in contemporary society. Each one of Pavlensky’s performances ended in his arrest, while the first one had him sent for psychiatric evaluation. Each time, likewise, he was released with no charges, while the psychiatric evaluations found nothing in Pavlensky’s behavior that could be potentially interesting for the science. He struck again in October 2014, when he cut off one of his ears while sitting naked on the wall of a Moscow psychiatric hospital. This response was bringing into focus the government’s rehashing of Soviet-era use of psychiatric diagnoses for the purpose of neutralizing dissidents. In Pavlensky’s own words, self-muti-

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lation in his political art is “the imitation of the visual code” of the “philosophy of endless carnage” perpetuated by the systems of power.2 Violence is the medium through which the establishment communicates and violence is the only language it understands. The body thus becomes the artist’s best resource for the graphic translation of this unequal exchange but also the one that Pavlensky thinks is the most understandable to the majority of people, who are afraid to react against routine regime violence and instead willingly subject to it. In Pavlensky’s words, resounding with ominous Foucauldianisms, “It’s not the power that keeps people by the balls, it’s the people who keep themselves restricted. Pretty soon everyone’s going to be in jail, but it won’t matter to anybody anymore.”3 Problems implied in Pavlensky’s statement, but also by others who have used their body as medium for the awakening of others to their masochistic bondage to power (no pun intended) can be summed up as follows: how radical a response does body art expect from its spectators: can it make a connection between the ubiquitous violence in real life and its reenact- ment in performance and whether this connection can elicit any meaningful reaction on the part of those whose awakening is sought, or whether it will remain within the limits of a visual spectacle; can the performance artist create a community among spectators and be the instrument of their awareness? Ultimately, however, it all boils down to whether the spectators/witnesses ever really want this new awareness, replete with the vast possibilities it opens before them – or, whether they prefer to avoid harm by continuing to ignore their own unfreedom, as Pavlensky fears. The impermanent nature of performance art makes it an improbable subject of fiction, and indeed counting attempts to fictionalize it would yield hardly any results. However, one of few texts written in any language that has as its subject the matter of performing bodies is The Interrogation, a novel by Elias Maglinis published in 2008. In this small and fast paced book, that is less a narrative than a collection of powerful visuals, where body is brutalized, exposed, sexualized and dissected as much by actions as by language, Maglinis managed to squeeze in many questions about the complexity of the individual’s relation to history/politics and the choice of one’s loud protestation against it or silent resignation with it. The Interroga- tion overflows with blood, body mutilation, undigested food, torture and masochistic sexual experimentation. One of its two main protagonists is

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Marina, a young aspiring artist modeled on the famous Yugoslav performance artist Marina Abramović, the self-proclaimed “grandmother” of performance art. The fictional Marina of Interrogation embarks on a mission to liberate her father Kostis from his nightmarish family history of victimization in the unstable Greek political landscape. Political persecution acts like a genetic disease in Marina’s family, with her communist grandfather tortured, imprisoned, and banished during the civil war, while her father underwent systematic beating and rape in the prisons of the military junta. The novel treats human bodies as malleable raw material on which historical and private trauma leave debilitating impressions, but also as the only mediums for the conquest of freedom and any length of individual space. Perhaps the most important question it asks is whether individual freedom is achieved through a decisive confrontation with the agents and causes of trauma or whether the only way forward for a wounded individual is healing based on reconciliation and acceptance of one’s past. The exhibitionism of Marina’s self-mutilation with which she assaults her family and audiences is thus in stark contrast with the compromise Kostis made with the trauma he survived by withdrawing both from his family and society. The novel is embedded into specific events from Greek history and translates the fric- tion between the characters’ different approaches to trauma into the lack of consensus with which the Greek nation as a whole views its own past as a foundation towards a more inclusive future. The Interrogation treats the bodies of its protagonists as the ultimate instrument and measure of all things, in a very Foucauldian sense of blank surfaces scarred or “inscribed by history,” which ultimately destroys them.4 Everything in this household revolves about the body, which functions as a memo pad of events and a calendar of milestones that coincide with various stages of its disintegration: Marina’s mother Rhea is in a terminal phase of cancer during the final chapter of her divorce from Kostis; her dead body activates uncontrollable bouts of overeating in Marina; Kostis remembers happier days of their family life from scars on Rhea’s skin. Marina herself appears to be affected by this history of corporeal violation as from a very early age she demonstrates an affinity for bodily harm and self-inflicted pain. Her family is apparently clueless as to the causes of this brutal treatment of her own body, her violent outbursts in public or her alienating performance acts. Her whole life revolves inside the debilitating cycle of the

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foods and nourishment she rejects, the erratic pattern of her menstrual cycle, and nauseating migraines. Both the real and the fictional artist blame physiological problems on the unsettled family situation—Abramović implies that the source of somewhat similar conditions she suffered in her adolescence was the absence in her life of her father and the iron discipline she was subjected to by her strong and commanding mother. In most of her political performances, where she exhibited her body as a sacrificial offering to ideology, Abramović made a very clear connection between her family and social repression of which they were partaking.5 Marina of Interroga- tion, on the other hand, does not declare any particular reason behind her masochism while her performances exhibit less focus on specific political issues and instead concentrate on world injustices in general. But both her life and her art demonstrate an intuitive awareness of her family’s complicity in the social violence that took its toll on all of them. With her body slashing and blood spilling she is constantly trying to provoke some meaningful reaction from her father, whom she accuses of silence and passivity in the face of his past suffering. A new performance act she plans to organize would thus be the first one with a clear focus on Kostis’ victimization. It also becomes a pretext for her insistence on hearing the account of the torture he was subjected to in prison, which is the one topic he stubbornly refuses to discuss with her. Her methods of inquiry into his past and his family legacy however are as intrusive of the privacy and silence behind which he has been hiding all her life, as they are disrespectful of what she thinks are his salon leftist sympathies: “I want to know, dad. That’s all. And I want you to finally stand up and let it all out. “Marina, do you understand what you are doing?” “Yes, I’m trying to help you heal.” [...] I’ve been asking you questions all my life, trying to talk to you, and you’ve never given me a direct answer to anything. You just don’t answer; you never answered anything. You know something? Granddad would have talked to me, dad. Granddad would have talked. Granddad had guts. I’m really sorry I never got to meet him. Unlike you, granddad actually had balls. (Maglinis, 82-86)

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Marina perceives the seemingly quiet and undisturbed family existence they performed together like a smokescreen against the exposure to the outside world. She doubts Kostis’ political activism to his face, but a more pressing question troubles her in recurring incestuous nightmares, where she dreams of her father’s inability to sexually please a woman and produce male offspring. Her pressing interrogation and her public performances that Kostis feels devalue his sacrifice, challenge both her father’s and the authority vested on the patriarchal family in general. What is ultimately at stake in this interrogation is the social structure as we know it, the “dominant fiction,” as Kaja Silverman defines the belief in the “unity of the family and the adequacy of the male subject.”6 It is precisely the sense of Kostis’ inadequacy as the male subject that pervades the novel and makes clear that the social construct is entirely built on a collective belief in the power of the phallus, which despite all the Lacanian veilings and implausible interpretations, in the final analysis and for most purposes, does signify the penis. Marina’s identification with Kostis’ inadequacy likewise precludes her “becoming” as a properly “female subject,” in the sense defined by Rosi Braidotti, who deplores the predominance in theoretical discourse of the Lacanian approach to subjectivity that reads women as “melancholic” and unfinished subjects.7 Maglinis’ novel speaks directly to such androcentric interpretations, as all Marina’s endeavors are directed at empowering her site of social identification with the discourse of untainted masculinity. Her very existence depends on her successful rehabilitation of her father as her progenitor and his phallus as a signifier of her own social participation. This is why of all other methods of torture Kostis was subjected to, it is rape that puts under the microscope both his symbolic phallic powers as well as his biological masculinity, and renders him doubly “castrated.” In his large body of work on power and various methods of disciplining the body, Foucault has nothing in particular to say about rape that is outside his known format of power vs. subject. Although unrelated to sexuality, itself a method of control, rape emerges as apparently indistinct from other methods of torture, which he claims, “revealed truth and showed the operation of power. […] it made possible to reproduce the crime on the visible body of the criminal; the same horror had to be manifested and annulled.”8 The truth that Foucault mentions is what Elaine Scarry later reinterprets as fiction that torture creates about the violator’s purported authority over the body of the victim. Scarry, who is similarly mum on the specificities of rape, discusses tor-

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ture as a sadistically intimate relationship between the torturer and the victim that converts “absolute pain into fiction of absolute power.”9 This power is recognized as genuine by neither perpetrator nor victim; nevertheless it tends to establish itself as indisputable on the basis of the pain it inflicts and visible traces it leaves on the victim’s body. Torture could thus be interpreted as the violent transgression against the body that for the tortured uncovers the Lacanian Real, as devoid of substance as it is unrepresentable in the symbolic order “except by its effects.”10 Rape is perpetrated with this same idea of establishing fictional (masculine, dominant and even reproductive) authority. Rape of male bodies ad- ditionally implies a very calculated degradation of the male body, forcing the victim to embody the subjugated gendered role and thwarting his resistance. The fact that physical disfiguration from torture scarred Kostis less than the memory of repetitive rape likewise speaks to the socially fuelled belief in the authority of untainted masculinity. Rape left the most profound impact not only on Kostis’ psyche but also on the way his family perceives him – or, at least in the way he projects his own humiliation on his wife and daughter, fearing that they both constantly interrogate his virility. He is also deeply suspicious that Marina’s interest in his confession does not go much further from the sexual aspect of torture, as she seems to ignore the deep psychological trauma he suffered and concentrates merely on its corporeal aspects. Even occasional appearances in the narrative of his estranged and deceased wife Rhea merely affirms in Kostis’ mind the intimation of his unmanliness. All Kostis signifies is a painfully obviouslack that determines not merely his own social role but also Marina’s. As Marina tries to establish what happened to Kostis, she never digs deeper into the why and neither does Kostis, who just wishes not to discuss this part of his life. That way they both avoid the trap that Claude Lanzmann calls the “obscenity of understanding,” inherent not merely in the psychoanalytical project but also, as he explored in his epic film Shoah, in commemorating the Holocaust as well as any other episode of extreme brutality. The attempts to rationalize trauma, to learn more about the criminal minds and plans behind it, according to Lanzmann, is merely an attempt to give meaning to something that is inherently meaningless, to understand the incomprehensible horror, and ultimately to rehabilitate what cannot be rehabilitated by putting a human face behind it.11

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Political Body, Masochistic Body Marina directly translates the sadism of the torture Kostis suffered in prison into a brutal treatment to which she subjects her own body in private as much as in public performances. Her sexual masochism is likewise never really private but always precariously verging on the edge of exhibitionism staged for her father’s accidental gaze. These episodes of painful self-mutilating masturbation take place in her father’s home and with the door de- liberately unsecured against Kostis’ unintentional disruption, of which he is fully aware: He had watched her do this once in the past, before losing her mother. […] It could be a bad dream. It’s not, but like in dreams he can’t move or shout, even when he sees her yank at her nipples with thumb and forefinger. Her expressionless face in front of the mirror going crimson from the pain, a pain that’s all hers: a swimmer trapped under a thin layer of ice that won’t break no matter how much he yearns for the breath—a howling breath, a breathy howl—to let out a shriek like the one he lets out from the very depths of his being on those nights when he flails in his sleep thirsting for a bit, the tiniest bit, of oxygen. It’s only when he sees her sit at the edge of the bed, lie back, spread her legs wide and tear hatefully at the tender folds nestled between them, that he is finally able to stir. No longer a pillar of salt, he’s not watching Sodom burn; he’s witnessing his daughter self-mutilate, and so he distances himself from the horror of the half-open door without turning to look back. (Maglinis, 2) In their groundbreaking, albeit a bit outdated, definitions of masochistic practices Freud as well as Reik and Krafft-Ebing before him recognized masochism as a sexual perversion.12 Freud, whose persuasive analysis influenced further work on the subject, most notably that by Deleuze, discusses masochism in a particular form, as taking place between the phallic mother and the son who submits to her punishment in a “feminine” fashion. The phallic mother punishing the disobedient son is furthermore merely a stand-in for the authoritative father who is in fact threatened by his son and, as would be expected of Freud, the entire setting does not move beyond the unresolved Oedipal crisis. Deleuze, who accepts the Freudian scenario of the interaction between mother and child, suggests that instead

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of mother being a stand-in for the father it is in fact the child who assumes the father’s role.13 The masochistic relationship thus takes place between the mother and the (exclusively male?) child, where the child being punished, as Gaylyn Studlar claims, “repudiates the father, the super-ego and Oedipal guilt.”14 It is the ultimate fantasy in which the wronged mother will be avenged for the unhappiness caused her by the father and by the patriarchal symbolic he represents. In The Interrogation, a much more significant undercurrent is the pu- nitive relationship the protagonists have with their own bodies based on the expiation of some “historical” guilt. And this is where Maglinis’ bodies and their physiological states abandon the personal and familial setting and turn into very public and signifying bodies of collective history. Marina’s erratic menstrual cycle, Rhea’s cancer, or Kostis’ deformed legs are no longer their own, while the masochistic (dis)pleasure with which they watch their bodies being brutalized by proverbially overwhelming history belongs to the entire Greek nation. Ultimately, the very meaning of the term masochism changes when transferred from the sexual to the political: By definition the masochist controls the situation and directs how the pleasurable pain will be distributed by torture. S/he is thus in full command of the setting in which injury takes place. While this is usually the case in performative masochism, the body of what I call the “political masochist,” however, cannot really make that decision individually. The performative masochism of the kind found in the politically- informed work of Pavlensky, early Abramović, or ultimately, fictional Ma- rina of the Interrogation, has little or nothing to do with sex per se. They all invoke the socio-political and familial causes as underlying their acts of self-inflicted mutilation, which reinforces the claim about the expiation of Oedipal guilt through punishment. What however distinguishes a radical performance piece from clinical masochism is that it rarely, if ever, involves expectance of sexual gratification. In fact, as Kathy O’Dell has discussed, most performative masochism tends to be devoid of pleasure whatsoever and instead its main connection with clinically defined masochism is its insistence on the contract, which likewise structures relationship between the masochist and the dominatrix/torturer in sexual masochism.15 Masochis- tic performances revive the actionism in performance arts characteristic mostly of the “radical” decades of the 1960s and the early ‘70s. In Contract

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with the Skin O’Dell analyzes masochistic performances on the arts scene during these two decades and draws her conclusions on the iconic body acts by Chris Burden, Gina Pane or Vito Acconci, all of whom frequently tested the physical limits of body endurance and to an equal extent the contract between the performing artists and their audiences (or their onstage as- sistants). The nature of the contract itself was, according to O’Dell, brought into question by the politics of the decade that saw several new wars and interventionism in the post-WWII world, which severed the social agree- ments between the governments involved in military interventions and their populations. For O’Dell, the obvious point of reference is always the Vietnam War and the breach of contract between the US government and its citizens, in whose name the war was being waged. Needless to say, however, that internal US politics of the time teems with political violence of no less serious kind that could have been used as an even better reference point for such discussion, like the assassinations of M. L. King or J. F. Kennedy, or rampant racial violence that plagued the nation throughout these decades. Any masochistic performance by radical artists in that setting can almost automatically be assigned a political meaning, even when the performance itself is not overly politicized. Thus O’Dell contextualizes Burden’s 1971 performance Shoot, in which his assistant shot him in the arm, as well as performances where other artists of the time were hurting, slashing, or in other ways mutilating or torturing their bodies, as masochism originating in the overall political circumstances and interrogating the very nature of the social contract: Beyond its specifically legal function, the contract is a central metaphor in modern life, from the lease on a first home to the Republican Party’s vaunted “Contract with America” of 1994. Masochistic performance artists of the 1970s, such as Burden, sought to call attention to the structure of the contract to emphasize that the real power of the agreement lies there. In this regard the artists followed a very basic premise: by pushing their actions to an extreme, they could dramatize the importance of a transaction that is often overlooked or taken for granted. (O’Dell, 2) Some performance acts done by Marina Abramović at around this same time however are overtly politicized probes into the social context. Abramović’s graphic body spectacles addressed her deepest fears and tested the limits of physical endurance, yet were rarely free from the ideological

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dimension that lurks in the background and that has, she insists, circumscribed her life.16 In her now legendary Rhythm 5 (1974) Abramović cut her hair and nails and threw them into a mix of woodchips and petroleum arranged in a wooden frame shaped into a five-pointed star, the symbol of socialist Yugoslavia and the centerpiece of the country’s flag. She set it on fire and lay in its center. Seeing that she lost consciousness in the smoke that engulfed, her audience members carried her out, which she later resented. In The Lips of Thomas (1975) Abramović used a razor blade to cut a five-pointed star across her belly, then whipped herself, lay down on a cross- shaped block of ice and bled profusely before the audience intervened fearing for her safety. The description of performance states the following: LIPS OF THOMAS Performance I slowly eat 1 kilo of honey with a silver spoon. I slowly drink 1 liter of red wine out of a crystal glass. I break the glass with my right hand. I cut a five pointed star on my stomach with a razor blade. I violently whip myself until I no longer feel any pain. I lay /sic/ down on a cross made of ice blocks. The heat of a suspended space heater pointed at my stomach causes the cut star to bleed. The rest of my body begins to freeze I remain on the ice cross for 30 minutes until the audience interrupts the piece by removing the ice blocks from underneath. Duration: 2 hours 1975, Krinzinger Gallery, Innsbruck.17 Besides the obvious symbolic of the five-pointed star, with which Abramović suggests her own embeddedness into the structure of Yugoslav “communism,” as she insists on calling it, she loaded the act with other, mostly autobiographical but nonetheless ideological symbolism: the cross, possibly suggesting her “martyrdom” to state ideology, but potentially even more so her descent from the Serbian Orthodox Church Patriarch, alleg- edly murdered in 1937 on political grounds. The excessive, almost sickening quantities of honey and wine consumed with a silver spoon and out of a crystal vessel, as well as the whip and blood, convey the hedonism attached to the upper social echelons (her parents as part of the communist regime),

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but also an overload of sensations and clear masochistic pleasure in this act of sacrificial submission to the ideological symbolic. Despite the fact that the symbolism of this performance emerges from Abramović’s biography and family mythology it demonstrates that this personal initiation ritual is always and necessarily only a fragment in a collective ideological experience. Yet in synthesizing the hedonistic pleasures of the (socialist) elites and the individual body overwhelmed by politico-historical narratives, Abramović denudes precisely what Marxism claims is the major problem of capitalism: the commodification of the reproductive (proletarian) body and its dissociation from natural pleasures of the senses and intellectual pleasures of the mind that remain accessible only to the elites through the mediation of capital.18 And this is where we arrive at a central point: whether these radical performances carry genuine potential for individual emancipation or alternatively, what kind of message they are intended to convey to the audiences regarding the breach or abuse of social contract by the powers that be. O’Dell denies such performances, no matter how radical, any explicit political dimension, by designating them simultaneously both socially relevant and depending on the political issues of the time. Her contention is that they are inherently incapable of mobilizing people to act on the issues that they problematize, and one of the reasons for this failure is that they basically alienate performer from audience.19 The artist who violates the in- tegrity of her body in front of an audience is always there alone and in fact outside the emotional or cognitive reach by others. Consequently failing the possibility of conceiving a community that is by definition based on victim- hood and sacrifice for the benefit of many. However, if this performative “sacrifice” is not presented in the interest of the community, for whose benefit or for whom is it performed at all? In her discussion of body mutilation that contrasts incomparable practices of masochistic performance art and purportedly traditional female genital mutilation, Renata Salecl seeks to answer the question of how the subject defines itself in contemporary society (or, alternatively, is being defined by forced mutilation performed by and for the community). Salecl tends to see body mutilation in performance art as stemming from the disintegration of the traditional social network (patriarchal family) and the modified way in which the subject identifies with the symbolic law: “The law

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is linked to the role of the father; and in taking a position against this law; that is, by distancing him or herself from this law, the modern subject acquires her or his ‘freedom’” (Salecl, 27). To go back to the classical definition of sexual masochism, body mutilation in performance art seems to offer a version of the original scenario between mother and child, save for the fact that there is no mother and the child, in fact punishes itself for the alleged guilt of the father(s). It would therefore be very tempting to conclude that the Oedipal structure clings so fast to body that subject can only liberate itself by flaying its skin, nailing the testicles in order to castrate the very signifier of social domination, or to sew the lips and refuse to speak in the language that constantly recreates the same repressive structure. Kaja Sil- verman talks about distinctions in how male and female masochisms were historically understood by psychoanalysis and concludes that the only one considered remotely subversive for the phallic structure was male masochism – perhaps precisely due to the fact that it targets patriarchy’s most sensitive spot and exposes its vulnerability and the inexplicable ease with which it can be desposed of, while female masochism merely reproduces socially sanctified gender roles: What is it precisely that the male masochist displays, and what are the consequences of this self-exposure? To begin with, he acts out in an insistent and exaggerated way the basic conditions of cultural subjectivity, conditions that are normally disavowed; he loudly proclaims that his meaning comes to him from the Other, prostrates himself before the gaze even as he solicits it, exhibits his castration for all to see, and revels in the sacrificial basis of the social contract. The male masochist magnifies the losses and divisions upon which cultural identity is based, refusing to be sutured or recompensed. In short, he radiates a negativity inimical to the social order. (Silverman, 206) But what do we make of non-male masochistic performances that demonstrate the potential to usurp power? What is the meaning of Abramović cutting herself in front of photos of her parents dressed in partisan guerilla uniform or Marina’s bloody exhibitions? Quite unsurprisingly these not- male protestations are not challenging the order but are intent on demonstrating that phallic power is in a state of dejected impotence (like Kostis), absent (like Abramović’s father), corrupt (Putin) and easy to decenter (only to be replicated by Abramović’s “phallic mother”). Rather than suggesting

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that there is some inherent threat to the social order in male masochism, it is probably that male masochism (like Pavlensky mutilating his member as the very symbol of power) conforms to the female form of masochism that merely replicates gender submission to the law of the patriarch. The ultimate goal of masochistic exhibitionism emerges as precisely the opposite of subversion. Self-mutilation that revolves around the phallus is no more revolutionary than the church sanctioned carnivalesque spectacle, whose ultimate goal cannot be further away from the actual overthrow of church power.20 It is more a reaction to the “betrayal” of subject by the absolute authority and a recognition that direct and unmediated communi- cation with it that would bypass the entire rigid symbolic network, is in fact, improbable.21 Body slashing, bleeding, and other painful interventions, therefore, are not actions celebrating liberation from authority, but quite the contrary, an anguished statement about the yearning to re-establish its attributes. Because what would happen if authority is usurped or if it is proven beyond doubt that such an external deterrent to absolute freedom never existed is still unknown and frightening. Therefore despite the alleged inherent adversity of masochist towards social order the exhibition of the extent to which body is penetrated, wounded, hurt, and flayed does not constitute an open confrontation with the law. The protest is not really against phallic power, or power as such, but is a warning that father’s law is in dire need of reinforcement. What masochist performances ultimately seek is the reaffirmation of the contract and the repositioning of the (male heterosexual) subject at the center of the production of meaning.22 The child masochist just wants its daddy’s full attention. Performative body mutilation never invites a total divestment of power nor urges unlimited freedom, which Erich Fromm defined as negative freedom, or “freedom from.” Instead, it proposes what he calls “positive freedom,” freedom without which social contract would be unthinkable.23 Fromm names it “freedom to” and it is essential for the subject’s productive participation in society, even if it necessarily ends with a new confrontation with power. Even when the subject wishes to remain part of a social contract (and thus essentially “ruled”) it must be free in order to be able to at all enter such a contract and then further interrogate or protest the authority behind it. In the opposite scenario, the subject finds itself dominated by power: “Power is exercised only over free subjects, and only insofar as they are ‘free,’” according to Foucault.24 Social rela-

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tions are always and necessarily relations of power that is constantly negotiat- ed, interrogated, struggled over, and contested. Foucault sees it as a “game” that is accessible only to subjects who are free to challenge the structure of power: [F]reedom may well appear as the condition for the exercise of power (at the same time its precondition, since freedom must exist for power to be exerted, and also its permanent support, since without the possibility of re- calcitrance, power would be equivalent to physical determination.) The power relationship and freedom’s refusal to submit cannot, therefore, be separated. […] Rather than speak of an essential antagonism, it would be better to speak of an “agonism” – of a relationship that is at the same time mutual incitement and struggle; less of a face-to-face confrontation that paralyzes both sides than a permanent provocation.25 (Foucault, 342) Every social relation and contract finally resemble masochistic ones, in which one side (political masochist) perpetually negotiates the conditions of its contract with power. In her essay on the politics of power after the En- lightenment, Elizabeth Byers discusses “political masochism” in terms close to Foucault’s “subjectivity,” as the nature of social relations not informed by authoritarianism and in which subjects are free to enter into and define specific models of rule acceptable to the majority: [a masochistic political contract entails] non-erotic rational submission [that] stems from a critique of political systems engaged in forced submission. If we maintain that individuals must rationally and actively consent for a system to be considered masochistic, then monarchies, dictatorships and other political systems with authoritarian structures cannot possibly meet our definition of the masochistic. […] Political masochism functions […] as a form of government based on a negotiation between the power of the individual and the power of the state rather than the absolute rule of the monarch, dictator or lord. (Byers, 103) In the universe in which absolute freedom is still an unthinkable concept, political masochism means willing submission to power that nevertheless allows the individual to (relatively) freely associate with others and (ideally) modify the kind of power it is ruled by. Ultimately this is the most freedom a social body can exercise. Performative masochism, therefore, exposes not only the body brutalized by the social contract gone awry, but also signifies the body of the political masochist seeking its right not to eradicate authority altogether, but to reconstruct it.

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Communal Body Spectacle The ultimate image of suffering in the face of authority that arguably inspires masochistic exhibitionism is Christ’s agony before the absolute, ir- revocable and non-interfering power of his Father. However much this image insists on passivity of the tortured body, Silverman’s argues that the Christian masochist can be viewed as a rebellious figure who goes into a head-on collision with the social order. Her Christian masochist even dares seek what I have argued throughout that performative masochism ultimately precludes – a radical remodeling of culture: In this particular subspecies of moral masochism there would thus seem to be a strong heterocosmic impulse—the desire to remake the world in another image altogether, to forge a different cultural order. The exemplary Christian masochist also seeks to remake him or herself according to the model of the suffering Christ, the very picture of earthly divestiture and loss. (Silverman, 198) Granted that such religious remodeling of cultural order in no way ad- vocates change in the structure or nature of power—which is what has been a historical revolutionary practice and the most probable reason few revolu- tions have brought positive changes. Christ’s problem, after all, is not weak or corrupt authority that needs to regain credence, but the wickedness of the human race itself. This bold new “different cultural order” that Silverman suggests can then only mean that the subject needs to transform or in other ways make itself more agreeable to the incorruptible and unquestionable divine authority. Yet Christ’s coming unto Law is interesting also from the point of what I have, thus far, argued is the social imperative for the preservation of intact and unquestioned phallic order. Here again the Christian narrative emphasizes its priorities slightly differently, as Christ only accomplishes this by and after physical torment which, as Silverman argues, has “emasculat- ing implications, and is in its purest forms intrinsically incompatible with the pretensions of masculinity.” As a result, she insists, Christ assumes his position within the divine family “in a suffering and castrated position.”26 It is not his “body” that needs disciplining, but rather the sinful “flesh” of the multitudes that is vicariously punished.27 Christ’s sacrifice supposedly creates and redeems the community circumscribed by this event. This is a community whose origin and telos lie in (his) death, as it not only emerges out of death, but eases the burden of death on community members.28

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In one of the closing scenes of The Interrogation Kostis attends an East- er mass in church but ends up agitated at the sight of Christ’s tortured body and disgusted by the civilization created and sustained on this morbid spectacle: “This is what they worship: torture, a death sentence, a nude, dirty, wounded, pierced, bloody, torn-apart, suffering body dying a slow death. A tortured body. That’s what their worship and love are directed towards. That’s what turns them on.”29 Kostis clearly voices the inability of viewers to ponder victim’s anguish because they are fascinated by the spectacle of violence. Instead of becoming a symbol of community formed as a result of his sacrifice, Christ’s mutilated body becomes the single focus of attention with people mesmerized by the obscenity of his tortured and expiring physical- ity. With this crumbles the very idea that his death can be experienced by others as their own and thus become a motive for their communion. It is for the same reason quite unrealistic to expect that any meaningful community can arise from observing a masochistic performance, or even less that the performance could have the capacity to incite action. On the other hand one may justifiably wonder whether Kostis’ discomfiture at the sight of Christ’s tortured body may have constituted a recognition with his own disempowerment – a misrecognition in fact that doubly underlines Kostis’ exclusion, because Christ’s symbolic castration in fact empowered and established him in the Law. However, as much as Kostis’ perception is critical of the falsity of church communion that lost its true meaning amidst the superficial manifestations of the institutional ceremony, it emphatically underlines his own failure to comprehend its meaning. Neither his apparent identification with Christ’s agony nor his alleged leftist politics prevent him from displaying palpable intolerance and racist hatred towards immigrants, vendors and prostitutes he meets in the streets of Athens. Through his unwillingness to grant social pariahs the respect that as a survivor he demands of others, Kostis establishes his own fictional (national and masculine) superior- ity that lacks merit in the same way as does his social exclusion. Moreover, the humiliation he fantasizes of inflicting on the bodies of those excluded from the Greek society is identical to the aggression he, himself, underwent in jail. The ending finds Kostis looking into his ruined body in the mirror in ironic reconciliation with himself, his father, and the legacy that he inher-

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ited and further transmitted to his daughter: “the discolored bruises, fad- ed scabs, the furrows in his forehead, the bulging veins on the thighs and calves, the tight bandages around his swollen feet. Gloria Patri.”30 Tentative reconciliation is achieved between the father and daughter, when Kostis re- alizes his life is a masochistic reiteration of his father’s life, in a similar way in which Marina will be compelled to repeat his own: My father was a nightmare, [Kostis] wants to say that, too, to spit it out from deep inside himself. […] I listened to him tell me […] about the battles and exile and the prisons, and it was as if I were translating a book written in a foreign language. And, afterwards, when I would go over what I had translated, I saw that it read: You must suffer even more. You haven’t suffered enough, not as much as he did. It needs to be more. Even more. And I joined the struggle. And I would again. I would do it all over again if I could.31 Marina apparently fails in her mock-analytical attempts at “healing” Kostis and making him socially functional by a verbal reiteration of trauma. In this respect, it may be tempting to read Kostis as a passive victim who repeats the events that hurt him and does not believe in the liberating potential of the universal talking cure. However, perhaps his deliberate silence about the past enables Kostis to emerge an even stronger character who accepts the consequences of his actions. His abused body “bearing the most livid marks of [history’s] brutality” may be the force that Marx hoped would eventually transform history (Eagleton, 230). This would, in turn, make Ko- stis a revolutionary in the “proper” sense, who is unafraid to confront power directly and demand its overthrow even if it cost him his life. And that is as much as one can expect of a human being.

Notes 1 Lip sewing has been used as a more obvious format of pointing to the problematic of silencing the truth about certain issues, or to the position of disempowerment. Ulay sewed his lips shut in 1976 while Marina Abramović answered questions on his behalf, reversing the process of silencing of women in patriarchal cultures. David Wojnarowicz did it in 1980 to protest the societal response to the AIDS epidemics. More recently groups of immigrants in Italy, as well as asylum seekers in Australia have resorted to lip sewing in attempts of drawing media attention to their detention and poor living conditions. 2 http://www.vice.com/read/petr-pavlensky-testicles-red-square-police-day-russia-puttin. Last accessed on June 15, 2014. 3 Ibid. 4 Foucault, Language, Counter-Memory, Practice, 148.

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5 The artist has spoken about her family life in her many interviews and authorized biographies. I reference James Westcott’s When Marina Abramović Dies, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2010. 6 Silverman, Male Subjectivity at the Margins, 16. 7 Braidotti, Metamorphoses, 25-6. 8 Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 55. 9 Scarry, The Body in Pain, 27-31. 10 Caroline Williams, “Ideology and Imaginary: Returning to Althusser,” 37. 11 Claude Lanzmann, 200-220. 12 Cf. Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Psychopathia Sexualis: The Classic Study of Deviant Sex, trans. Franklin S. Klaff (New York: Arcade Publishing, 2011); Theodor Reik, Masochsm in Modern Man, trans. Margaret H. Beigel and Gertrud M. Kurth (Berlin: Klamper Press, 2013); Sigmund Freud, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, trans. James Strachey (New York: Basic Books, 2000). 13 Deleuze, Masochism and Cruelty: Venus in Fur, 103-10. 14 Studlar, In the Realm of Pleasure, 17. 15 Cf. O’Dell, Contract with the Skin. 16 Abramović frequently utilizes photographs of her parents in the background and reveals their double roles as her parents and as WWII heroes invested in socialist power structures. 17 http://www.mocp.org/detail.php?type=related&kv=8812&t=objects, accessed August 2014. 18 Cf. Eagleton, The Ideology of the Aesthetic, 196-232. 19 O’Dell, Contract with the Skin, 13. 20 Cf. Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, trans. Helene Iswolsky (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009). 21 Caroline Bynum discusses self-mutilation from a medievalist perspective as a means of rapprochement between the individual and the sanctity of Christ’s body standing for the authority they try to reach. Medieval history records many instances of body manipulation and willing mutilation for religious goals, most of them performed by women, who are in patriarchal societies generally inclined to consider their bodies as “impure.” The only way to elevate them to purity is through spilling their own blood. Caroline Walker Bynum, “The Female Body and Religious Practice,” 175. 22 Cf. Smith, “Action Movie Hysteria,” 100-103. 23 Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom, 31. 24 Foucault, “Subject and Power”, 342. 25 Pavlensky likewise describes his actions as provocations: “My objective is to create a particular situation, using only minimal components... The government tries to make society and the individual into objects of their authority, to objectify them. My goal is to create situations which pull the governing bodies into it and objectifies them, when they intervene and develop the action, at the point when I am already not doing anything.”http://www.dazeddigital. com/artsandculture/article/22278/1/earlobe-slicing-artist-petr-pavlensky-i-feel-excellent. Accessed October 2014. 26 Silverman, 198. 27 Silverman, 197. 28 Community that arises from death (of another) has been extensively discussed by Georges Bataille and subsequently by Jean-Luc Nancy.

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29 Interrogation, 115. 30 Maglinis, Interrogation, 120. 31 Maglinis, Interrogation, 108.

References Braidotti, Rosi, 2002 Metamorphoses: Towards a Materialist Theory of Becoming. Cambridge: Polity Press. Byers, Elizabeth Schreiber, 2011 “The Politics of Power: Masochism and Enlightenment Political Theory” Figurationen 11.1, 101-111. Bynum, Caroline Walke, 1989 “The Female Body and Religious Practice.” In Fragments for a History of the Human Body, edited by Michel Feher, Vol. 1. New York: Zone, 160-219. Deleuze, Gilles, 1989 Masochism: Coldness and Cruelty: Venus in Fur. Translated by Jean McNeil and Aude Willm. New York: Zone Books. Eagleton, Terry, 1990 The Ideology of the Aesthetic. Oxford: Blackwell. Foucault, Michel, 1977a Language, Counter-Memory, Practice. Translated by Donald F. Bouchard. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. ______, 1977b Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by Alan Sheridan. London: Allen Lane. ______, 2000 “Subject and Power.” In Power: Essential Works of Michel Foucault 1954-1984, vol. 3. Translated by Robert Hurley and others. New York: The New Press, 326-348. Fromm, Erich, 1965 Escape from Freedom. New York: Henry Hold and Co. LLC. Jones, Amelia, 1998 Body Art: Performing the Subject. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Lanzmann, Claude, 1995 “The Obscenity of Understanding: An Evening with Claude Lanzmann.” In Trauma: Explorations in Memory. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 200-220. Maglinis, Elias , 2013 The Interrogation. Translated by Patricia Barbeito. Birmingham: University of Birmingham. Nancy, Jean-Luc, 1991 The Inoperative Community. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. O’Dell, Kathy, 1998 Contract With the Skin: Masochism, Performance Art and the 1970s. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Salecl, Renata, 2001 “Cut in the Body: From Clitoridectomy to Body Art.” In Thinking Through the Skin, edited by Sara Ahmed and Jackie Stacey. New York: Routledge, 21-35. Scarry, Elaine, 1985 The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.

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Silverman, Kaja , 1992 Male Subjectivity at the Margins. New York: Routledge. Smith, Paul, 1989 “Action Movie Histeria, Or Eastwood Bound.” Differences:A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies: 1.3, 88-107. Studlar, Gaylyn, 1988 In the Realm of Pleasure: Von Sternberg, Dietrich, and the Masochistic Aesthetic. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Williams, Caroline , 2002 “Ideology and Imaginary: Returning to Althusser.” In Ideology after Poststructuralism, edited by Siniša Malešević and Iain MacKenzie. London: Pluto Press.

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Anthony Dracopoulos University of Sydney

Η Περιπέτεια του Αντρέα Κορδοπάτη και ο Ενδιάμεσος Χώρος του Θανάση Βαλτινού The Adventure of Andreas Kordopatis and the Interstitial Space of Thenanis Valtinos

Abstract Through the creative manipulation of textual formulations which belong neither to the sphere of literature nor to the sphere of narrative, Thana- sis Valtinos’ prose constructs a space between fiction and reality. This paper explores Valtinos’ unusual forms of representation by examining the “Synax- ari of Andreas Kordopatis”. It argues that the “in-between” space facilitates the co-presence of two voices: the character who wants to bring his experience to the realm of language and the writer who wants to capture the tone of the character’s voice. Both voices find their articulation in a single form which is congruent to the to their aspirations. As the interstitial experience of the character designates a space between desire and fulfilment that fires up hope and the potentiality of dreaming, so Valtinos’ narrative becomes “foreign” to literature in order to question ordinary views on perception and representation and to give voice to the experience of anonymity.

1. Η αναζήτηση μορφών Διακριτικό γνώρισμα της γραφής του Θανάση Βαλτινού είναι η αφηγηματική εκμετάλλευση μορφών που προβληματοποιούν τη σχέση λογοτεχνίας και πραγματικότητας. Αυτό επιτυγχάνεται με την οικοδόμηση της αφήγησης σε δάνειες ή «εξω-λογοτεχνικές» δομές, όπως για παράδειγμα, το ενημερωτικό φυλλάδιο μιας ηλεκτρικής

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συσκευής, αγγελίες εφημερίδων, ημερολογιακές εγγραφές, επιστολές σε άτομα, οργανισμούς, ή εφημερίδες, πραγματικά ή «κατασκευασμένα» ειδησιογραφικά δελτία, ειδήσεις ξεσηκωμένες από στήλες εφημερίδων, τα πρακτικά μιας δίκης, προφορικές μαρτυρίες των ανθρώπων που έζησαν τα γεγονότα της ιστορίας που αφηγούνται κ.α. Η χρήση κειμενικών σχημάτων, που δεν ανήκουν στη σφαίρα του «λογοτεχνικού», ενίοτε μάλιστα ούτε καν στη σφαίρα του «αφηγηματικού», συνεργεί εντούτοις στην ανάδυση μιας ολοκληρωμένης ιστορίας. Η ιστορία, όμως, αυτή αποδίδεται με τέτοιο τρόπο που είναι δύσκολο να εξακριβωθεί που τελειώνει το «ντοκουμέντο» ή η προσωπική αφήγηση του ήρωα και που αρχίζει η παρουσία του συγγραφέα, που σταματά η αναφορά στην πραγματικότητα και που ξεκινά η μυθοπλασία. Ο Βαλτινός, ωστόσο, φαίνεται να επιδιώκει αυτή τη συσκότιση. Αντί να αποσιωπεί την καταγωγή τους ή να την βάζει στο περιθώριο, επιμένει να την υπογραμμίζει. Παρεμβαίνει με σημειώματα σε καίρια σημεία των έργων του για να μας θυμίσει ή για να τονίσει πως πρόκειται για πραγματικά ντοκουμέντα, δίνοντας έτσι την εντύπωση πως συρράπτει το πρωτογενές υλικό ενός αφηγήματος, χωρίς όμως να φτιάχνει αυτό το αφήγημα. Όλα αυτά έχουν προφανείς συνέπειες στην ειδολογική κατάταξη του έργου του. Τι ακριβώς είναι αυτό που γράφει ο Βαλτινός και σε ποιο λογοτεχνικό είδος ανήκουν οι αφηγήσεις του; Τα ερωτήματα αυτά επιτείνονται ιδιαίτερα στις περιπτώσεις εκείνες στις οποίες ο συγγραφέας επιμένει να αποκαλεί μυθιστορήματα, «κείμενα» που, είτε εξαιτίας του μεγέθους τους είτε εξαιτίας της μορφής τους, δεν εγγράφονται εύκολα σ’ αυτό που έχουμε συνηθίσει να αποκαλούμε μυθιστόρημα. Ο Σταύρος Ζουμπουλάκης, υπεύθυνος της έκδοσης του Ανάπλου, ενός κατά τα φαινόμενα αυτοβιογραφικού αφηγήματος που αρθρώνεται με τη μορφή συνέντευξης, καταγράφει με τον ακόλουθο τρόπο την εμπειρία του με την επιμονή του Βαλτινού: Όταν ο Θανάτης Βαλτινός μου παρέδωσε τον Ανάπλου για πρώτη ανάγνωση και, εννοείται, προς έκδοση, χωρίς μάλιστα να είναι καλά καλά τελειωμένος (έλειπαν οι τελευταίες σελίδες), ήταν κατηγορηματικός: «Αυτή τη φορά θα γράψουμε από κάτω

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‘μυθιστόρημα’.». Το «αυτή τη φορά» πήγαινε στη δική μου απροθυμία, την προηγούμενη φορά, κατά την έκδοση δηλαδή του Τελευταίου Βαρλάμη, να αναγραφεί ο χαρακτηρισμός αυτός κάτω από τον τίτλο, η οποία οφειλόταν κατά κύριο λόγο στην έκταση του: η πρώτη δημοσίευση στη Νέα Εστία έπιανε 22 σελίδες όλες κι όλες – πώς να το πεις μυθιστόρημα αυτό; Η δήλωση πάντως ήταν κατηγορηματική και οι υπομνήσεις, όσο ετοιμαζόταν η έκδοση, συνεχείς, μη τυχόν και ξεχαστεί η λέξη «μυθιστόρημα», όπως είχε γίνει με τα Στοιχεία για τη Δεκαετία του ’60, ενώ είχε μπει κανονικά στα Τρία Ελληνικά Μονόπρακτα και την Ορθοκωστά.1 Τόσο από αυτή τη μαρτυρία όσο και από τα κείμενα του ίδιου του Βαλτινού είναι φανερό πως η επιμονή του δεν είναι τυχαία. Αντίθετα, συνιστά μόνιμη φιλοδοξία και επιδίωξη που διαπερνά το έργο του και διακρίνει την παρουσία του. Τα ασυνήθιστα μορφικά στοιχεία στα οποία επενδύει τις αφηγήσεις του και οι μορφικές καινοτομίες που επιχειρεί να εγγράψει στο μυθιστορηματικό ή αφηγηματικό είδος δεν έχουν, βέβαια, ως στόχο τους να αμφισβητήσουν την υπόσταση της πραγματικότητας ή να την παρουσιάσουν τροποποιημένη. Αντίθετα, την προϋποθέτουν και την ανακαλούν συνεχώς. Ο τρόπος άλλωστε με τον οποίο συνήθως δομείται το έργο του παραπέμπει σε τρεις διαφορετικές νοηματικές επιστρωματώσεις που παρουσιάζουν αναλογίες με την πλατωνική αντιμετώπιση της πραγματικότητας και της καλλιτεχνικής αναπαράστασής της. Τηρουμένων των αναλογιών και των επιμέρους διαφορών, στα έργα του διακρίνουμε: α) τη δεδομένη πραγματικότητα που βρίσκεται πίσω από την αφήγηση, β) μια προσωπική αφήγηση ή ένα ντοκουμέντο για αυτήν την πραγματικότητα και τέλος γ) τη λογοτεχνική απόδοση ή αναπαράστασή της. Το ζήτημα στο οποίο παραπέμπουν οι μορφικές καινοτομίες του Βαλτινού αφορά κυρίως στη σύλληψη και την αναπαράσταση της πραγματικότητας. Η γραφή του μας προτρέπει να προβληματιστούμε τόσο για το περιεχόμενο της πραγματικότητας όσο και για τους τρόπους στους οποίους στηριζόμαστε για να την γνωρίσουμε και να μιλήσουμε για αυτήν και κατ’ επέκταση για τη φύση κάθε αναπαράστασης. Πριμοδοτώντας το πρωτογενές υλικό ενός λογοτεχνικού έργου στο οποίο στηρίζεται μια αφήγηση, μας καλεί

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να αναρωτηθούμε για τη θέση που μπορεί να έχει το υλικό αυτό στην αναπαράστασή του και συνάμα αν είναι δυνατόν να αποδοθεί μια ιστορία με τρόπους διαφορετικούς από αυτούς που έχουμε συνηθίσει να χρησιμοποιούμε. Ενώ τέλος οι μορφικές καινοτομίες, συμπεριλαμβανομένης και της έκτασης κάθε αφήγησης, ανακινούν ερωτήματα που αφορούν στην ειδολογική οριοθέτηση της αφήγησης ως αφήγησης και του μυθιστορήματος ως μυθιστόρημα. Από όλα αυτά γίνεται φανερό ότι οι επιδιώξεις, αλλά και το ρίσκο, του Βαλτινού δεν απορρέουν απλώς και μόνο από τη φιλοδοξία ενός καλλιτέχνη να ξεφεύγει από το συνηθισμένο. Η προσπάθειά του να αποδώσει μια ιστορία με τρόπο που να αποφεύγει να είναι πάλι «μια μερίδα από τα ίδια»3, φαίνεται να συνδέεται με μια γνήσια προβληματική για τη σύλληψη και την αναπαράσταση του πραγματικού. Η επίμονη αναζήτηση νέων μορφών παραπέμπει στην καχυποψία και στο σκεπτικισμό απέναντι σε παραδοσιακές μορφές αφήγησης, που συχνά δίνουν την εντύπωση ότι μια ιστορία είναι έτσι όπως την παρουσιάζουν. Από τη στιγμή που όλοι οι αφηγητές, ιδιαίτερα όσοι φιλοδοξούν να μιλήσουν για πράγματα που έζησαν ή να συλλάβουν και να αποδώσουν την τρέχουσα ή την πρόσφατη ιστορία, δεν είναι ανεξάρτητοι από την ιδεολογία τους, ούτε είναι σε θέση να γνωρίζουν την όλη πραγματικότητα, ο μόνος ίσως τρόπος να μιλήσουν για αυτήν είναι να καταφύγουν σε μικροϊστορίες και σε προσωπικές αφηγήσεις, ή ακόμη να ανακαλούν συνεχώς το πρωτογενές υλικό από το οποίο αντλούν την ιστορία τους. Για τον Βαλτινό, φαίνεται πως δεν υπάρχει ένα προνομιακό σημείο από το οποίο να δούμε τα πράγματα, μια ιστορία ή ένα επεισόδιο, όπως ακριβώς πραγματικά είναι. Γι’ αυτό ίσως μια επιλογή είναι να αφήσει κανείς τα ίδια τα πράγματα να μιλήσουν από μόνα τους, ακόμη κι αν αυτά είναι βουτηγμένα στη μυθοπλασία. Μια δεύτερη επιλογή είναι να αφηγηθεί μια ιστορία και παράλληλα να παραπέμψει στην κατασκευή της, υποδηλώνοντας έτσι τα προβλήματα που εγκυμονούν σε κάθε αναπαράσταση. Η αναζήτηση νέων μορφών που προβληματοποιούν τη σχέση τέχνης και πραγματικότητας δεν αποτελεί βέβαια νέο φαινόμενο, ούτε συνιστά ανακάλυψη του Βαλτινού. Συνδέεται άμεσα με τη μετα-νεωτερική δυσπιστία για το αληθές και συγγενεύει με ανάλογα

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ζητήματα που αναδύονται από τις μετα-νεωτερικές αφηγήσεις.4 Η πλαισιοθέτηση αυτή βοηθά σε κάποιο βαθμό να κατανοήσουμε την ευρύτερη προοπτική στην οποία λειτουργεί το έργο του. Ωστόσο, δεν εξηγεί τη σχέση του περιεχομένου της αφήγησης κα της μορφής που υιοθετείται για να αποδοθεί αυτή η αφήγηση. Τι καθοδηγεί την επιλογή των συγκεκριμένων μορφών που και όχι κάποιων άλλων; και πως επιλέγεται η μορφή στην οποία επενδύεται η εκάστοτε αφήγηση; Αυτά τα ερωτήματα σκοπεύουμε να αντιμετωπίσουμε στη συνέχεια, εξετάζοντας Το Συναξάρι του Αντρέα Κορδοπάτη, ένα από τα πρώτα έργα του Βαλτινού, στο οποίο ίσως βρίσκονται οι καταβολές της προοπτικής του.

2. Το Συναξάρι Το Συναξάρι εξιστορεί το χρονικό των αποτυχημένων προσπαθειών του Αντρέα Κορδοπάτη, ενός υπαρκτού προσώπου, να μεταναστεύσει στην Αμερική κατά τις αρχές του 20ου αιώνα. Παρακινημένος από την ανέχεια, την οικονομική και κοινωνική αστάθεια, αλλά και τη μαζική μετανάστευση που ξεκινά εκείνη την περίοδο, ο ήρωας της ιστορίας αποπειράται να μεταναστεύσει τέσσερις φορές. Κάθε φορά όμως αποτυγχάνει να περάσει τον απαιτούμενο υγειονομικό έλεγχο. Κατά την τελευταία προσπάθειά του, μετά από πολλές ταλαιπωρίες και κακουχίες, φτάνει, μαζί με χιλιάδες άλλους μετανάστες από την νοτιο-ανατολική κυρίως Ευρώπη, στην Αμερική. Πάλι όμως απορρίπτεται από τις αρχές. Αυτή τη φορά, ωστόσο, αποφασίζει να παραμείνει παράνομα. Παραμένει έτσι στην Αμερική με τη βοήθεια των αδερφών του που είναι ήδη εκεί, από τον Νοέμβριο του 1907 μέχρι τον Ιούνιο του 1910, έξι περίπου μήνες λιγότερο από ό,τι απαιτείται για να πάρει άδεια παραμονής. Το μεγαλύτερο μέρος της ιστορίας αφιερώνεται σ’ αυτό το διάστημα και ειδικότερα στις περιπέτειες του Κορδοπάτη ως παράνομου μετανάστη που αναγκάζεται να ματακινείται συνεχώς από πόλη σε πόλη για να αποφύγει τον εντοπισμό του και την απέλασή του από τις αρχές. Η ιστορία του Κορδοπάτη είναι επομένως μια αποτυχημένη προσπάθεια επανεστίασης. Ο Βαλτινός αποφασίζει έτσι να αφηγηθεί μια ιστορία που αντιβαίνει τις στερεότυπες κοινοτοπίες για τη

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μετανάστευση. Δεν έχουμε εδώ την επιτυχή ιστορία ενός ανθρώπου που εγκαθίσταται σε μια άλλη χώρα και κατορθώνει να ξεκινήσει μια νέα ζωή μακριά από την ανέχεια, ούτε ενός ανθρώπου που επιστρέφει ευκατάστατος στον τόπο του. Αλλά, την ιστορία ενός ανθρώπου που περνά αφάνταστες δυσκολίες στην προσπάθειά του να μεταναστεύσει και που στο τέλος γυρνά πίσω στο τόπο του με λιγοστά υλικά αγαθά - τεκμήρια της περιπέτειάς του - από τα οποία το σημαντικότερο ίσως είναι η ίδια η ιστορία του. Αυτός είναι ίσως ένας από τους λόγους για τους οποίους ο Βαλτινός επιλέγει να βάλει τον ίδιο τον Κορδοπάτη να αφηγηθεί την ιστορία του. Πέρα από το ακόλουθο σημείωμα που παρατίθεται στην αρχή του σύντομου αυτού βιβλίου, η φωνή και η παρουσία του Βαλτινού φαινομενικά τουλάχιστον αποσύρρονται στο παρασκήνιο: Ο Αντρέας Κορδοπάτης [γράφει ο Βαλτινός το 1964] ζει στο χωριό Δάρα Μαντινείας. Κοντεύει τώρα ενενήντα πέντε χρόνων. Τα περιστατικά που ακολουθούν, είναι ένα κομμάτι από τη ζωή του. Μερικά τα είχε γράψει ο ίδιος, άλλα μου τα διηγήθηκε. Αυτό στάθηκε το πρώτο υλικό. Ξανάφτιαξα την ιστορία από την αρχή, φροντίζοντας να διατηρηθεί το ύφος και η απλότητα της κουβέντας του. Αλλαγές στα γεγονότα έγιναν ελάχιστες, κυρίως σε σημεία που ήσαν απαραίτητες για λόγους τεχνικούς.5 Όλη, λοιπόν, η ιστορία αποδίδεται από τη φωνή και την οπτική γωνία του Κορδοπάτη, δίνοντας την εντύπωση πως ο Κορδοπάτης είναι ο συγγραφέας του κειμένου. Το ότι ο Βαλτινός στηρίζεται στο υλικό μιας πραγματικής ιστορίας και ότι επιφέρει ελάχιστες αλλαγές στα «γεγονότα» δεν είναι βέβαια ταυτόσημο με την απλή καταγραφή της ιστορίας. Όπως επίσης το ότι βάζει ένα πραγματικό πρόσωπο να αφηγείται την ιστορία του δεν σημαίνει ότι ο Βαλτινός λειτουργεί απλώς ως αντι-γραφέας. Κι αυτό γιατί υπάρχει μια τεράστια διαφορά ανάμεσα στο βίωμα των γεγονότων και στην αφήγηση του βιώματος ακόμη κι αν το πρόσωπο που έζησε τα γεγονότα είναι ίδιο με αυτό που τα αφηγείται. Το βίωμα δεν είναι η γλώσσα, αν και πολλά πράγματα μπορούν να βιωθούν ή να αναβιωθούν μέσω της γλώσσας. Από τη στιγμή, ωστόσο, που ο Βαλτινός αποφασίζει να φτιάξει την ιστορία με αυτόν τον τρόπο, και όχι αποδίδοντάς τη σε μια συνηθισμένη «κλασική» αφήγηση, η πρόκληση που αντιμετωπίζει

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είναι να διατηρήσει τον προφορικό τόνο της αφήγησης και συνεπώς ζωντανή την ψευδαίσθηση ότι όντως ο Κορδοπάτης είναι ο αφηγητής της ιστορίας. Δεν έχει άλλη επιλογή παρά να φτιάξει μια λιττή και απέριττη αφήγηση, ανάλογη των δημοτικών τραγουδιών, εστιάζοντας στα κύρια περιστατικά των τεσσάρων δρομολογίων του ήρωά του. Έτσι, μολονότι η ιστορία στηρίζεται σε ένα πραγματικό πρόσωπο και σε πραγματικές εμπειρίες, δεν παύει να είναι μια ιστορία, που, όπως όλες οι ιστορίες που έρχονται στο πεδίο της γλώσσας, αποδίδεται με μυθοπλαστικό τρόπο. Χρήσιμα από αυτή την προοπτική είναι όσα μας πληροφορεί η Ι. Κλεφτογιάννη από συνομιλία της με τον Βαλτινό: Ο Κορδοπάτης ήταν θείος συμμαθητή του. Τον γνώρισε όταν είχε πατήσει ήδη τα 80 του. «Ηταν ωραίος τύπος. Βάλανε τον συμ- μαθητή μου κι έγραψε σε μια λαϊκοκαθαρεύουσα πέντ’-έξι σελίδες τα απομνημονεύματά του. Τα διαβάζαμε και σπάγαμε πλάκα». Οι σελί- δες αυτές είχανε μείνει στα κιτάπια του. Και όταν τυχαία ο Βαλτινός τα ξαναβρήκε, σκέφτηκε «τι ωραίο θέμα είναι η μετανάστευση και δη στο πρώτο κύμα της». Ετσι πήγε και βρήκε τον γερο-Κορδοπάτη, ο οποίος «έγραφε με το μυαλό. Θυμόταν τα πάντα». Ο Βαλτινός κρά- τησε σαν αρχή του κατά τη συγγραφή του «Συναξαριού» «τη λιτότη- τα της αφήγησης». Και μας παρέδωσε έναν απαστράπτοντα, καθάριο προφορικό λαϊκό λόγο. «Παρ’ όλο που δεν υπάρχει προφορικός λόγος όταν κάτι είναι γραπτό. Διότι ναι μεν είναι λαϊκός λόγος, αλλά είναι επεξεργασμένος, έντεχνος».6 Πρόκειται επομένως για μια ιστορία που βρίσκεται ή που θέλει να δώσει την εντύπωση πως βρίσκεται ανάμεσα στην πραγματικότητα και στη μυθοπλασία. Εκεί όπου συναντιώνται οι δύο αφηγητές - ο Κορδοπάτης που αφηγείται την ιστορία και ο Βαλτινός που βρίσκεται συνεχώς πίσω του. Ο ένας θέλει να φέρει τις εμπειρίες του στο πεδίο της γλώσσας, ενώ ο άλλος θέλει να δώσει φωνή στον ίδιο τον Κορδοπάτη και συνεπώς να φέρει στη γλώσσα τον προφορικό τόνο της φωνής του. Θα υποστηρίζαμε μάλιστα πως ο Βαλτινός δεν θέλει κάν να αναπαραστήσει την ιστορία, τον ήρωα και τις εμπειρίες του, αλλά τη φωνή του ήρωα. Γι’ αυτό βάζει τον ίδιο τον Κορδοπάτη να αφηγηθεί την ιστορία του. Η φωνή του Κορδοπάτη αναπόφευκτα προσθέτει στην αληθοφάνεια και στη γνησιότητα της αφήγησης,

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ενώ παράλληλα γίνεται η αντιπροσωπευτική φωνή χιλιάδων άλλων μεταναστών. Μέσα από αυτήν ακούγεται μια ευρύτερη συλλογική εμπειρία και αναδύεται ενδεικτικά το κλίμα μιας ολόκληρης εποχής. Κατά συνέπεια, η συγκεκριμένη μορφή σε συνδυασμό με το σημείωμα του συγγραφέα στην αρχή του βιβλίου παίζουν λειτουργικό ρόλο στην αφήγηση ακριβώς επειδή τοποθετούν την ιστορία σε ένα πεδίο ανάμεσα στη μυθοπλασία και στην πραγματικότητα. Για να διερευνήσουμε όμως περαιτέρω αυτό το πεδίο χρειάζεται να σταθούμε περισσότερο στην ιστορία του Κορδοπάτη, ξεκινώντας από την απόφασή του να μεταναστεύσει.

3. Η απόφαση του Κορδοπάτη και η νέα υπαρξιακή ζώνη Ο Κορδοπάτης αποφασίζει να μεταναστεύσει για λόγους που δεν προκαλούν έκπληξη: κοινωνική και οικονομική αστάθεια που καθιστούν αδύνατες τις όποιες προσπάθειες για βιώσιμες οικογενειακές επιχειρήσεις, καταστροφές από φυσικά φαινόμενα, ο πόλεμος του ‘97. Ο φυσικός του χώρος είναι ένας τόπος που δεν του προσφέρει ούτε ασφάλεια, ούτε ευκαιρίες, αλλά ούτε τη δυνατότητα να πραγματοποιήσει τα όνειρά του. Κάθε ένα νέο ξεκίνημα, κάθε όνειρο και κάθε προσπάθεια υλοποίησής του διαγράφουν μια τροχιά που τον επιστρέφει σε εκείνο που ήταν πριν το ξεκίνημα. Παραμένει έτσι ένας άνθρωπος χωρίς προοπτική, χωρίς κατεύθυνση και χωρίς κέντρο, ένας άνθρωπος ανέστιος, όντας στον τόπο του. Ο τόπος του είναι ένας τόπος που δεν του επιτρέπει να ξεδιπλώσει τα όνειρά του και συνεπώς ένας τόπος που δεν του προσφέρει τη δυνατότητα να διεκδικήσει το είναι του. Όπως κάθε επιθυμία, έτσι και η επιθυμία της μετοικεσίας ξεκινά κι εδώ από μια έλλειψη ή από μια στέρηση. Πίσω όμως από την απόφαση δεν βρίσκεται απλώς και μόνο η δυσκολία της επιβίωσης, αλλά κάτι πιο ουσιαστικό που κινητοποιεί κάθε ύπαρξη, η δυνατότητα του ονείρου. Το όνειρο είναι προϋπόθεση ύπαρξης και η ανεστιότητα προϋπόθεση για τη διεκδίκησή του. Η απόφαση του Κορδοπάτη στηρίζεται έτσι στην ελπίδα πως υπάρχει κάπου αλλού ένας χώρος στον οποίο κάτι τέτοιο είναι πιθανό. Πρόκειται για μια ελπίδα που τροφοδοτείται από τυχαίες ειδήσεις, φήμες και προσωπικές μαρτυρίες� και αναδύεται από την ανάγκη να διοχετευθεί

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η ενέργεια ενός νέου ανθρώπου που πιστεύει πως μπορεί να φτιάξει και να γίνει. Αβάσιμη ή όχι δίνει πρόσβαση στη δυνητικότητα του ονείρου. Γι αυτό κυρίως, ο Κορδοπάτης, όπως και κάθε μετανάστης, αγκαλιάζει την αβεβαιότητα ενός άγνωστου χώρου. Ο χώρος αυτός παραμένει βέβαια για την ώρα μια υπόσχεση, μια αφηρημένη εικόνα χωρίς συγκεκριμένα χαρακτηριστικά. Παρ’ όλα αυτά, η άγνοια και η τυφλότητα που τον συνοδεύουν δεν αποτελούν τροχοπέδη, αλλά τροφή της ελπίδας. Από τη στιγμή που αποφασίζει να φύγει, ο Κορδοπάτης εισέρχεται σταδιακά σε μια άλλη υπαρξιακή ζώνη στην οποία κυριαρχεί ο μέλλοντας χρόνος. Η ζωή του αποκτά νόημα και προοπτική. Τώρα, μπορεί να σκεφτεί και να ονειρευτεί το μέλλον. Η ενικότητα της προηγούμενης ύπαρξής του δίνει έτσι τη θέση της σε μια σειρά χρονικών αλλά και χωρικών εντάσεων. Ο κόσμος του χωρίζεται ανάμεσα στο εδώ και στο εκεί, στο παρόν και στο μέλλον, στην πραγματικότητα και στην επιθυμία της επανεστίασης, στο χώρο που βρίσκεται και στο χώρο που θα ήθελε να είναι, στο πεδίο που κινείται το σώμα του και στο φαντασιακό πεδίο που κατοικεί ο νους του. Στο πλαίσιο αυτών των διχοτομιών, όλα μένουν στην άκρη για να προετοιμάσουν εκείνο που δεν έχει έρθει ακόμη. Η ζωή στο εδώ, όπως γίνεται φανερό από το ακόλουθο χωρίο, τίθεται σε αναμονή. Η μάνα μου με έβλεπε που είχα βάλει το κεφάλι κάτω να φύγω και στενοχωριόταν. Δεν ήθελε να ξενιτευτώ. Και τότε σκέφτηκε να με παντρέψει. Έβαλε μια αδερφή της να μου το πει. Ήταν ένα ωραίο παχουλό κορίτσι, χαρούμενο. Μου έπεσε η θειά μου από κοντά, να τα φτιάξουμε να την πάρω. Της λέω δεν γίνεται τίποτα. Το κορμί μου με παίδευε [,] δεν την άντεχα τη μοναξιά. Αλλά είχα άλλα στο νου μου. (σ. 37)

4. Η εμπειρία του ενδιάμεσου χώρου Αυτή η ενδιάμεση κατάσταση επιτείνεται όταν πλέον ο Κορδοπάτης ξεκινά το ταξίδι για την Αμερική. Ήδη στο πλοίο βρίσκεται ανάμεσα σε διαφορετικές εθνικότητες με κοινή μοίρα, αλλά με διαφορετικές αντιλήψεις και αξίες, διαφορετικές πολιτισμικές και θρησκευτικές πρακτικές, διαφορετικές διατροφικές συνήθειες και γλώσσες. «Ήμαστουν», γράφει, «κοντά τρεις χιλιάδες

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από διάφορες φυλές: Έλληνες, Βούλγαροι, Αλβανοί, Τούρκοι, Ρώσοι, Ρουμάνοι, Σέρβοι, Αυστριακοί.» (σ. 47). Από τη στιγμή που αρχίζει να ξεμακραίνει από την αρχική του εστία, παύει να κατοικεί στο πεδίο της τοπικής ομοιομορφίας. Εισέρχεται σε «ζώνες επαφών»� με άλλους πολιτισμούς και εκτείθεται συνεχώς σε διαφορετικές παραδόσεις. Άνθρωποι, οι οποίοι στο παρελθόν, εξαιτίας πολιτισμικών, γεωγραφικών και ιστορικών διαφορών έμεναν σε απόσταση ο ένας από τον άλλο, τώρα με τη μετανάστευση ακολουθούν πορείες που βρίσκουν σημεία επαφής. Τα σημεία αυτά διακρίνονται από πολιτισμικές μείξεις και συνεπώς συνιστούν περιοχές μεταμόρφωσης. Η προοπτική του Κορδοπάτη έτσι διευρύνεται. Η ιδιοσυστασία του, ο κόσμος του, αλλά και ο τρόπος που βλέπει τον εαυτό του αλλάζουν. Η προοπτική της μίας οπτικής γωνίας δίνει τη θέση της σε μια ποικιλία οπτικών γωνιών. Ο κόσμος του αρχίζει να ξεφεύγει από τα όρια του τοπικού και του εθνικού και γίνεται ένας κόσμος διασταυρώσεων με άλλους. Όπως είναι επόμενο, όταν καταφέρνει να ξεφύγει στην αμερικανική ενδοχώρα, οι αλλαγές που υφίσταται γίνονται ακόμη μεγαλύτερες. Τα ίχνη τους αποτυπώνονται κατ’ αρχήν στη γλώσσα του, που επίσης αρχίζει να κινείται σ’ έναν ενδιάμεσο χώρο: Ιταλιάνο; μου λέει. Νο, Γκρέκο, του λέω. Μπόνο Γκρέκο. Ιταλιάνο; τον ρωτάω. Γιες, μου λέει Μπόνο Ιταλιάνο, του λέω κι εγώ. Τον ρωτάω ύστερα, γκρικ σάλα, δωμάτιο ύπνου. Έκλαιγαν τα μάτια μου. Δεν μπορήγαμε να συνεννοηθούμε. (σελ. 59) Κάτι ανάλογο συμβαίνει και με την ταυτότητά του. Αναγκασμένος να παίζει κρυφτό με τις αρχές, σε κάθε πόλη που πηγαίνει, επιννοεί συνεχώς διαφορετικά ονόματα και υιοθετεί διαφορετικές ταυτότητες. Ο πραγματικός εαυτός του μένει στο περιθώριο. Έτσι, που στο τέλος γίνεται σχεδόν ο σωσίας της ταυτότητας που θέλει να αποκτήσει. Πήγαμε στο εργοστάσιο κι έγραψαν τα ονόματά μας. Εγώ έβαλα Τομ Κάλας, όχι Αντρέας Κορδοπάτης, γιατί με κυνηγούσαν οι

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κλητήρες, να χάσουν τα αχνάρια μου. Άλλαξα ονόματα και επίθετα πολλά. (σ. 93-94). Ίσως, όμως, τίποτε άλλο δεν φανερώνει περισσότερο το ενδιάμεσο πεδίο που κατοικεί ο Κορδοπάτης, κατά τη διάρκεια της παραμονής του στην Αμερική, όσο η εμπειρία του χώρου. Προσπαθώντας να αποφύγει το βλέμμα των αρχών, δεν έχει άλλη επιλογή παρά να μετακινείται συνεχώς. Ως παράνομος μετανάστης, ο κόσμος του γίνεται έτσι ο κόσμος της λαθραίας περιπλάνησης. Όταν αναλογισθούμε πως σε διάσημα δυόμισι ετών αλλάζει διαμονή δεκαοκτώ φορές8, ο χώρος, για τον Κορδοπάτη, είναι ένα πεδίο άφιξης και αναχώρησης. Ο προσανατολισμός του στο χώρο δεν έχει να κάνει με τη γεωγραφική θέση των πόλεων, αλλά με την ασφάλεια που αυτές μπορούν να προσφέρουν. Οι πόλεις υπάρχουν ως προσωρινοί σταθμοί. Είναι απλά σημεία στο χάρτη, που οδηγούν από τη μια προσωρινή εστία με την άλλη. Το πιο χαρακτηριστικό παράδειγμα αυτής της ανεστιότητας είναι όταν, σε κάποιο σημείο της περιπλάνησής του, χώρος διαμονής γίνεται ένα τραίνο - το κατ΄ εξοχήν ενδιάμεσο. Ζει, τρώει και κοιμάται εν κινήσει, σε μια εστία, που εξ ορισμού αντιβαίνει το νόημα της εστίας. Μέναμε σε βαγόνια επίτηδες για εργάτες. Μαγειρεύαμε μέσα, κοιμόμαστουν τo βράδυ κι όταν η εταιρεία είχε ανάγκη για άλλο μέ- ρος, μας έπαιρνε και μας κουβάλαγε τη νύχτα. Έτσι ξημερωθήκαμε και δουλέψαμε σε διάφορες πολιτείες: Σέντερ Πάρκ, Λόγγαν, Μπό- ζεμαν, Λίβινστιν. (σ. 89). Ο Κορδοπάτης αναγκάζεται έτσι να μετακινείται από πόλη σε πόλη, από εργασία σε εργασία, να μετακινείται στο χώρο και στο χρόνο. Το παράδοξο αυτής της εμπειρίας είναι ότι προσπαθεί να μην αφήσει ίχνη σε ένα χώρο που θέλει να κάνει δικό του. Επιθυμεί ένα σταθερό σημείο, για να μπορέσει να ανήκει, αλλά αυτή η επιθυμία τον ωθεί να μετακινείται. Έχουμε κι εδώ μια επανάληψη και μια επιστροφή σ΄ αυτό που ήταν. Ωστόσο, η επιστροφή, αντίθετα από ό,τι συνέβαινε στην αρχική του εστία, δεν οδηγεί στο ίδιο σημείο, αλλά σε έναν διαφορετικό χώρο και σε μια διαφορετική ταυτότητα. Ο χώρος, βέβαια, κρατά την υπόσχεση της μόνιμης εγκατάστασης, αλλά ακόμη δεν έχει επενδυθεί με μνήμες και δεν έχει δημιουργήσει δεσμούς για να γίνει τόπος. Κι εδώ ο Κορδοπάτης παραμένει ανέστιος.

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Σ’ αυτό το πλαίσιο συνεχούς κίνησης, το μόνο φαινομενικά σταθερό σημείο είναι οι συγγενείς και οι συχωριανοί του. Κάθε φορά που βρίσκεται σε μια νέα πόλη, το πρώτο πράγμα που αναζητά είναι άνθρωποι από το χωριό του. Από αυτούς η προσμονή υποστήριξης είναι αυθόρμητη και αυτονόητη. Αν δεν βρει τέτοιο στήριγμα, τότε η ακτίνα του κύκλου μεγαλώνει σε μια μεγαλύτερη νοητή επιφάνεια, πάντα όμως με κέντρο την αρχική του εστία. Η παρουσία αυτών των ανθρώπων συμβάλλει στη σταδιακή μετατροπή του χώρου σε τόπο. Με αυτούς υπάρχει μια αίσθηση του γνώριμου μέσα στο ανοίκειο, όχι μόνο λόγω κοινής καταγωγής και κοινών βιωμάτων, αλλά κυρίως λόγω της κοινής γλώσσας. Διαφορετικά μένει βουβός: «Ταξίδευα τριάμισι μερόνυχτα. Χωρίς φίλους, χωρίς Έλληνες να κουβεντιάζω, μόνος μου σα σακί δεμένο.» (σ. 74). Το οικείο γίνεται το αντίδοτο στην απειλή του άγνωστου. Μια δεύτερη ανθρώπινη παρουσία που συμβάλλει σ’ αυτή την αλλαγή είναι άλλοι μετανάστες. Παρά τις όποιες διαφορές τους, έχουμε εδώ μια σιωπηρή αναγνώριση συγγένειας. Η αποξένωση που μοιράζονται δημιουργεί μια αίσθηση συλλογικότητας η οποία προφανώς απορρέει από την αναζήτηση μιας νέας εστίας και τις εμπειρίες με τις οποίες συνδέεται αυτή η αναζήτηση. Μαζί τους μοιράζεται το βίωμα του ενδιάμεσου χώρου. Σε καταλαβαίνω γιατί έχω περάσει ή περνάω αυτά που περνάς. Σ’ αυτόν το καινούριο κόσμο, εκείνο που φέρνει τους ανθρώπους κοντά είναι η παραπλήσια γλώσσα μιας κοινής εμπειρίας, ακόμη κι όταν η γλώσσα αυτή βρίσκεται σε σπασμένες ή άναρθρες φράσεις. Η αίσθηση του χώρου καθορίζεται έτσι από σημεία ασφάλειας ανάμεσα σε ανθρώπους με κοινά σημεία και κοινές εμπειρίες. Με την πάροδο του χρόνου, παρά τις συνεχείς μετακινήσεις, μέσα από αυτά τα σημεία, ο χώρος αρχίζει να αποκτά μια οικειότητα γιατί πάνω του εγγράφονται εμπειρίες και μνήμες, συναντήσεις και διασταυρώσεις με ανθρώπους που είτε είναι δικοί του είτε μοιράζονται μαζί του παραπλήσιες εμπειρίες.

5. Η δυναμική του ενδιάμεσου χώρου Οι αντίξοες συνθήκες που συναντά στην Αμερική όχι μόνο δεν διαφέρουν από εκείνες που αντιμετώπιζε πριν φύγει από τον τόπο

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του, αλλά είναι ακόμη χειρότερες. Μετακινείται από πόλη σε πόλη, δυσκολεύεται να βρει εργασία, ζει ως φυγάς που έχει συνεχώς κατά νου να σβήνει τα ίχνη που αφήνει πίσω του. Σ’ όλα αυτά έρχεται να προστεθεί η οικονομική κρίση του 1908 που δυσχεραίνει ακόμη περισσότερο τα πράγματα. Παρ’ όλα αυτά ο Κορδοπάτης επιμένει, γιατί αρκετά πράγματα του δίνουν τώρα τη δύναμη να υπομείνει καταστάσεις που πριν δεν μπορούσε. Ο χώρος, ανάμεσα στην επιθυμία για μια καινούρια αρχή και στην πραγματικότητα που αντιμετωπίζει, διαμορφώνει ένα δυναμικό, ανοιχτό πεδίο απελευθερωμένο από τις αγκυλώσεις του παρελθόντος. Έχοντας αφήσει πίσω του τις συντεταγμένες της προγενέστερης ύπαρξής του και κατ’ επέκταση όλα όσα περιόριζαν το ξετύλιγμα του είναι του, βλέπει τώρα ότι, παρά τις τεράστιες δυσκολίες, αν επιμείνει μπορεί κάπου να φτάσει. Βασικό κίνητρο παραμένει η εκπλήρωση της τρίχρονης παραμονής που θα του εξασφαλίσει νόμιμη άδεια παραμονής. Κάθε μέρα που περνά, τον φέρνει πλησιέστερα σ’ αυτό το στόχο. Κι όσο κοντύτερα βρίσκεται σ΄ αυτόν, τόσο μεγαλύτερες είναι οι πιθανότητες της μόνιμης εγκατάστασής του. Η πρόκληση της επιτυχίας μέσα σε αντίξοες συνθήκες, ιδιαίτερα από τη στιγμή που αυτή εντάσσεται στο πεδίο της προσωρινότητας, αποτελεί ένα ακόμη κίνητρο. Η προσωρινότητα αποτελεί μια ανάπαυλα από τη δέσμευση. Απελευθερώνει από όλες τις έγνοιες, εκτός από τη δέσμευση της παραμονής. Όλα τώρα, συμπεριλαμβανομένης και της μόνιμης εγκατάστασης, βρίσκονται σε αναστολή. Χωρίς ρίζες στον τόπο και με το χρόνο να μην έχει βρει την κανονική του ροή, είναι πιο εύκολο να αφήνει το ένα για να κάνει το άλλο. Προσηλωμένος, έτσι, στο στόχο της μελλοντικής παραμονής, το παρόν αποτελεί ένα διάλειμμα ανάμεσα σ΄ ένα παρελθόν που δεν τον αφήνει να ονειρευτεί και σ΄ ένα μέλλον που υπάρχει ως υπόσχεση. Γι αυτό τώρα μπορεί να αντέξει όλες τις δοκιμασίες και να υπομείνει όλες τις αναποδιές. Από αυτή την προοπτική, οι αντιξοότητες λειτουργούν σαν μέσο για να αποκαλυφθούν δυνατότητες που ίσως ακόμη και ο ίδιος ο Κορδοπάτης δεν ήξερε ότι είχε. Αντίθετα, λοιπόν, από ό,τι θα περίμενε κανείς, η απουσία μιας μόνιμης εστίας δεν δηλώνει μόνο έλλειψη. Γεννά παράλληλα μια παράξενη ενέργεια που πυροδοτεί την ελπίδα και τη δυνατότητα του

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ονείρου. Το να βρεθεί κανείς ανάμεσα στην αφετηρία και στην άφιξη σημαίνει πως βρίσκεται μπροστά σ’ ένα αχαρτογράφητο πεδίο που προσφέρεται ως δυνατότητα εξερεύνησης και ανοίγει νέες προοπτικές ύπαρξης. Με βάση την εμπειρία του Κορδοπάτη, θα λέγαμε πως η μονιμότητα μιας κατοικίας παραπέμπει σε στάση, η έλλειψή της σε κίνηση. Γι’ αυτό το ενδιάμεσο, ένας χώρος ανάμεσα στην επιθυμία και την πλήρωση, είναι ένα ζωτικό πεδίο που δεν τροφοδοτεί απλώς και μόνο την υπόσχεση της ευζωίας, αλλά διατηρεί ζωντανό το ενδεχόμενο να ανακτήσει κανείς όλα όσα έχει χάσει, ακόμη και να ανακτήσει το είναι του. Σκιαγραφεί ένα χώρο, όπου η υπόσχεση της άφιξης πληροί την επιθυμία του «κατοικείν»9, περισσότερο ακόμη κι από τη μόνιμη κατοικία. Διαθέτει μια ανεξάντλητη δυναμική, γιατί συνεχώς καλεί το άτομο στη δυνητικότητα της ύπαρξης. Είναι ίσως ένας χώρος ανάλογος με αυτόν της παιδικής αθωότητας που πιστεύει πως μπορεί να πετύχει εκεί που η λογική του ενήλικα λέει πως είναι αδύνατο. Δεν θα ήταν επομένως υπερβολή να υποστηρίξουμε πως ο Κορδοπάτης είναι στο σπίτι του ακριβώς όταν βρίσκεται ανάμεσα, αφού εκεί η ελπίδα έχει στη διάθεσή της μια ενέργεια που δεν της την παρέχει η μονιμότητα της εγκατάστασης.

6. Το ενδιάμεσο της αφήγησης Για να φτάσεις πρέπει να κατοικήσεις εκείνο που δεν είναι ούτε εδώ ούτε εκεί. Το ενδιάμεσο είναι η προϋπόθεση της άφιξης. Ο Κορδοπάτης, όμως, δεν φτάνει πουθενά. Διαγράφει έναν κύκλο και γυρίζει εκεί από όπου ξεκίνησε. Όταν αρχίζει να νιώθει άνετα στο νέο χώρο φανερώνει το πραγματικό του όνομα, προδίδεται από συντοπίτες του, συλλαμβάνεται και απελαύνεται. Η εμπειρία του παραμένει η εμπειρία του ανάμεσα, όπως είναι η εμπειρία κάθε μετανάστη. Στην περίπτωσή του, όμως, όχι ανάμεσα σε δύο τόπους, όπως συνήθως συμβαίνει με έναν «τυπικό» μετανάστη, αλλά ανάμεσα στην αναχώρηση και στην άφιξη, στην επιθυμία για εγκατάσταση και στο χρόνο που η επιθυμία αυτή θα μπορέσει να γίνει πραγματικότητα. Το μάλλον μυθοπλαστικό κλείσμο του βιβλίου έρχεται να επιβεβαιώσει τη σημασία αυτού του ενδιάμεσου χώρου. Μετά την απέλασή του, στο δρόμο της επιστροφής προς το χωριό του, φτάνοντας πλέον στην Τρίπολη, ο Κορδοπάτης σχεδιάζει ήδη το επόμενο ταξίδι:

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Κατεβαίνω και πάω στο πραχτορείο Μαλούχου. Ήταν ένας νέος υπάλληλος. Του λέω: Σε έξι μήνες ειδοποίησέ με όταν έχει πλοίο. Και άφησα όνομα και σύσταση. (σ. 138). Από όλα αυτά γίνεται φανερό πως ο τρόπος με τον οποίο ο Βαλτινός αποδίδει την ιστορία δεν είναι τυχαίος. Δεν επιχειρεί απλώς να αφηγηθεί την ιστορία με έναν τρόπο που ξεφεύγει από τα συνηθισμένα. Διαμορφώνοντας έναν χώρο που βρίσκεται ανάμεσα στην προσωπική εξιστόρηση και στη μυθοπλασία, επιλέγει μια μορφή που ανταποκρίνεται στο ενδιάμεσο της εμπειρίας του Κορδοπάτη. Παράλληλα, η επιλογή του Βαλτινού έμμεσα παραπέμπει σε μια άλλη συνθήκη που βρίσκεται στο κέντρο κάθε αφήγησης, ιδιαίτερα μάλιστα όταν πρόκειται για την αφήγηση μιας πραγματικής εμπειρίας. Τη στιγμή που ο Κορδοπάτης αφηγείται την ιστορία του μετά από χρόνια είναι επόμενο ότι ιστορία αυτή είναι εμβολιασμένη με τη μυθοπλαστική εκδοχή που αθόρυβα της προσαρτεί η μνήμη. Θυμάται αυτά που ήταν σημαντικά για τον ίδιο και την επιβίωσή του μέσα στο πλαίσιο της αναδρομικής θεώρησής τους. Κατά συνέπεια, στην ιστορία του βρίσκονται ήδη συνυφασμένα η πραγματικότητα και η μυθοπλασία, τόσο από τα κενά που άφησε η μνήμη και τα γέμισε ο νους και η φαντασία, όσο και από τη σημασία που ο ίδιος απέδωσε στα γεγονότα που έζησε. Η ιστορία φτάνει έτσι στον Βαλτινό ήδη διαμεσολαβημένη από τη γλώσσα αλλά και από τη μνήμη. Γι’ αυτό ίσως ο πιο αποτελεσματικός τρόπος απόδοσης αυτής της ιστορίας είναι ακριβώς όπως αποδόθηκε, δηλαδή σαν ένα ανάμεσα στο πως την έζησε πραγματικά ο Κορδοπάτης και στο πως την έπλασε στο νου του. Το γεγονός, βέβαια, ότι το ίδιο το κείμενο αξιώνει πως βρίσκεται στα όρια της λογοτεχνίας και της προσωπικής εξιστόρησης ενός υπαρκτού προσώπου ενδέχεται να μας αποξενώνει ως αναγνώστες από το κείμενο ως λογοτεχνία. Γίνεται, κατά τρόπο ανάλογο με τον ήρωά του, ο ξένος της «τυπικής» λογοτεχνικής αφήγησης για να αποσταθεροποιήσει εκείνο που εκλαμβάνουμε ως δεδομένο και να μας βάλει να ξανασκεφτούμε κριτικά τις συνηθισμένες κοινοτοπίες περί μετανάστευσης. Όσο όμως μας αποξενώνει με τη μορφή του, τόσο μας ελκύει με τον προσωπικό τόνο και την προφορικότητα της αφήγησης. Ο αναγνώστης μπορεί να μην αισθάνεται σαν στο σπίτι του

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στο κείμενο του Βαλτινού, αισθάνεται όμως άνετα στην απλότητα και στην αμεσότητα της φωνής του Κορδοπάτη. Παρακολουθεί με συμπάθεια την περιπέτειά του, συμπάσχει με τα δεινά του και συγκινείται με την αγωνία του, γιατί είναι σαν να ακούει την περιπέτεια ενός δικού του ανθρώπου. Το κείμενο παρουσιάζεται ανοίκειο και οικείο ταυτόχρονα, σαν ένα ανάμεσα, όπως η εμπειρία του ίδιου του Κορδοπάτη. Δεν υπάρχει αμφιβολία ότι πίσω από την ιστορία του Κορδοπάτη βρίσκεται ένα υπαρκτό πρόσωπο και μια συγκεκριμένη πραγματικότητα. Τη στιγμή όμως που αυτή η πραγματικότητα έρχεται σε μας διαμεσολαβημένη από τη γλώσσα και τα απομεινάρια της μνήμης, η πρόσβασή μας σ’ αυτήν θα είναι πάντα προβληματική. Ο μόνος ίσως τρόπος με τον οποίο μπορούμε να τη γνωρίσουμε είναι μέσα από την υποκειμενική αντίληψη και το προσωπικό βίωμα. Για να γίνει αυτό, ο συγγραφέας πρέπει να αποσυρθεί στο παρασκήνιο, έτσι ώστε η ανώνυμη μονάδα να αποκτήσει φωνή και όνομα. Μια τέτοια αφήγηση κατορθώνει να αποφεύγει τη γενίκευση και ταυτόχρονα να την ανακαλεί. Συγχρόνως, δημιουργεί ένα πεδίο μέσα από το οποίο κοιτά λοξά και την πραγματικότητα και την αφήγηση, με αποτέλεσμα να τραβά τη ματιά μας τόσο στους τρόπους με τους οποίους μιλάμε γι’ αυτήν όσο και στους τρόπους με τους οποίους την επενδύουμε με νόημα. Όπως, λοιπόν, ο ενδιάμεσος χώρος του Κορδοπάτη κρατά ανοιχτή τη δυνατότητα του ονείρου, έτσι και ο ενδιάμεσος χώρος της αφήγησης του Βαλτινού ανοίγει τη δυνατότητα της γραφής στην εμπειρία και στο βίωμα, ενώ παράλληλα παραπέμπει στην προβληματική που συνοδεύει την αφήγησή τους. Η μυθοπλαστική «επένδυση» μιας πραγματικής ιστορίας συνιστά συνθήκη της ανθρώπινης ύπαρξης που συνδέεται άμεσα με το τρόπο που βιώνουμε αλλά και θυμόμαστε μια δεδομένη πραγματικότητα. Η αφήγηση της ιστορίας του Κορδοπάτη φαίνεται να στηρίζεται στην προβληματική αυτής της συνθήκης και συνάμα να αντανακλά στη δομή της την εμπειρία του ήρωα. Αν τούτο ισχύει για όλο το έργο του Βαλτινού συνιστά μια υπόθεση εργασίας που θα άξιζε να διευρευνηθεί περαιτέρω. Υπάρχουν, ωστόσο, αρκετά παραδείγματα από το έργο του Βαλτινού που παραπέμπουν σ’ αυτή τη συνθήκη. Εδώ περιοριζόμαστε να σημειώσουμε ότι κάτι ανάλογο γίνεται και

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στον Ανάπλου, το τελευταίο του βιβλίο, όπου η «μυθοπλαστική» αυτοβιογραφία του συγγραφέα δίνεται υπό τη μορφή συνέντευξης σε μια νεαρά ερευνήτρια. Το πρώτο μέρος του βιβλίου αναπαράγει μια πραγματική συνέντευξη, η οποία στη συνέχεια γίνεται η μορφή της αφήγησης με την οποία ο Βαλτινός αποδίδει μυθοπλαστικά τις καταβολές του έργου του. Η επιλογή κι εδώ δεν είναι τυχαία. Το περιεχόμενο της αφήγησης αναζητά μια κατάλληλη μορφή και τη βρίσκει στη συνέντευξη ενός γνωστού συγγραφέα.

Notes 1 Στ. Ζουμπουλάκης, «Αναπλέοντας προς τη Σκοτεινή Ρίζα», The Athens Review of Books, (Ιούνιος 2012), σ. 9. 2 Σε συνέντευξή του για το έργο Στοιχεία για τη Δεκαετία του ’60, ο Βαλτινός σημειώνει: «Στη Δεκαετία του ’60 έγινε μια εκμετάλλευση υπαρκτών πραγμάτων, αλλά ταυτόχρονα καιμια αναίρεσή τους, μια ανατροπή τους. Αυτός ο χώρος, ο ιστορικο - κοινωνικός, μιας εποχής δεν μπορούσε να αντιμετωπιστεί με άλλον τρόπο, διότι δε θα είχε νόημα πια. Το να κάνεις ένα κλασικότροπο μυθιστόρημα πάνω σ’ αυτή τη σημαντική δεκαετία θα οδηγούσε πιθανότατα, τουλάχιστον αυτοί ήταν οι δικοί μου φόβοι, πάλι σε μια μερίδα από τα ίδια. » στο «Μια συνομιλία με τον Σάββα Παύλου», περ. Ακτή, Έτος Β΄,Τεύχος 6, 1991, σ. 15. Η υπογράμμιση δική μας. 3 Βλ. λ.χ. Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1987, Fr. Jameson, Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, London & New York: Verso, 1991, L. Hucheon, A Poetics of Postmodernism. History, Theory, Fiction, New York & London: Routledge, 1988 και L. Hucheon, «The Politics of Parody.» The Politics of Postmodernism, New York: Routledge, 1989. 93-117. 4 Χρησιμοποιώ την έκδοση Θ. Βαλτινός, Συναξάρι Αντρέα Κορδοπάτη, Αθήνα: Άγρα, 1990, σ. 9. Στο εξής οι παραπομπές δίνονται εντός του κειμένου. Το Συναξάρι πρωτοδημοσιεύται σε συνέχειες στο περ. Ταχυδρόμος τον Ιανουάριο- Φεβρουάριο 1964. 5 Ι. Κλεφτογιάννη, “Η Ιστορία ενός Σύγχρονου Οδυσσέα”, Ελευθεροτυπία, 5 Νοεμ. 2011. Σε εισαγωγικά αποδίδονται τα λόγια του Βαλτινού. 6 Ο ακόλουθος διάλογος με έναν μετανάστη που επιστρέφει για λίγο στον τόπο του είναι χαρακτηριστικός του τρόπου με τον οποίο ο Κορδοπάτης συλλέγει πληροφορίες: Πως περνάγατε στην Αμερική; Πολύ καλά, ό,τι θέλαμε τρώγαμε. Φτηνά πράματα, ρούχα, παπούτσια. Το μεροκάματο; Άλλος δύο δολλάρια, άλλος ένα κ’ εβδομήντα πέντε, άλλος ενάμισι. Δουλειές πολλές; Πολλές. Γραμμές, μίνες για το χρυσό, για κάρβουνο και άλλες. (σ. 24)

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7 M. L. Pratt, «Arts of the Contact Zone», Profession, (1991), σ. 33–40. 8 Νέα Ορλεάνη - Σανλαίκι Σίτι - Ποκατέλο - Νάμπα Αϊντάχο - Βόισενς Αϊντάχο - Ποκατέλο - Μπιούτη Μοντάνα - Σέντερ Παρκ - Λόγγαν - Μπόζεμαν - Λίβινστιν - Μισούλα - Σαν Ρίτζι - Μισούλα - Μπιούτη Μοντάνα - Ποκατέλο - Νέα Υόρκη. 9 Βλ. M. Heidegger, «Building Dwelling Thinking», Poetry, Language Thought, (μετ. A. Hofstadter), New York: Harper Perennial, 2001, 141-159.

Refernces Βαλτινός, Θ., Συναξάρι Αντρέα Κορδοπάτη, Αθήνα: Άγρα, 1990. Βαλτινός, Θ., “Μια συνομιλία με τον Σάββα Παύλου”, περ. Ακτή, Έτος Β΄,Τεύχος 6, 1991, σ. 169-182. Βαλτινός, Θ., Ανάπλους, Αθήνα: Βιβλιοπωλείο της Εστίας, 2012. Cresswell, T., Place. A Short Introduction, Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. Heidegger, M.,“Building Dwelling Thinking”, Poetry, Language, Thought, (αγγλ. μετ. A. Hofstadter), New York: Harper Perennial, 2001, 141-159. Hucheon, L., A Poetics of Postmodernism. History, Theory, Fiction, New York & London: Routledge, 1988. Hucheon, L., “The Politics of Parody.” The Politics of Postmodernism, New York: Routledge, 1989. 93-117. Fr. Jameson, Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Lon- don & New York: Verso, 1991. Κλεφτογιάννη, Ι.,“Η Ιστορία ενός Σύγχρονου Οδυσσέα”, Ελευθεροτυπία, 5 Νοεμ. 2011. Kriseva, Julia, 1991, Strangers to Ourselves, NY: Columbia Uni Press. Lefebvre, H., The Production of Space, (μετ. D. Nicholson-Smith), Oxford: Blackwell, 1991. Lyotard, Jean-Francois, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1987. Malpas, J. E., Place and Experience, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Παπαθεοδώρου, Γ., “Το Παιχνίδι της μνήμης και της Λήθης. Ζητήματα Ιστορίας και Ιδεολογίας στην πεζογραφία του Θανάση Βαλτινού”, Νέα Εστία, 1802 (2007), σ. 82-94. Παϊβανάς, Δ., Βία και Αφήγηση. Ιστορία, Ιδεολογία και Εθνικός Πολιτισμός στην Πεζογραφία του Θανάση Βαλτινού, Αθήνα: Βιβλιοπωλείον της Εστίας, 2012.

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Pratt,M. L., “Arts of the Contact Zone”, Profession, (1991), σ. 33–40. Ραυτόπουλος, Δ.,“Το Μυθιστόρημα Τεκμηρίων κατά Βαλτινόν”, Νέα Εστία, 1802 (2007), σ. 29-54. Rapport,N & Dawson, A., Migrants of Identity. Perceptions of Home in a World of Movement, Oxford: Berg, 1998. Ζουμπουλάκης, Στ., «Αναπλέοντας προς τη Σκοτεινή Ρίζα”, The Athens Review of Books, (Ιούνιος 2012), σ. 6-10.

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large nude 5Κωνσταντίνος 4 4 Παρθένης, 1925 Culture

Dimitris Paivanás

Parody and National Crisis: Thanasis Valtinos’ Three Greek One-Act Plays and its critical Reception

«... man’s suffering with all the amplification of tragic masks»1

Abstract Three Greek One-Act Plays (1978) is a short, tripartite work of post- war fiction comprising seemingly unrelated documents supposedly quoted verbatim from their original sources. They are: a) the proceedings of a trial held in 1957 and related to National Army operations in the last phase of the Civil War; b) a series of letters received by a prison inmate between 1954 and circa 1970; and, c) the undated instruction manual to a Kenwood mixer. In a play of generic terms on the cover and title page the slim volume is described with salient irony from the outset as a “novel”.2 The somewhat risqué quotation of apparently authentic documents with minimal extraneous commentary in a soi-disant “novel” is a pioneering narrative technique at least in Greek literary prose. Critical commentators who did not neglect the text altogether either offered partial readings of it in the cultural milieu of post-dictatorship Greece or, baffled until recently by its ostentatiously unconventional form, treated it as little more than “experimental” literature. As a result, the text’s underlying criticisms of the dominant ideology in Greece and the nation’s socioeconomic crisis since the end of the Civil War and right up to the first years of the Metapolitefsi have largely gone unnoticed. The purpose of this paper is to propose a reading of Three Greek One-Act Plays as a parody3 with a potential political message that transcends the stated or implied chronologies of reference, and to explore the cultural and ideological conditions that contributed to the text’s partisan or uncer- emonious reception.

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1. Background When Three Greek One-Act Plays was first published, Valtinos was well known in Greek literary circles. His novella The Descent of the Nine(1963) had inaugurated his accession to the literary scene and was well known among intellectuals.4 It was a quasi-testimonial narrative about the demise of a pla- toon of leftist guerillas in the final year of the Civil War. In the inimical climate of the Colonels’ dictatorship it was a ‘cult text’ which circulated secretly in photocopies among university students and teachers. Indeed, until its publication in book form, in 1978, it had been published in English (1973) and German (1976).5 Its additional relevance for this article is that the author considers Three Greek One-Act Playsas a “comment on and sequel to” The Descent of the Nine.6 In 1978 Valtinos was also known for his short story “The Plaster Cast”, his contribution to Eighteen Texts (1970), the first collective volume by Greek writers protesting against the Colonels’ censorship. In comparison to Three Greek One-Act Plays these texts by Valtinos were more conventional narratives. In the zeitgeist of post-dictatorship Greece avowed commentators treated these works as party-minded left- wing statements,7 but they were far from according with the partisan spirit that evolved from the 1973 Polytechnic events after seven years of military rule and spawned the populism of PASOK in the ensuing years.8 As one 1979 review of the text suggests,9 Greece’s return to parliamentary democracy germinated a wholesale dismissal of liberal conservatism and the elevation of leftism to exclusive benevolence. This new polarization was an offshoot of the dictatorship which probably also cloned Cold-War antinomies at the time. Some of its many effects in Greece were idealized interpretations of the left’s involvement in the Civil War10 and a subdued self-criticism within a large majority of the Greek left and its intelligentsia. Stifled self-criticism, ideological consensus and historical oblivion are the principal objects of critique in Three Greek One-Act Plays.

2. The subsidiary texts of Three Greek One-Act Plays The first document [“Πρακτικά μιας δίκης (ξεσηκωμένα από τις εφημερίδες της εποχής)” (henceforth “Πρακτικά”)]11 is strongly reminiscent of a dramatic work. It is structured in two parts and interspersed with brief descriptions extraneous to the dialogue. In it a retired general (Vasilopoulos) sues one of his peers (Zafiropoulos) for misrepresenting him

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in his book on the Civil War.12 Seven witnesses reveal Vasilopoulos’ catastrophic contribution to National Army operations on Mount Vitsi in 1948 but also display tolerance for his laxity. In the second part of the trial, the testimony of an officer with amputated lower limbs brings an unexpected volte face: the plaintiff and the accused compromise, indeed as the presiding judge had recommended before the beginning of proceedings. Zafiropoulos withdraws his published criticisms and Vasilopoulos emerges as a compe- tent leader. “Πρακτικά” is a scathing comment on the distortion of the officers’ experience on the battlefield, the muffling of self-questioning within the military and its collaboration with the judiciary and the press in establishing an ideological concord after the Civil War. The second text [“Γράμματα στη φυλακή” (henceforth “Γράμμα- τα”)] is reminiscent of the epistolary novel. It is an archive of 14 letters received by the inmate Stelios Thomaidis. Allusions to his political affiliation and that of his relatives fade in comparison to the text’s emphasis: a profound malaise in the lives of almost everyone involved. The sympathy that Valtinos creates for most correspondents is counterbalanced by pressures they exert on Thomaidis to be more compliant. In spite of expectations for his release, the inmate’s fate remains unknown. At the end of the text, an authorial note states that the letters were discovered in 1972 in the toilets of the disused Kalami Gaol in Chania (p. 64). In reality Valtinos found four letters addressed to different recipients which inspired him to compose this putatively authentic epistolary archive.13 The last document is undated and bears the title of a well-known ad- vertising catch-phrase in Greece: “Ναι, αλλά Kenwood” (henceforth “Ken- wood”). It seems to be a verbatim quotation of a manual to the appliance. I could not ascertain the degree of Valtinos’ personal input in the text’s composition. The author claims to have come across the (now misplaced) manual in his sisters’ home in Athens. In it the impersonal narrator cer- emoniously promises to emancipate the prospective user from the daily toil of food preparation while simultaneously announcing his/her subju- gation to the appliance’s advanced technology. Three recipes make up the denouement of the book. In the context of Three Greek One-Act Plays it is a bitter and humorously ironic comment on post-war economic growth that scoffs at the partial and illusory prosperity of the Greek urban home. The references to effective homogenization of materials in the kitchen

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relate metaphorically to the theme of ideological uniformity in the other two texts and, by extension, to literary cohesiveness. For the casual reader, Three Greek One-Act Plays is at a certain remove from this aesthetic principle. In spatial terms the quasi-logical transition from the courtroom to prison is followed by an incongruous one to the domestic kitchen. In discursive terms there is a notable transition from dialogue to epistolary monologues followed by the quasi-apostrophic or impersonal monologue of a manual. However, my brief description above suggests that the three texts share at least one thematic opposition (freedom ≠ suppression or control of people, views, or behaviour) which is treated with varying degrees of irony in each text. It is therefore significant that the referential impetus of the subsidiary texts to actual situations and discursive practices is repeatedly displaced or reversed with the “true” and the “authentic” being consistently exposed as fiction. In their totality, the three texts refer to an all-pervasive ideology in post-Civil-War Greece whose partialities, falsehoods and modes of dissemination the reader is invited to question beyond the stated or implied times of reference. It appears, however, that the cultural ambiance of post-dictatorship Greece was not altogether conducive to reading Three Greek One-Act Plays in this way. Rather it might explain the omissions, bewilderment and reservations of the few critics who commented even fruitfully on the text.

3. The critical reception of Three Greek One-Act Plays Mario Vitti and Vasilis Rafailidis were the first to review the book approximately seven months after publication.14 Later critics drew from and commented on their commentaries both directly and indirectly.15 Vitti’s was an incisive, albeit understandably cautious, review. His sensationalistic description of the work as “an authorless novel” was supplemented by references to a “conscientious editor”, “selection”, “appropriation” and “initiative” which culminates into a “more radical objectivity”.16 Commenting on “Γράμ- ματα” and “Kenwood”, he identified a “violence exercised on the inmate” and a “distortion” of reality respectively. Although, he appears to have purposely avoided commenting on the very same issues in “Πρακτικά”, his wording suggests that they relate to both the times of reference and publication.17 Rafailidis’ review the same year was less restrained. He described the text as a “daring montage of impressions” which “creates a synecdoche” that

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signifies what he termed as the “optimistic tragedy” of Greek history. This he explicitly related to the “dramatic defeat” of the Democratic Army in the Civil War by “farcical victors”. Optimism is perceived in the survival of Na- sios (the narrator of The Descent of the Nine) in his surrogate, Thomaidis.18 In true antimilitarist spirit of the period, the officers in “Πρακτικά” are shown to participate in an “intra-class civil war… squabbling over their mis- laid honour” while the “drama of an entire people” is limited to Thomaidis’ hapless relatives. In the text itself, however, the inmate’s idealization on grounds of political affiliation is meticulously avoided. Indeed the generals compromise their differences which is part of the “drama” that Rafailidis eschews.19 In spite of this, he seems to doubt his optimistic appraisal of the Metapolitefsi as the “symbolic end of the Civil War”.20 His interpretation may be described as historically contingent, brimming with post-dictatorship leftist enthusiasm, but also containing uncertainties on its own findings. Approximately a decade later, Dimitris Daskalopoulos declared reservations about Rafailidis’ gloss but he expressly refused involvement in “ideological discussions”.21 His reserve describes eloquently the climate that prevailed during the 80s in relation to the left’s idealized role in the Civil War.22 Daskalopoulos described Valtinos’ text as an “interesting experiment”. Michel Fais drew similar conclusions referring to “an experimental undertaking whose accessibility remains problematic even nowadays”.23 If these hermeneutic restraints can be attributed to critical inhibitions fo- mented during the Metapolitefsi, a broader neglect of the text resulted from other, perhaps more tangible, causes. In a relatively recent newspaper article, Elisavet Kotzia observed that Valtinos gained a place in the multi-volume series Η μεταπολεμική πεζο- γραφία – Από τον πόλεμο του ’40 ως τη δικτατορία του ’67 on the basis of four works of prose fiction, Three Greek One-Act Plays among them.24 In the introductory volume of the series, however, Alexandros Argyriou makes no mention of Valtinos’ text. Indeed, it does not feature in his annual cata- logues of published works of fiction.25 This philological oversight in a highly regarded critical anthology seems to have had some adverse consequences for the work’s reception thenceforth,26 perhaps because it was not repub- lished until 1989 along with the similarly styled Data from the decade of the 60s whose instant success seems to have overshadowed the shorter book.

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Valtinos himself has described Three Greek One-Act Plays as his least “commercial” book,27 a fact that perhaps documents that unconventional narratives do not necessarily enjoy a wide readership, critical commentary or philological listings. It would appear that as a result, the author orches- trated a reexamination of the text in a dedicatory issue of the periodical Πόρφυρας and with the reprint of the first reviews in the volume of critical writings Για τον Βαλτινό.28The critical efforts that germinated remained within the limits of general or theoretical commentaries and one commentator reiterated a difficulty to treat it as literature.29 According to another critic, the text referred to the “theme of the Junta” possibly in prolonged accordance with the post-dictatorship zeitgeist.30 The allusions to the Colo- nels’ dictatorship, however, are only marginal in the work’s preoccupation with social inequities, prolonged repression and interment of socio-political antinomies after the Civil War. In retrospect, the polarizations that evolved from the internecine conflict and featured in both literary and critical writings before and after the dictatorship were not an unexpected development. During the 90s, however, and until recently when historians, writers and press commentators re- suscitated a widespread interest in the Civil War, the author’s preoccupation with the subject was frequently described as regressive.31 Consequently, the critical negligence of Valtinos’ text may be partly attributed to problems of “accessibility”, as Fais pointed out in 1989, but included other factors such as philological oversight, the nature and preoccupations of critical practices in Greece, the stereotypical labeling of Valtinos as a leftist writer, and the ideological climate that predominated throughout the Metapolitefsi. In my view, it is also attributable to the inherent difficulties of parody as a literary genre, in particular its ambiguity.

4. Irony, Parody and Satire in Three Greek One-Act Plays The terms “irony”, “parody” and “satire” overlap but they are not of course synonymous. Irony is based on differences between form and content or stated and implied meaning. The discrepancy imposes a semantic shift that rules out possibilities of their convergence.32 Parody and satire are generic carriers of irony. The former in that imitates a text and at the same time distances itself from it without necessarily mocking it. Thus, parody is rebellious but it is also conservative. Satire on the other hand usually

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targets social institutions. When it targets a literary piece, it comments on the aesthetic status quo. In such cases, parody and satire cooperate in acknowledging and simultaneously undermining the hegemony of a given cultural condition. Research findings of the last decades state that parodies have a broad spectrum of effects that vary according to the context of each composition. However, the oscillation of parody between its polemic and conservative functions33 and its description as “quotation or repetition with a critical difference” gives sufficient broadness to the term for a preliminary understanding of Three Greek One-Act Plays.

4.1. “Πρακτικά”: Severed logic “Πρακτικά” comments on the catastrophic consequences of individual contributions to collective efforts with the expected formality and seriousness. The use of Katharevousa befits the occasion and reinforces its verisimilitude; the idiom is not an object or the means of satire. The plot, however, leads to the evaluation of personal responsibility as a negligible misdemeanor, exposing institutional involvement in the biased appraisal of an historical event. This interpretation serves the “practical” purpose of ideological consensus but the irony of the pun does not mock the institutions involved, regardless of how conducive to this interpretation antimilitarism may have been in post-dictatorship Greece. On the contrary, the tragic results of misguided individual inputs are maintained and are at the furthest possible remove from satirical treatment. In the first part of the trial Vasilopoulos questions Zafiropoulos’ historiography claiming that he is represented as cowardly. Similarly, during the trial, the validity of other official documents is questioned.34 In a self- referential turn, this questioning is directed towards “Πρακτικά” itself as a document. In spite of this, Zafiropoulos’ account is supported by witnesses and shown to have been justified. So, the scales of justice lean in his favour as the text creates expectations for a development that leads logically to a confluence of justice and truth. The formality and dryness of expression, a systematic arrangement of testimonies and their internal organization reinforce such expectations. Their eventual deflation, however, does not in- validate or mock the text’s putative authenticity either. In the second part of the trial, witnesses characterize Zafiropoulos’ account as “false”. The last witness, the legless veteran in his wheel chair,

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fails to answer a question on events at the battlefront due to “expressed emotion” (p. 31). The question is withdrawn, the proceedings come toa close and the historiographic plot of what actually happened on Mount Vitsi in September 1948 is dissolved in a mist of emotional uncertainty. The next day, Zafiropoulos withdraws his views and the social status and heroism of his brothers in arms is reinstated. The tragic developments on the battle field, as they are expressed in the loss of the officer’s lower limbs were the result of a general laxity in the National Army Corps including the sluggishness of Vasilopoulos. The severing of logic in the evaluation of the events intensifies the tragedy. Judgments based on solidarity and camara- derie, emerge as logical and just whereas those founded on logic and criticism are shown to be injurious. The outcome of the trial exudes a cultural inclination towards ideological consensus over and above critical dialogue. Part of the text’s irony arises from the illogicality of this outcome. In “Πρακτικά”, historiographic verity is largely based on synecdoche, perhaps the most unifying of rhetorical tropes.35 What short-circuits this homogenization is a contamination of the characters as epic figures by less heroic attributes which force them to succumb to a coerced self-deception. This is not a feature of the side they served but a component in the way their experience was interpreted posthumously. What the reader is invited to do is question not only the oversight of individual responsibility but also the imaginary conscience formed on the basis of muffled criticism and partial historical narratives. Parody introduces this very possibility of distance from this dominant interpretation at the expense of another. Thus, Three Greek One-Act Plays is a “sequel to and a comment on” The Descent of the Nine because it refers to what the pursuers of the nine guerillas suffered in 1948 and exposes the ideological use of narratives on the internecine conflict. Perhaps the most savage irony at the expense of those involved is that the revelation of “unfortunate events”36 implies an epic narrative for the Demo- cratic Army at least for the Vitsi clashes. However, mutinous behaviour and lack of discipline in a generally exhausted National Army after the Gram- mos battles puts the epic nature of this narrative under serious doubt for either side of the conflict. This is particularly evident not only because details of the contested events are silenced, but also due to Democratic Army representatives’ conspicuous absence. They are either in exile or have signed so-called “declarations of repentance”.

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“Πρακτικά” challenges the reader’s logic by making him/her question the reliability of formal documents, the validity of personal testimonies, the significance of individual contributions to collective enterprises and the ways in which these are interpreted posthumously. At the end of proceedings the presiding judge delivers a speech that contains a series of contextual ironies: “Mετά ταύτα ο πρόεδρος του κακουργιοδικείου έλυσε την συνεδρίασιν ειπών ότι ο επελθών συμβιβασμός θα ήτο καλόν να εγένετο πριν προχωρήσει η δίκη ―δεδομένου ότι όλοι αγαπάμε τον στρατόν― οπότε θα απεφεύγετο η αποκάλυψις ωρισμένων γεγονότων της περιόδου του συμμοριτοπολέμου 1948. H Eλλάς, ετόνισε, με την βοήθειαν μεγάλων συμμάχων, εκέρδισε την μάχην υπάρξεώς της. Mε την βοήθειαν των ίδιων συμμάχων εκερδήθη η μάχη της ανασυγκροτήσεως της ερειπωμένης πατρίδος μας. O αγών βεβαίως δεν έπαυσε ακόμα. Aπομένει διά τον λαόν μας η φάσις κατακτήσεως της ευημερίας, προϋπόθεσις εκ των ουκ άνευ, διά πάσαν περαιτέρω πολιτιστικήν πρόοδον. Γενναιόφρονες σύμμαχοι ίστανται παρά το πλευρόν μας και εις την φάσιν αυτήν. Δεν θα πρέπει να το λησμονούμε. Όπως δεν θα πρέπει να λησμονούμε το ύψιστον χρέος μας: Λήθη διά το παρελθόν και ομόνοια. Tο τέλος των εμπνευσμένων λόγων του κυρίου προέδρου διεδέχθησαν παρατεταμένα χειροκροτήματα εκ του ακροατηρίου” (σ. 33-4). In 1978, the excerpt would have certainly echoed the rhetoric of George Papadopoulos’ speeches. The parenthetical remark “όλοι αγαπάμε τον στρατόν” and the references to “γενναιόφρονες συμμάχους” suggest anachronistically the coup d’état of 1967 and hint at the American aid to Greece after 1947, respectively. The speech, however, is in a mixture of direct and indirect speech that restrains its grandiloquence. The satirical effect, therefore, is not unquestionably clear. What seems to be the object of satire here is the rhetoric rather than the content (the personification of Greece as a reconstructed entity and the contradictory call for remembrance and oblivion at the end of the second paragraph). Valtinos shares the view that prosperity is a prerequisite for cultural advancement and the judge seems to be aware of its insecure

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prospects.37 The struggling relatives of Thomaidis confirm this, making the irony of such an ambition even more pronounced. If, therefore, one dis- cerns satire at the expense of those involved, this relates to the institutional cover-up that has been achieved. The references to “λήθη” and “ομόνοια” in the judge’s final appeal are salient in that regard. The former echoes the compound “αλήθεια” (truth), which was never sought ab initio. The latter underlines the violence of Zafiropoulos’ legal defeat and the stifled self- criticism within the military. However, by means of controlled sympathy for at least two of its members, the text formulates a direct challenge to the endorsed ideology. Arguably it foreshadows a similar challenge to the corresponding zeitgeist spawned during the Metapolitefsi. The satire that underlies the denouement of “Πρακτικά” reaches its climax in the indeterminate audience’s endorsement of the judge by “extended applause”. This human ensemble appears to succumb to paternalism and sentimental rhetoric rather than seek dialogue and proof. Placing emotional appraisals above logical argument is presented as the distinguishing feature of a collective attitude whose acquiescence betrays a desire for solidarity. Parody in “Πρακτικά” exposes human propensity to credulity and the shaky foundations of such solidarity but does not seek their unques- tioning condemnation.

4.2 “Γράμματα”: Severed links In “Γράμματα” there are four basic narrative sequences involving Thomaidis and his relatives. The first one relates to his marriage. In the first four letters and a two-year span his marriage to Tasia heads inexorably towards dissolution. Four letters and five years later a lawyer informs him of his divorce. Three letters and six years later he is prompted to transfer the guardianship of his children to their new stepfather. His dramatic condition is counterbalanced with justifications of Tasia’s choices, mild chastisements of his attempts to blackmail her and his non-involvement in graver family issues.38 The promises of his relatives to visit him are quickly replaced by declarations of difficulty in their fulfillment. Thus, Thomaidis character is presented as severed from both family and society. The second narrative sequence relates to the difficulties of his parents, the deterioration of their health and death of his mother. The third sequence involves his sister’s family. The relevant descriptions include unemploy-

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ment, poverty and struggle for daily subsistence. The prosperity envisaged by the judge in “Πρακτικά” and resonantly announced in “Kenwood” are in ironic inconsistency with the central text. The fourth sequence relates to Thomaidis’ release. The absence of date in the last piece of correspondence in conjunction with the author’s note at the end of “Γράμματα” where the prisons he patronized are enumerated in asyndeton,39 create the impression of an incarceration ad infinitum. Thomaidis’ correspondents make references to letters received by him but the epistolary dialogue is rudimentary. In its totality, however, the text is in dialogue with “Πρακτικά” in a number of ways. To begin with, there is a kind of parallel between Thomaidis and Zafiropoulos. Thomaidis’ -cor respondents refer to stubbornness (p. 49) on his behalf and possible insub- ordination (p. 48 and 50). This behaviour suggests that his incarceration is the result of a refusal to sign a “declaration of repentance”. Zafiropoulos too submits a semblance of a repent at the end of the trial. His criticisms are sup- pressed metaphorically whereas the uncompromising Thomaidis is in literal confinement. The two texts do not juxtapose right-wingers to left-wingers with the stereotypical addenda of comfortably acquiescent members of the middle class against justly combative or struggling proletarians. What underlies both texts is a criticism of the post-Civil-War state for its prolonged Manichaism and intolerance. Indeed the outcome of the trial functions as a signifier for this ideological climate and as a cause of Thomaidis’ incarceration which is seemingly extended thanks to the Colonels’ dictatorship.40 The other ways in which the two texts are in dialogue relate to irony. Some of the content of the relevant letters agglutinates to coerce Tho- maidis into compliance. His relatives ask him to be “disciplined” (p. 48), to “not change his mind again” (p. 50) and to “shave, because facial hair doesn’t suit [him]” (p. 52). His mother’s piety (p. 39 and 41) is extended to a kind of guidance of Thomaidis41 while some developments in his life are presented as divine justice.42 The possibility of self-censorship seems to underlie the phraseology at times,43 but the correspondents appear to accept their condition as a natural development, almost like an incurable ailment.44 Their acquiescence betrays the treatment of their condition as a fateful outcome similarly to the consenting audience in “Πρακτικά”. Valtinos seems to refuse to transpose this acquiescence to Thomaidis himself. In spite of haziness in his characterization, he functions as a struc-

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ture of resistance to authority which pretends to permit expressional liber- ties but, essentially, abolishes dialogue and endorses concealment of facts in the interest of ideological consensus. There is a confluence of his confinement “inside” with corresponding restraints “outside” but he also represents the opposite of “outside” which in reality is another form of “inside”. The literary effect of these inconsistencies which reinforce and simultaneously undermine differences between opposing concepts is irony. This is intensi- fied in the final letter, where a supplier informs Thomaidis of some material he has ordered for making artifacts. The undated letter abstracts time and its last paragraph expands spatial reference to a global context. This makes Thomaidis appear as a dissolved entity in spatiotemporal non-specificity and at considerable distance form idealized interpretations of his character: “EIΣAΓΩΓAI - ΔIAPKHΣ ΠAPAKATAΘHKH α―Πρώται ύλαι ψηκτροποιΐας: Tρίχες Kινεζικές, Aλόγινες Eυρώπης-Aμερικής, Συνθετικές Nάυλον, Xόρτα Mεξικού Tαμπικό- Λουστρέ. β―Πρώται ύλαι καθεκλοποιΐας και πλεκτών επίπλων: Kαλαμάκι, ψαθίον, ξυλεία Pοτέν, κορδέλα, μπανέλες, νάυλον σωληνάκι και πλακέ, ψάθες Viscose, κάλαμοι Iνδιών Bamboo. γ―Πρώται ύλαι πιλοποιΐας: Λέζες, σπαρτρί, ψάθινες ταινίες Eυρώπης-Kίνας-Άπω Aνατολής, ροκανίδι Iταλίας, κορδόνι χάρτινο, πιλήματα Mερινός ανδρικά-παιδικά, μοχέρ καστόρινα, βελούρ γυναικεία βούρλινα-ψάθινα-κοντινεντάλ-Bangkok. δ―Διάφορα: Tζίβα Μαρόκου κοτσίδα και ξασμένη, χόρτο νικελωτηρίων, τινακτήρια Iνδιών, μπαστούνια περιπάτου αναπήρων εκ bamboo κλπ” (p. 63). Parody in “Γράμματα” manifests itself in the imitation of correspondence which preserves the relevant conventions and concomitant expressions of emotional solidarity towards the inmate, but also employs their ironic potential. Thus, it functions very similarly to “Πρακτικά” in that it cuts both ways: on the one hand with subdued satire at the expense of the relatives and critical stance towards the sociopolitical climate in which they express themselves, and, on the other, with an oxymoronic mixture of sympathy and distance from their plight. This distance relates to their apparent

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compliance with authority and the acceptance of their condition as fatal. Thomaidis’ apparent vanishing at the end, leaves a void in the resistance to such acquiescence. So, if, as Pylarinos intuitively perceived in 2002,45 the text empowers its reader politically it does so not through catechism but by severing semantic links and through ironic displacements that undermine teleological judgments on all relevant issues.

4.3 “Kenwood”: Domestic Technology and Freedom When one is forced to read a manual to a kitchen appliance as literature, the initial irony is largely due to the absence of the machine and the “accompanying documents” referred to in it.46 In the first sentences “Τώρα έχετε και σεις ένα νέο KENWOOD CHEF” and “Aπό σήμερα η ζωή σας στην κουζίνα αποχτάει καινούργιο νόημα” (σ. 67) this irony is intensi- fied by stylistic features like the use of the cluster “χτ” (instead of “κτ”) and the uncontracted ending “-άει” (istead of “–ά”), due to inconsistency with the formality of the plural address. In this literary context, therefore, the appliance is a linguistic mélange of different registers, vocabulary and rhetorical devices: saliently its personification initially in the French term “Chef” (also meaning “leader”, “superior”, or “boss”) and later in its presentation as “companion”. The prospective user is presented as the master of this appliance devoted to his service and wellbeing,47 but the hierarchy of this relationship is gradually reversed when the machine – perhaps an early postmodern cyborg – is said to surpass human dexterity and accommodate the inefficiencies of its user who is encouraged to show fidelity in following instructions.48 The description of various components emphasizes superlative juicing and blending capabilities arguing for economy of time and materials. The phraseology, however, is excessively lavish and often tautological. The ironic humour is set off by differences in register between titles (in Katharevousa) and explanations (in a popular kitchen idiom) and results from inconsistencies between claims to economy and verbal recklessness.49 The irony resulting from the almost simultaneous declaration of one thing and its opposite is reinforced intra-textually through the transition from dialogue in “Πρακτικά” to monologues in “Γράμματα” and to the apostrophe of “Kenwood”. This transition is incongruous with the dialogic operations the reader is invited to perform in order to produce contextual

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meaning.50 If the humorous ironies have a satirical edge to them, they do not involve the denial of gastronomic pleasures. The object of satire is not an actual user of a Kenwood Chef or the average bon-vivant. In the broader context of the work, the “Ναι” of the title is followed by the inducement of a theoretical prospective user to consent to a substitute of personal will with that of an impersonal enunciator. The target of the text’s satire is the (self-) enfeeblement of the individual in his or her compliance with an ideological climate that promotes consumerism as a vision of wellbeing in conjunction with loss of historical memory. Consequently the repetitiousness of parody is not in itself sufficient for it to be ironic or satirical. The other texts and an understanding of the cultural context are prerequisites for the effectiveness of irony. So, the reci- pe for kourabiédes in the denouement of “Kenwood” parodies cook book language but its irony is not satirical. The irony becomes more poignant in the final words (“ζάχαρη άχνη”, p. 83) which offers the semblance of a happy ending illustrating how sweet the veneer of the exerted clandestine violence can be. If it simultaneously questions this, it is thanks to the text’s dependence on similar techniques in the traditional novel, on the reader’s memory of details in the previous texts and the author’s complicity in bringing them together despite his apparent withdrawal. Three Greek One-Act Plays can be read as a critique of a national ideology founded on dubiously partial interpretations of historical events and on a concomitant loss of historical memory combined with fallacies of domestic affluence and the comforts of consumerism. Thus, by exploiting the ironic potential of parody Valtinos calls for a more realistic aesthetic in the contemporary novel rather than proclaim the genre’s demise. Indeed, the text activates the reader’s participation in recognizing literary conventions of the novel in the construction of both reality and literary meaning. The text also exposes the connivance of literary discourse in the formation of ideology and cultivates its potential to politically motivate through critical analysis rather than catechism. Thus, the “experienced violence” by the work’s “conscientious editor”, aptly noted by Vitti in his inaugural review, is transformed into its symbolic or benevolent exertion with the acknowledged complicity of the reader.51

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Notes 1 R. Barthes, ‘Wrestling’, Mythologies, Hill and Wang, New York 1972, p. 19. 2 Τhe description features in all three editions of the text to date [Κέδρος (1978), Στιγμή (1989) and Εστία (2008)]. All page references to the text are to the 1978 edition. 3 My shorthand definition of “parody” is “quotation or repetition with a critical difference”. See L. Ηutcheon, A Theory of Parody, Methuen, London and New York 1985, p. 26 and 31-2; W. Οmmundsen, Metafictions? Reflexivity in Contemporary Texts, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne 1993, p. 10-11 and S. Dentith Parody, The New Critical Idiom, Routledge Τaylor and Francis Group, London and New York 2000, p. 9-21. 4 Η κάθοδος των εννιά, first published in the periodicalΕποχές 5 (September 1963) p. 32-45. 5 For a critical commentary, see D. Paivanas “A post-modern lesson in history: the incomplete rhetoric of Thanasis Valtinos’s The Descent of the Nine”, BMGS, Vol. 29, No 2 (2005), p. 203-234. 6 S Alexandropoulou “‘Η πόλη αλλοίωσε τη λαϊκή γλώσσα’ λέει ο συγγραφέας Βαλτινός” Πρωινή (7 March 1979) p. 8. 7 On the renewed lustre of the Greek left after 1974 see, e.g., Γ. Βούλγαρης Η Ελλάδα της Μεταπολίτευσης 1974-1990. Σταθερή δημοκρατία σημαδεμένη από τη μεταπολεμική ιστορία, Θεμέλιο, Athens 2002, p. 8 and D. Close Greece since 1945, Pearson Education Limited, London 2002, p. 103-110. 8 The 1978 edition of Three Greek One-Act Plays includes a seemingly relevant postscript which is absent from subsequent editions: “H σύνθεση τους άρχισε περί το 1966. Για λόγους αντικειμενικούς μέχρι το 1974 ― και για λόγους εξίσου αντικειμενικούς από το ’74 και εντεύθεν, ο συγγραφέας είχε αρνηθεί να τα εκδώσει” (p. 87) At the “Hommage à Thanassis Valtinos” workshop held at the Frei Universität in Berlin (21 June 2014), the author revealed that the post-1974 reference involved a more personal kind of censorship: the manuscript of Three Greek One-Act plays was withheld by what appears to be a malcontent partner at the time. His “refusal” to publish the text between 1974 and 1978 suggests a piquant response to institutionalized and personal forms of censorship. 9 V. Rafailidis “Ελληνική αισιόδοξη τραγωδία σε τέσσερα μέρη” Διαβάζω 22 (July 1979) p. 69-70. For a brief discussion of this review, see section 3 below. 10 See e.g. Γ. Θ. Mαυρογορδάτος “H ‘ρεβάνς’ των ηττημένων” Πενήντα χρόνια μετά τον Εμφύλιο, Ερμής, Athens 1999 and Ν. Μαραντζίδης “Η ‘ρεβάνς των ηττημένων’” Το βήμα (9 July 2006) electronic archivehttp://www.tovima.gr/opinions/ article/?aid=174364. 11 According to the author (personal interview 16/08/2003), their publication in the daily press was common practice in the 50s. 12 D. Zafiropoulos, Ο αντισυμμοριακός αγών 1945-1949¸ private edition, Athens 1956. The book is a well known work of historiography on the Greek Civil War. I’ve seen a copy in Valtinos’ personal library at his village home in Karatoula. 13 See Th. Valtinos “Ημέρες καλοκαιριού του ‘72” Συνέχεια 2 (April 1973) p. 86 and V. Rafailidis, op. cit., p. 70. 14 M. Vitti, “Ένα μυθιστόρημα χωρίς συγγραφέα. Τα ‘Τρία ελληνικά μονόπρακτα’ του Θανάση Βαλτινού” Το βήμα (29 July 1979) and V. Rafailidis, op. cit., p. 67-70. 15 See, e.g. footnotes 17, 20 and 21 below. Cf. also V. Chatzivasileiou «Άτομο και Ιστορία στην πεζογραφία του Θανάση Βαλτινού» Νέα Εστία 1802 (July-August 2007) p. 58-9, footnotes 5 and 6.

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16 Similar comments are echoed in Κ. Χρυσομάλλη-Ηenrich’s “Tο ύφος της αμεσότητας, η αρμονία λόγου και περιεχομένων” Πόρφυρας 103 (April-June 2002), p. 32-3. 17 See, e.g. “...αρνητικές όψεις της ελληνικής ζωής, εμπειρίες μιας νόθου ζωής που η συνείδηση [του Βαλτινού] τις αποκρούει με δυσφορία” (Μ. Vitti, op. cit.). 18 V. Rafailidis, op. cit, p. 70. 19 See also the indirect comment on Rafailidis criticism by D. Raftopoulos who notes correctly that what seems to be “more lost than their honour is the truth” [D. Raftopoulos, “Το μυθιστόρημα τεκμηρίων κατά Βαλτινόν” Νέα Εστία 1802 (July -August 2007) p. 31.] Cf. footnote 36 below. 20 “Το δράμα μοιάζει να τελειώνει, ή μάλλον, ν’ αλλάζει μορφή, μόλις το 1974, δηλαδή είκοσι πέντε χρόνια απ’ τη λήξη του Eμφυλίου” (V. Rafailidis, op. cit., p. 69, my emphasis). 21 D. Daskalopoulos, “Θανάσης Βαλτινός” in H μεταπολεμική πεζογραφία. Από τον πόλεμο του ‘40 ως τη δικτατορία του ‘67, vol. 2, Σοκόλης, Athens 1989, p. 312. 22 See footnotes 7 and 10 above and Valtinos’ own letter of protest against PASOK’s cultural policies in “Ένα κείμενο” Mανδραγόρας 30 (September 2003), p. 79, reprinted in Th. Valtinos, Κρασί και νύμφες, Εστία, Athens 2009, p. 206-209. 23 M. Fais “Ένα αιρετικό μυθιστόρημα” Τύπος της Κυριακής (26 November 1989); reprinted in Th. Pylarinos (ed.), Για τον Βαλτινό. Κριτικά κείμενα, Αιγαίον, Nicosia 2003, p. 126-8. 24 Ε. Kotzia “Δαιμονικός δημιουργός” Η Καθημερινή (23 October 2011) p. 10. 25 A. Argyriou “Εισαγωγή” in H μεταπολεμική πεζογραφία. Από τον πόλεμο του ‘40 ως τη δικτατορία του ‘67, vol 1., Σοκόλης, Athens 1989, p. 164, 242, 374 and cf. p. 308, 383 and 425. 26 See D. Tziovas’ seminal attribution of “heteroglossia” to Alexandros Kotzias’ Αντιποίησις Αρχής (1979) in Tο παλίμψηστο της ελληνικής αφήγησης. Aπό την αφηγηματολογία στη διαλογικότητα, Οδυσσέας, Athens 1993, p. 210 and 213. Chrysomalli-Henrich refers to “fragmentation… dialogism… heteroglossia… and polyphony” inThree Greek One-Act Plays in “Tο ύφος της αμεσότητας…” op. cit. p. 32-4. See also a later bypassing ofThree Greek One-Act plays in M. Kakavoulia “In and Out of the Text: Games across Genres in Modern Greek Fiction” in P. Mackridge and E. Yannakakis (eds) Contemporary Greek Fiction in a United Europe: From Local History to the Global Individual, Legenda, Oxford 2004, p. 117-8. 27 M. Chartoulari, “‘Η κακοπιστία είναι πάντα κακοπιστία’” (interview with Th. Valtinos) Tα Nέα (24 January 1996) p. 12. 28 Th. Pylarinos, op. cit., p. 25-29. 29 Th. Pylarinos described it as a “cryptic… anti-novel”. Th. Pylarinos’ “Tρία ελληνικά μονόπρακτα. Tρεις μικρογραφίες από τον μυθιστορηματικό κόσμο του Θανάση Bαλτινού (η μετεμφυλιακή Eλλάδα σε τρία πολυσήμαντα κρυπτικά καρέ)”, Aφιέρωμα στο Θανάση Bαλτινό, Πόρφυρας 103 (April-June 2002) p. 49-61. Chrysomalli-Henrich, refers to «μυθιστόρημα ψηφιδωτικής τεχνικής... σύνθεση που εκφράζει την κοινωνική παθολογία της εποχής της», in “Tο ύφος της αμεσότητας” op. cit., p. 33. 30 V. Chatzivasileiou, “Εικόνες και ρόλοι της Χούντας στη σύγχρονη ελληνική πεζογραφία” Νέα Εστία 1766 (April 2004) p. 519-20. Chatzivasileiou’s later discussion of the text on the basis of the antithesis between the individual and the collective is perhaps more fruitful. See his “Άτομο και Ιστορία στην πεζογραφία του Θανάση Βαλτινού” op. cit., p. 58-9.

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31 See, e.g. E. Kotzia “Το έργο των μεταπολεμικών πεζογράφων στη μεταδικτατορική περίοδο” Αντί 688 (Second Period – June 1999) p. 33. See also D. Kourtovik’s disapproval of the themes of the Resistance and the Civil War in post-1974 literature in D. Kourtovik, Ημεδαπή εξορία, Οpera, Athens 1991, p. 39-40. 32 See P. de Man, “The Concept of Irony” in A. Warminski (ed.), Aesthetic Ideology, THL 65, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis and London 1996, p. 170 and Η. White Metahistory. The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 1973, p. 37-8. Claire Colebrook has also referred to “situational irony”, “dramatic” and “tragic” varieties as well as to “irony of fate” as modes of thinking about the relations between human intentions or expectations and contrary outcomes (C. Colebrook Irony, New Critical Idiom Series, Routledge Τaylor and Francis Group, London and New York 2004, p. 13-15). 33 L. Hutcheon, op. cit., p. 67-8 and S. Dentith, op. cit., p. 33-4. 34 These are reports by General Gerakinis (p. 15 and 24-5) and the Democratic Army (p. 28) 35 V. Rafailidis correctly notes that “What has precedence is uniformity of an opinion”, op. cit., p. 69. 36 From a National Army point of view, the Vitsi events are described as “ατυχίες” (p. 13) and “ατύχημα” (p. 19). 37 See M. Pimplis, “Θανάσης Βαλτινός ‘Η ισχυρή οικονομία δημιουργεί πολιτισμό’” Τα Νέα - Πρόσωπα (14 October 2000). Valtinos also stated to me in a personal interview (17/8/2003): “Εγώ έμαθα πολλά απ’ το στρατό” where he served as a lieutenant in the Commando Mountain Units in the beginning of the 50s. 38 V. Rafailidis observes: “Tο δράμα δεν είναι τόσο δικό του, όσο των συγγενών του και κατά συνεκδοχή, ολόκληρου του λαού...”, op.cit., p. 70. 39 «Από τις διευθύνσεις στους φακέλους τεκμαίρεται ότι ο παραλήπτης τους είχε εκτίσει μέρος της ποινής του και στις φυλακές Κερκύρας, Τρικάλων, Αιγίνης» (p. 64). 40 Chronologically the trial is interpolated between the fifth and sixth letters received by Thomaidis (p. 47-8). 41 See, e.g.: «[π]αρακαλιέμαι στον Ιησού Χριστό και σε αυτόν να έχεις κάθε μέρα τα θάρρη σου, όχι αλλού» (p. 50). 42 See: «πρέπει να γίνει το νομικό και το θεϊκό» (p. 56) and «[ό],τι κι αν συμβεί μην στενοχωρηθείς, αυτά είναι του θεού» (p. 59). 43 See, e.g. the potentially humorous reference of Thomaidis grandmother to Russian medicine: («εγχειρήσεις [που] μόνον στη Ρωσία μπορούν να γίνουν αλλά και εκεί δεν γίνεται τίποτα», p. 55). 44 See, e.g.: “θα περιμένουμε να έλθει το μοιραίον” (p. 55) and “η μαμά είναι καταδικασμένη... ό,τι θέλει ο θεός θα γίνει” (p. 57). 45 Th. Pylarinos “Τρία ελληνικά μονόπρακτα...” op. cit., p. 55. 46 See, e.g., “Σε περίπτωση που διαπιστώσετε ότι ένα από αυτά [τα εξαρτήματα] λείπει ή είναι κατεστραμμένο, αποταθείτε αμέσως στο κατάστημα από το οποίο εξυπηρετηθήκατε” (p. 68), and “[ρ]ίξτε μια ματιά στα σχέδια που σας δόθηκαν μαζί με την συσκευή” (p. 71). 47 “‘Ευτυχία είναι η δυνατότητα να ανταποκρινόμαστε στις μικρές καθημερινές μας επιθυμίες’” (p. 67). 48 E.g.: “[κ]αθαρίζει ταχύτατα πατάτες, καρότα κρεμμύδια. Ξεφλουδίζει λεπτότερα και γρηγορότερα από το χέρι, αφήνοντας ανέπαφο το καλύτερο μέρος του λαχανικού”

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(p. 73), “[α]ν το ξεχάσετε αυτό, τότε και πάλι το CHEF σας θα κάνει καλά τη δουλειά του” (p. 77) and “αποφεύγετε τις άσκοπες ενέργειες και ακολουθείτε πιστά τις οδηγίες των συνταγών” (p. 78). 49 E.g. “EΞAPTHMA AΠOΦΛOIΩΣEΩΣ APAKA KAI KOΠHΣ ΦPEΣKΩN ΦAΣOΛIΩN. MONTEΛO A760 / Kόβει τα φασολάκια και ξεφλουδίζει τον αρακά” (p. 74). Use of foreign loans such as “μίξερ” (p. 71), “μπλέντερ” (p. 75), “τσιπς” (p. 76), “μπαιν-μαρί” (p. 79), hellenised words such as “κροκετάκια” and “αντζούγες” (p. 80) and expressions such as “έως ότου πήξει και γίνει παπάρα” (p. 80) in conjunction with pseudo-formality (e.g. “Ολίγος βασιλικός”, p. 80) also contribute to humour. 50 E.g. the references to food, wellbeing, safety and care for the elderly are in stark contrast with the conditions of Thomaidis’ relatives. According to one of them: “τρώμε πότε εδώ και πότε εκεί” (p. 58). 51 In a personal interview (12/9/2004) Valtinos stated to me: “Eγώ ήθελα να σκανδαλίσω τότε και με το εξώφυλλο”. For the cover of the 1978 edition the author had proposed a dated photo (17/7/77), showing a female pubis. The resulting layout was turned down “for reasons of decency”. In the second edition (1989) the painting of the German artist, and Valtinos’ long-time partner, Sigrid Hacker, features on the cover. It shows the upper part of a naked female figure. The third edition shows the picture of a house with a red flag by the same artist. It is a palimpsest painted on a page torn from a copy of Valtinos’ Data for the Decade of the Sixties.

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Piero Bigongiari Greece in Italy, or, A Great Silence Sections X-XVII

Eugenio Montale On the Sacred Way

Translated with Introduction and Notes by Theodore Ell

Introduction n the catalogue of travel writing, fellow travellers are not always aware of one another. They may follow the same routes and arrive in the same places, and their impressions may resonate or dispute with each other as though in intimate talk. Yet in so many cases the travellers are held apart by vast stretches of time, or by the narrowest miss. That interval, great or small, focuses the uncanny harmony that patterns of travel can influence in separate intellects. Each mind arrives at a place with its own learning and expectations, but the legacy of the place itself, human or natural, loads the reaction. Its associations work their way into an individual’s language and begin speaking for themselves. What each traveller expresses is both unique to the moment and a speck in the mosaic. After coming home to the printed page, a piece of travel writing may be surprised to find that it has company, as it emerges that one traveller has followed in another’s footsteps, all but reliving the experience of a different person. One consciousness finds itself side by side with another, in the memory of the Heideggerian feeling of Dasein, ‘there-being.’ Identities may be insolubly remote, but in opening the eyes to foreign surroundings, the same sights may inspire similar vision, and closeness, generations apart. The physical condition of a place is a great equaliser. Even a site’s most vehemently intellectually dissenting visitors are united by a sense of standing there, and not somewhere else. Mediterranean lands must have seen more of these overlaps than most, having hosted countless intellectual pilgrims. The Mediterranean’s

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mental territory has a vast spread, but its physical territory leads thought into more compressed space. Land journeys are dictated by passable ter- rain and around the islands there is a net of regular shipping routes. Any harbour pilot knows there are only so many ways to approach a certain port, so that while a visitor might read the figuring of a shore for the first time, the inbound route means that the experience is also a recital of coast- line, to a mature script. Even a gap of years between such readings cannot outlast topography. Barring catastrophe, a city, village, temple or theatre essentially stays put, as do the mountains, headlands and plains that are its contours, boundaries and signatures. The ancient Greeks in particular seem to have had a talent for building in ways that magnified a natural setting, a sense of harmony they took with them to their colonies. The amphi- theatre at Taormina was built to frame Mt. Etna as a backdrop to the stage, and the volcano is as dramatic now as it was for ancient theatregoers. It is only more recent human activity which threatens to disrupt the pattern. Modern buildings and urban sprawl break up the long-enduring outline, so that a landscape takes on an involuntary camouflage, distracting the visiting eye and frustrating those who would prefer an unhindered gaze at the past. Yet underneath rising and falling streets, or the suddenly lifted and squared skyline of rooftops, there are still the folds and flatlands of the earth, implied as a rock’s form is by a coat of barnacles. So in built-up areas the older condition of a place transmits even now, and a sensitive traveller can interpret a message. The difficulty is translating the power of Dasein into language. Between this and the previous issue of Modern Greek Studies, I present a pair of travelogues which pinpoint this experience of looking on ancient Mediterranean sites for the first time, shadowed by other minds and other readings. The travelogues represent departures in a literary as well as literal sense, as both were written by poets making forays into their ‘second’ medium of prose. Greece in Italy, or A Great Silence, the first part of which appeared in the previous issue, is an account by Piero Bigongiari (1914- 1997) of travels in southern Italy – Puglia, Calabria, Sicily and Campania – to visit the remains of the Greek colonies known as Magna Graecia, in March and April 1952. The shorter On the Sacred Way by Eugenio Montale (1896-1981) is a piece of reportage Montale produced during a literary tour of Greece proper in May 1962, as a guest of the Italian Institute of Culture.1

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The two pieces obviously differ materially, having been written ten years apart and on opposite shores of a sea, but Bigongiari and Montale show themselves to be true fellow travellers, and not only because they happened to know one another well and to have shared a great deal in their formation as poets in Florence.2 The writing itself is united by sensibility. Both poets find their understanding of ancient Greek culture through readings of its grounding in landscape, and both accept landscape as they find it, seeing Magna Greece and Greece proper as essentially unchanged settings, which allow meaningful connections to ancient personalities. Indeed, in many important respects, it is as though the travelogues represent two stages in the same journey. As described in the previous issue, Greece in Italy was in fact the prelude to a larger-scale trip Bigongiari made to Greece proper in 1953, which produced Testimone in Grecia [Witness in Greece], a magnificent volume of essays and photography co-authored with his travelling companions. Their ‘witnessing’ of ancient cultures continued the following year in Egypt, which produced an equally absorbing volume. Altogether these travels contributed to one of Bigongiari’s central preoccupations, the nature of origins, cultural and personal, which preoccupied his writing in the 1950s and persisted subliminally throughout his life. Montale did not have the luxury to travel so extensively or on so broad a theme, but On the Sacred Way comes across as a long-awaited leap into similar territory. Its brevity intensifies Montale’s savouring of the experience. The difference in the two pieces’ length is a matter of style rather than effort. Bigongiari’s prose is conversational and generously flowing, in tune with his first perception of the south as “long wave landscape,”3 while Montale’s manner is quite clipped, his phrases often depending on a single, intensely calculated word to refract the intensity of his impressions. The most inventive of these, and the hardest to translate, is polipaio, denoting the slimy, suckered, tentacled contents of an octopus salesman’s basket. In this context the suffix-aio denotes a gathering or some kind of forum or den, and modifies polipo (octopus or polyp) into a slippery heap of itself, a next to impossible feat in English. Octopile was one possible rendering, but in the end it took two words, octopus nest, to evoke the tangled overlapping of many octopus bodies and situate such an image, credibly and sonorously, in a basket. To a degree, Montale’s concision was dictated by the constraining column inches of the Corriere della sera, but the density of his turn of phrase

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is in fact typical of his other work. He was known for his reserve, even in conversation rarely saying more than he had to; his poetry is renowned for pithy and unsettlingly deep insights arising from odd everyday trivialities. Indeed, in writing poetry, Montale reportedly followed the maxim that it was pointless to write a sequence where one poem would do – better to face the one, glaring truth than circle around or dilute it. It is ironic, then, that On the Sacred Way is actually the first piece in set of three. The other two are brief accounts of interviews with Greek journalists and intellectuals, which may well be of interest another time, but which all but write Montale’s voice out of the scene. They also simply concentrate on matters concerning modern rather than ancient Greece, and are more concerned with discussion than with travels in time and timelessness. As Montale suggests at the end of On the Sacred Way, he had not experienced all that he had hoped to. What he did experience seems to have impressed him deeply, for all his restraint. On the Sacred Way stands as a radiant miniature, in which Montale found some space to touch on something metaphysical, outside his official roles as correspondent and honoured guest. Bigongiari’s more relaxed approach to his travelogue is also typical, in that he considered prose the natural dimension for exploring and experimenting, in which a poet was allowed, even obliged, to kick loose. He had set his own maxim in this respect as a student, declaring that in writing prose a poet “throws himself in and disciplines in some way the avalanche of thoughts,”4 prior to setting them down in poetry’s distilled shapes. As described in the introduction to the first part of Greece in Italy, this was precisely what was happening as Bigongiari explored Magna Graecia. The long and difficult process of writing his second poetry collection, Rogo [Pyre or Blaze], was nearing its end, and with it Bigongiari’s consuming preoccupation with Italy’s Second World War traumas. Greece in Italy was the first of Bigongiari’s writings to break free of it, at least materially: nowhere in the text is it obvious that Bigongiari was still dwelling on the emotional contortions and often crazed imagery that built up over eight years in Rogo. The pyre or blaze of the title refers to a central motif of consuming fire, which over the course of fifty-four poems achingly transforms from an agent of destruction into the heat of a crucible, in which the matter of life is reorganised and adapted to new conditions. By the time Bigongiari toured Magna Graecia, this fire had died down, and was all but out. Then

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the journey and the working-through that Greece in Italy represents brought about two last bursts of poetic activity, which sealed off Rogo in a way that the earlier poems had barely anticipated (and much to the surprise of Bigongiari’s publisher, who had already delayed the book twice because of other sudden additions). The two closing poems of Rogo, “Ibis redibis” and “Un lume velenoso” [“A venomous light”], evoke the volcanic landscape of Campania and its associations of past destruction. Bigongiari reached this area at the end of his trip, writing about it in the last two sections presented here, “Elea” and “Paestum.” In the poems that the visit inspired, the rogo of the war settles into the same menacing dormancy as Vesuvius, joining cataclysms already deeply buried in the Italian psyche. In conceiving of this, Bigongiari made himself a fellow traveller of Giacomo Leopardi (1799-1837), whose last great lyric, “La Ginestra, o il fiore del deserto” [“The Genista, or the flower of the desert,” 1836] had also seen on the barren slopes of “Sterminator Vesevo”5 a vision of Italy’s frail endurance and the mute catastrophe of its decline. Leopardi’s shrub must bow its head beneath the lava flows, but it dies more nobly than modern man, who is a shallow and ignominious creature beside the ancients, the remains of whose elegant and uplifting civilisation litter that lonely region. Bigongiari looked on the same sights during his journey and was well alive to their desolation. During the writing of Rogo, however, he had come to believe in a basic vital impulse, which, despite working at the most remote and incremental level of consciousness, fundamentally resisted the destructive forces that Leopardi saw as inevitable – and there was nobility in this. Walking in Campania, Bigongiari’s thoughts engaged in a quiet, understated dialogue with Leopardi’s, consisting of nods and references rather than outright questioning. The effect of this subtle intermingling of impressions anchors both poets in the one place, as they talk across time. In 1836, Leopardi describes bats huddling in crevices, shielding their young; in 1952, in “Un lume velenoso,” Bigongiari projects himself into Leopardi’s frame as a “Florentine bat,” “calmly flitting about.”6 In 1836, the lava glows; in 1952, the volcanoes are spent.7 And where in 1836 the genista must resign, burn and perish, and the world go silent, in 1952 the vital impulse flickers and pushes life to go on making sense of itself: ...in the fire what remains of you of me, crackles, advances, adores

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its funereal essence, which is to disappear from here and in the blue find once again among the stars its body, in the sleepless drone that fatigues the universe towards a voice.8 So two divergent poetic inspirations spring from the one Dasein, and in Greece in Italy we can witness Bigongiari working his out. For Leopardi, the ancients were the youth of the world and the moderns its decrepit old age. Bigongiari, gazing around at the moody coast of Elea, mused on the depths of geological history surmised there by “the rhapsodist Xenophanes” and on Leopardi’s grand, despairing metaphors, and sensed the elements of the place and the presence of both former visitors transmitting to him – but he rephrased what they implied altogether about time: “The world is not yet completely born: we are its eternal youth.” On the Sacred Way, too, preserves in its concise, laser-like descriptions the fleeting moments when Montale also sensed a oneness of things in Greece proper. His lack of space compelled him to favour generalities over detailed descriptions, for instance proclaiming “the long snaking road that leads from Athens [...] to Delphi,” the ‘sacred way’ itself, as a “miracle of harmony.” Hackneyed phrases such as those are rare, though. Most of Montale’s generalities are not intended to brush broadly over meanings, but sew them up tightly together, delineating quickly the conceptual lining of the experience and leaving emotional implications to the weighted effect of individual words. The travelogue is written in a saturated shorthand. Af- ter that unpromising beginning with the “miracle of harmony,” the actual journey along the ‘scared way’ is made of intensely radiant elements. It is a collage of single images, each held in its own tightly-spun sentence, many of which sketch out a thought system or extended metaphor, adding together to evoke an ancient presence that endures as an undercurrent of undercur- rents. The changing patterns of vegetation suggest the attention-holding drama of an epic; rugged landforms suggest “irregular strophes” that will not be fused together in the heat of writing poetry; the wind “sighs from distant throats”; the whole atmosphere is one of “subterranean convulsed exuberance” that has breached the surface and now glows everywhere. Even if his schedule did not allow him to look long at things, it is clear that Mon- tale was able at least to notice them and think deeply on their potency.

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The trouble with On the Sacred Way is that Montale’s perception of transcendent forces is constantly interrupted by contemporary rubbish: obnoxious new hotels, coaches, ignorant crowds. At one point, at Delphi, Montale ponders the merits of a UNESCO residence for artists, writers and philosophers, under construction nearby. Although highly sceptical – he wonders what good it could do a Hölderlin or a Nietzsche, given that both of those writers produced ideal evocations of Greece without ever needing to go there – Montale does sense that “the air of Delphi is electric, exciting, probably mysteric,” and when he leaves off the subject of the residency, he leaves open the possibility that future writers may not necessarily find it pointless. But if mystery and literature could still be partnered at Delphi, Montale laments, “Mystery and tourism cannot be reconciled.” Montale’s disdain for tourism, and the way its mob rule drowns out the individual connection to places, is evident throughout On the Sacred Way and may raise a reader’s smile at several points. It is a serious matter, though, as it put Montale’s attitude in danger of being jaundiced. Even the inspirational journey along the ‘sacred way’ itself became “tedious.” It might have been hindered a little by a sluggish travelling pace and a flat tyre, but under any other circumstances Montale would have welcomed such opportunities to slow down his time there. As it was, touristic vulgarity in the midst of spir- itually charged landscapes tried his patience to the limit. Bigongiari was just as aware as Montale of the less savoury aspects of some of the places he visited. In southern Sicily, he passed through the towns of Palma di Montechiaro and Gela. The latter he described as “an extremely poor city tak[ing] the place of the great Gela which welcomed Aeschylus,” and in exploring Palma di Montechiaro noted that instead of drains the streets had central ditches, the air smelled of urine, and “misery [had] transformed faces into impenetrable masks.” Yet he was far from believing that the modern age in Magna Graecia was a fallen one. The region’s people might have been poor, even at this point in the twentieth century (or perhaps especially then, with war legacies still lingering), but they were people nonetheless. Bigongiari could not dismiss their psychology, especially as, in his view, it was inseparable from their Dasein. Beneath their emotional inscrutability he detected “a primitive happiness,” a positive and ineffaceable sense of belonging, derived from working the land, living off its fertility, being what it dictated: “A happiness without smiles, full of

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restraint, all returns and departures, to be purchased like an object, by the power of sweat and solitary cogitations, like bread and what little else fills up those tables.” There was no looking down upon these country Sicilians. Bigongiari’s description of the nightly return of workers from the fields – “what seems a whole people migrating by cart” – is full of surprise at the spectacle, but also appreciation for its emotional meaning locally: “At the entries to these poor cities there is a festive atmosphere for these returns at dusk: children, goats, dogs, chickens come out to meet the people coming back, they overfill the street in quiet tumult.” The muted quality Bigongiari perceives cancels out any hint of the merely picturesque: the atmosphere at Palma di Montechiaro and Gela is one of mixed feelings, as subtle a Dasein as anything Bigongiari considers at an ancient site empty of people. As with Montale, in this case Bigongiari could not devote more attention to this subject, as he was travelling on the theme of the dead rather than the living, but again like Montale, he did at least notice that the living offered much else to think about. In this respect Bigongiari disagrees profoundly with another fellow traveller, this time one taking exactly the same route through Magna Grae- cia, in the distant years of 1897 and 1898: the English novelist George Giss- ing (1857-1903). Gissing had gone in search of myth and self-forgetfulness, which he imagined he would attain while standing on the same ground and looking on the same landscapes as his long-vanished literary icons. As he put it, Every man has his intellectual desire; mine is to escape life as I know it and dream myself into that old world which was the imaginative delight of my boyhood. The names of Greece and Italy draw me as no others; they make me young again, and restore the keen impressions of that time when every new page of Greek or Latin was a new perception of things beautiful. The world of the Greeks and Romans is my land of romance; a quotation in either language thrills me strangely, and there are passages of Greek and Latin verse which I cannot read without a dimming of the eyes, which I cannot repeat aloud because my voice fails me. In Magna Graecia the waters of two fountains mingle and flow together; how exquisite will be the draught!9 Gissing recounted his progress, rarely without grandiloquence, in a long travelogue called By the Ionian Sea: Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy. The moments of bliss he sought turned out to be rare, and the reasons why

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can be found in one early description, written on the first stage of the journey southwards from Naples: The stillness of a dead world laid its spell on all that lived. To-day seemed an unreality, an idle impertinence; the real was that long-buried past which gave its meaning to all about me, touching the night with infinite pathos. Best of all, one’s own being became lost to consciousness; the mind knew only the phantasmal forms it shaped, and was at peace in vision.10 Gissing’s notion of travel was fatally one-sided. He might on this occasion have dissolved in contemplation of the ancient setting around him, but he assumed that he could demand this of Magna Graecia whenever he wished, which was all the time. Furthermore, his desire to forget himself meant that he laid the trap of perpetual disappointment. Travelling alone, with little knowledge of Italian and meeting no locals he considered capable (or even worthy) of intellectual conversation, Gissing’s attempted escape saw him further imprisoned. Small wonder, then, that his temper quickly rose – but unfortunately he vented his frustrations on the Italians around him, thus completing his alienation from the land he so dearly wished would embrace him. In many other respects Gissing’s rambling in 1897-1898 predicts much of Bigongiari’s journey to an eerie degree. Both their narratives begin in Puglia (Gissing’s after a Neapolitan prelude), trace the Greek sites around the Gulf of Taranto, stand at the southern tip of Calabria, then swing northwards again to the Strait of Messina. This Bigongiari crosses and their ways part, at least on the page, but the parallel is more than a question of routes. At many points Gissing and Bigongiari describe particular sights as though standing together, one a ghost in the other’s presence. Looking on the remote Sila, the last range of the Apennines that reaches down to the tip of Calabria, “dark with climbing forests,”11 both writers imagine the same emptiness. Gissing in 1897 “dream[s] of sunny glades, never touched, perhaps by the foot of man since the Greek herdsman wandered there,”12 while in 1952 Bigongiari hears his ‘great silence’ for the first time: “deserted plains, dunes, grey marlstones, meadows, scrubland, olive groves run wild. [...] The silence has mysterious dimensions because, more than space, it occupies a limitless time.”13 At the site of Sybaris, a city destroyed in war at the time of Pythagoras, what preoccupies both writers is the density of earth between them and the ruins. Between their accounts, we can

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witness the ground uncovering itself. In 1897 Gissing laments that the remains of Sybaris lie out of reach “beneath some fifteen feet of alluvial mud [...] as on the day when [the river] Crathis first flowed over them,”14 while in 1952 those same remains are just emerging under Bigongiari’s feet: “Stone, worked stone, square cut, lies immediately beneath. There are glimpses of coins, bones, fragments of pottery funereally striped in black and red.”15 At Capo Colonna, a dramatic promontory on the Calabrian coast, stands a single Doric column, the last of the great Temple of Hera. In 1897 it appears to Gissing like a defiant lighthouse;16 in 1952 Bigongiari watches a real lighthouse there, “sweep[ing] through the night over the Ionian.”17 And there is the howling wind, disturbing sleep in 1897 at Capo Colonna (“The wind would not roar itself out. Throughout the night it kept awaking me”)18 and in 1952 at Syracuse (“At night, in the hotel, the wind comes into our rooms under the doors and almost lifts our sheets off” – see below). Isolated down the end of Italy, as though thrust out over the sea on a gangplank, Gissing and Bigongiari find themselves compelled to react as one to many powerful stimuli. They are likewise united on the questions of Italian suffering and endurance. No foreign invasion had ravaged southern Italy in 1897 as it had a few years before 1952, but in 1897 Italy certainly had been invaded by Italy. The chaotic effort to unite the country socially and economically as well as politically had seen southern people taxed and seconded for military service in the name of causes they could hardly be expected to understand. Gissing, for all his faults, perceived the people’s hardiness in struggling on. “One remembers all they have suffered, all they have achieved in spite of wrong,” he wrote, “A wandering stranger has no right to nurse national su- periorities, to indulge a contemptuous impatience. It is the touch of tourist vulgarity.”19 But such noble understanding came too late. Gissing felt himself besieged by vulgarity and had already decried his various lodgings as “ill-kept stable[s]”20 “heavy with indescribable stenches,”21 and if southern children looked “burdened before their time,”22 Gissing was less likely to put it down to injustice than to the fact that in the south “for the most part one walk[ed] on the accumulated filth of ages.”23 TheDasein of Magna Grae- cia was transmitting powerfully, but Gissing lacked the openness to receive most of the message. He succumbed to the jaundicing that tinged Montale in 1962 in Greece proper.

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Montale’s journey, too, was shadowed by a fellow traveller. Only a matter of weeks after he left, there came in search of the ancient Greek Dasein Martin Heidegger himself. His brief travel book Sojourns describes many of the sites that Montale had just visited, particularly Delphi (“disfigured [...] by the unfinished new buildings [to become] hotels for the American tourists”),24 as well as several of the islands, which Montale had not reached. Yet despite travelling further than Montale, Heidegger saw far less. He was so preoccupied with the conceptual nature of the Greek Dasein, so daunted by its intensity and so appalled by commercial tourism, that several times he simply refused to explore. At Rhodes, he would not even leave the ship, finding that the island’s nearness to Turkey unsettled his very identity as a westerner – a conundrum he contemplated the whole radiant summer day: the confrontation [Auseinandersetzung] with the Asiatic element was for the Greek Dasein a fruitful necessity. This confrontation is for us today – in an entirely different way and to a greater extent – the decision about the destiny of Europe and what is called the Western world. [...] As the blue of the sky and the sea changed by the hour, the thought arose, whether the East could be for us another sun-rising of light and clarity, or rather whether these are illusionary lights that feign the revelation to come from there and thus are nothing more than historical fabrications artificially sustained.25 And Heidegger wondered why Greece “remain[ed] so hard to describe, if it [did] not reject any description.”26 He had suspected that there might be such difficulties before arriving. “The Greece of today could prevent the Greece of antiquity [...] from coming to light,”27 he wrote early in the trip. By the end, he was sure he had the culprit. “[W]ith the unthoughtful as- sault of tourism an alien power enforces its own commands and regulations over ancient Greece,”28 he proclaimed. But in attributing full blame where Montale had merely expressed irritation, Heidegger only distanced himself further from the Dasein that his journey was meant to reveal. He chided tourists who were endlessly taking photos for not truly contemplating their surroundings – “They abandon without [a] clue the feast of thinking that they ignore”29 – but it was an undernourishing feast if its main ingredient was prejudgement. Heidegger knew this at least in the abstract: “What is of necessity is to look back and reflect on that which an ancient memory has preserved for us and yet, through all the things that we think we know and we possess, remains distorted.”30 Yet he did not act on this knowledge

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in any meaningful way during his Greek journey. It might have illuminated some subtleties in the pure concept of Dasein, but as a traveller, Heidegger had stayed mentally at home, ending up with the same disillusionment as Gissing, more than half a century earlier, and on the opposite shore of the sea. “So hard a thing to catch and to retain,” Gissing brooded in 1898, “the mood corresponding perfectly to an intellectual bias.”31 Bigongiari and Montale demonstrate that a successful foray into the ancient world depends on two-way traffic in time and space. These two modern Italians incline eastwards to look into ancient Greek places and culture, and are met half-way by the ancient Greeks themselves, speaking out of the land, towards a future that was theirs to invent, and looking westwards, to Italy. “Nothing so distinguishes ancient from modern man,” wrote Walter Benjamin, “as the former’s submission to a cosmic experience of which the latter is scarcely aware.”32 Be that as it may, the other distinguishing factor is that moderns are fervently aware of the ancients. Their legacy is open to whichever modern mind can translate their former influence. The result may be only a glimpse of the earlier reality and not a panorama, but even to sense that for a moment can suggest the larger radiance. What we have, we hold. Sydney, 2012 As explained previously, Bigongiari’s text is divided into numbered sections, not all of which have been included. There are also some omissions within certain sections, marked: [...]. These omissions were made because Bigongiari often quotes at length from other works, ancient and modern, without much commentary, this being a diary rather than a formal discussion. My intention was to focus Bigongiari’s own distinct voice and attitudes, which these long and unanalysed quotations rather diluted. Mon- tale’s text appears in its entirety.

Piero Bigongiari, Greece in Italy, or, A Great Silence (continued) X – Between the Anapo and the Cíane Having wandered around in search of ancient things in stone, we decide to go to the Anapo, in search of ancient nature; we head to the harbour to hire a boat, but the sea is impossible, rough everywhere, even in the

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Porto Grande. A great wind is up. But we do not want to give up and so in the car we head along the arc of the shore towards ancient Syraca, the now very fertile great bog-land, from which Syracuse may have taken its name. What a magnificent wind, at Syracuse. Under its force the wheat, already high, very dense, breathes vehemently between the Anapo and the Cíane. We move from one watercourse to the other, as they run very close together without touching, opening our way through the tussocks. The tall eucalypts shimmer in the wind. And the wind has a taste of ancient words. What if we listened? It seems we might understand something... Nothing remains of Cyan, who melted into water, if not this slow brook rippling in green. “Nothing remained of her that could be held.”33 A country man guiding us, having put down amongst the wheat a great bun- dle of flowers he had in his arms, cuts the fringes of some papyrus flourishing in the water and hands them to us. Here it is. Reckless. We handle its intensely white pulp, the green filaments which hang down like a tuft of hair, but we cannot keep them, take them away with us. We are gripped by an almost sacred terror. Here they lead their seabound life, here they have a last murmur of rebellion. Let us leave them here. What a wind at Syracuse! At night, in the hotel, the wind comes into our rooms under the doors and almost lifts our sheets off, bringing us the aroma of Capo Plemmirio and the whistles of the tugboats. We remember then, or perhaps we are already dreaming, that even the white and bony rock in which the Greek theatre is cut, under this wind seems to change colour, becoming agitated with a life which cannot tear itself away in the sigh- ing over its stonebound spell. This is a land of ghosts; fate has been invoked here too many times.

XI – The oranges of Gela The southern coast of Sicily senses Africa close by: we are level with Carthage: the African sea blows on these lands with its hot breath. In the most desolate places where the dunes cover and uncover, unstably, ruins and vegetation, it would not surprise us to see a great lion leap out, its roar breaking the muteness of this air, its bewitching spell. In leaving Syracuse we have turned south-west, heading for the region of almond trees and carob- trees, towards those places where the remains of Athenians who had been under Alcibiades and then Nicias and Demosthenes, driven back by Syra-

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cuse, found their final resting place, on the banks of the Cassibile and the Assínaros.34 We go through places where race became indissolubly confused, descending towards Capo Passero and Pachino and then turning properly west. So: Avola, Noto, Rosolini, Ispica, Modica, Ragusa, Comiso, Vittoria, and then an area where the bandit Vincenzo Rindone is making a name for himself locally, seeking in vain to follow in the footsteps of his great forerunner.35 In fact our drivers have asked to be allowed to get along this road much faster, before night falls... Siculi, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Swabians, the Aragonese – together they are a graft on this land, so thick as to give a mysterious depth to its inhabitants and, in the town- ships, a taste for history, or disgust with it, so pronounced that now history has dissolved into a compact humus, a sort of geographical aura, indifferent by nature. We are approaching Gela, we are approaching the sea. It is evening. And we are present for what seems a whole people migrating by cart: it is the farm workers going back to town from the distant fields, the workers who, having left at dawn, with the setting of the sun take the road back to their houses, with their horses, their donkeys, their little mongrel dogs padding along beneath the carts, tied to the axels of the wheels. The workers appear like Arabs crossing the desert, with their cloaks or cloth caps draped over their heads like burnous. Inscrutable old women watch us, with the gazes of lizards. At the entries to these poor cities there is a festive atmosphere for these returns at dusk: children, goats, dogs, chickens come out to meet the people coming back, they overfill the street in quiet tumult. Two large sheaves of grass waggle prettily here and there, tied to the backs of horses who sense, like landlords, that their stalls are near. Gela, Licata, Palma di Montechiaro... It is already evening when we pass through Palma di Montechiaro, dark blue on the saplings on a mountainside smelling of nocturnal sea: here we enjoy a childlike happiness in the dark, broken by lanterns at the doors which face on to the street: doors which set you imagining a dinner table waiting, on which a lamp is flickering weakly, and which flashes through the blue darkness outside enclosing the last homecomers. The street has no drains: instead of a hump, in the middle runs a ditch; so that rivulets run constantly along it, as it leads only downwards. Poverty, rust-red can- dles, the smell of urine and of a primitive happiness mixed into the misery which has transformed faces into impenetrable masks. A happiness without

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smiles, full of restraint, all returns and departures, to be purchased like an object, by the power of sweat and solitary cogitations, like bread and what little else fills up those tables. Even for us the oranges bought at Gela had the flavour of an ancient, happy mirage. Today an extremely poor city takes the place of the great Gela which welcomed Aeschylus, who died here in 456 B.C. After Syracuse and Agrigentum it was the most important Greek city of Sicily: from Gela in 582 B.C. the founders of Acragas departed. And Gelo, later tyrant of Syracuse, of the race of Dinomenides, also came from Gela, of which he had already proclaimed himself tyrant and which he ceded to his brother Heiron. Gelo pursued the programme of his predecessor Hippocrates, whose cavalry commander he had been; this can be defined as an attempt to give pre-eminence to the Doric element in Sicily, over the Ionic-Chalcidean element. In 424 B.C. Gela held the great Siciliot congress, which proclaimed the unity of interests of the Greeks in Sicily against Athenian intentions. Un- til in 405 B.C.36 Gela, too, after Agrigentum, ceded to the Carthaginian inun- dation. Today at Gela, with new fervour, excavations have started again: they are trying to lift away the immense blanket of sand which has buried it over the centuries. Some fortunate excavation campaigns at Capo Soprano, at the western extreme of the long hill of Gela, uncovered a series of extremely interesting ruins which established that the limit of the fortified area of the city lay far beyond what was believed, even by Paolo Orsi,37 to have been inhabited. Whoever gazed at the city from the sea would have seen it sprawling for more than four kilometres. And so truth returns through the story – anachronistic though it is – that Aeneas told Dido of the voyage along the southern coasts of the island and the appearance of “wild” Gela. Apparet Camerina procul campique Geloi immanisque Gela fluvii cognomina dicta. Arduus inde Acragans ostentat maxima longe moenia, magnanimum quondam generator equorum. Teque datis linquo ventis, palmosa Selinys...38 Thus this Greek coast unfolds, evoked again to Dido’s gaze “the dark fire blazing in her veins.”39 And the Geloan fields, the great valley which turns downwards in a plain to touch the sea, protected far away by high mountains, all green and uninhabited, with its sweet ripples and folds and the dunes which shelter it from the sea, this country without trees,

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where cotton and wheat grow, and which heads towards the night like a sky overturned, even colouring itself with darkness as though, like the earth, it were made of air and infinite transparency – it brings on us a shiver of the ancient Mediterranean happiness. We are making for lands of ash, of sulphur and of asphalt; we are heading towards the brown tuff of Agrigento, a mirage which yet maintains its signs within reality, between Saracen olive trees and a black sea which comes to meet you in a breaker of sunlight, if you look down from the height of Agrigento, through the enflamed skel- etons of columns, on the African sea. We are in the lion’s throat, there is no escape. Not for nothing does Agrigento find its origins with the tyrant Phalaris, with his bull of red-hot bronze to which he threw his enemies so as to hear their lamentation of death, mixed with a monstrous bellowing: it was the god Moloch who from nearby Carthage had set foot in Sicily.

XII – Agrigento In 490 B.C. Pindar saw in Agrigentum, home of the flautist Midas who was victorious at Delphi, “the fairest among all cities of mortals”.40 And yet Agrigentum had not yet crowned itself with the series of temples, which between 480 and 420 B.C., in less than six decades, in a sort of building fury, arose all together within its walls. Whoever has seen Agrigentum, even without having been to Greece can say that they know the full intellectual and affecting enchantment that this ancient civilisation has handed down, intact, as far as ourselves. The whiteness of the marble of the Parthenon has the purity of an idea; but this shelly tuff of Agrigentum through which that idea returns, out of abstraction, to become, let us say, pathetic and dolor- ous, to become anxiously light and flame, consuming itself – this cannot be forgotten: it is the other, human face of a perfect cycle. We are facing the temples. The wind, with its eddies that surprise us low around the columns, has consumed the base. The shelly, crumbly tuff does not withstand the vo- cal biting of the wind that seems to wish to carry these giants away with them, tearing them out of the soil. [...] [...] Until 480 B.C., for a century, Agrigentum was a warlike city. After the victory of Imera, the city was transformed: it was taken by a fever to build: slaves, who had been obtained in great numbers, cultivated its famous vineyards and olive groves, tended to its racehorses, raised the tem-

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ples. The wheat rippled all around. At the pan-Hellenic feasts its athletes drew honour. Simonides and Pindar lived here for long period, as hosts of Theron. And Gellias of Agrigentum was famous for his richness and liberal- ity throughout Greece.41 Until in 405 B.C., after Himera and Selinus, Agri- gentum’s time came: after eight months under siege, the city was sacked and set ablaze by Carthaginians craving to get their own back after their undoing 75 years before. Now we head towards the western part of the hill of the temples, towards the one known as the temple of the Dioskouroi, and which would be better called the temple of chthonic divinities. In this archaic sanctuary we see in the bothroi, that is, in the central cavities of the ancient altars, round or rectangular, the mysterious artesian wells of a primitive faith. Here where the Greeks and the indigenous people lived together before the official founding of Agrigentum, the bothroi seem as though they were dug into the earth in search of the subterranean world, a mysterious richness which would spring out, once found, to reassure the inhabitants of the consonance of that world with all in the darkness of the soul which they could neither dig out nor define. Man dug into the earth to give it this sense of chthonic liberation: man, too, that is the human need to believe, together with the compressed forces of nature, riddled the earth with these supernatural volcanoes. And here at Agrigentum, these Flegrean Fields of faith, these mysterious eruptions open to the sun are particularly affecting: the worn-out tuff of which they consist seems to be the solidification of an eruptive matter, and you do not know if it came from the depths of the earth or the ambiguous folding of the soul. The sun blazing overhead does not break that halo of reserve and suspension which surrounds them. Neither can it discount the possibility of a scream or blood emerging from them, regurgitated from the earth. So that in the end it seems natural to us that Agrigentum’s greatest son, Empedocles, as the legend tells, ended his days by leaping into a smouldering volcano, Etna, to rediscover in the primal fire a heat for a new fusion of his being. Empedocles, the last rhapsodist of Hellenic philosophy, saw chimerical monsters on earth, exploding chance into fantasy: “On the ground there sprouted heads without necks, and bare arms wandered without shoulders, and lone eyes drifted lacking brows.” There could be seen “many creatures born with doubled faces and breasts, oxen with the faces of men, human bodies with ox heads and shapes mingling the male and the female.”

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[...] With Empedocles the Orphic intuition of the four Elements of the world – air, water, earth and fire, considered “the limbs of Pan” – transforms into scientific theory. [...] But Empedocles was not a pure thinker: for him experience is fantasy, and vice versa: with him we move away from a purely abstract Greek thought: he leads us towards Galileo and Leonardo, that is, we might say, towards that other aspect of the Mediterranean intelligence which is more Italian than Greek. It was Empedocles, it was said, who worked in strict- est contact with nature, as far as modifying its structure in a way that was almost thaumaturgic. Not for nothing was a Hellenistic temple at Selinus, the little Temple B, supposedly dedicated to Empedocles, who would have cleansed the Selinuntian marshes; not for nothing is the cutting which di- vides the Rupe Atenea42 from the hill where the city rises called “Empedo- cles’ ravine”, because he envisaged it allowing a purifying North wind to enter and spread over the city, stirring the still air, drawing out its African malaise.

XIII – Selinus We move away from the crumbling tuffs of Agrigento, which did not permit the development of a great plastic art – and indeed the temples are devoid of any sculpture – and we turn towards the great sculpture of Selinus and its rocky ruins. Between Agrigento and Selinus the variety of stones blazing in the sun is infinite, now white as white, now golden, now silvery, alternating with burnt ground, great meadows, barley fields, oat fields, agaves. High above the road hangs the falcon, over the expanses where spring frolics and the eucalypts breeze lightly. The African air of tragedy which assails the green oases gives these places a sense of transparent apparitions forgotten in the hard air. Selinus: columns strewn like small change over the gigantic rock bases, cog wheels at a standstill in the grass: on the high plain the wind and the solitude rage before the grasses, the harvests, the wildflowers are engulfed into the sea, around the catastrophe in stone which the earth seems only barely to support. It still seems possible to hear the sound of ancient disasters, the terrestrial scream of earthquakes, in this tense air

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which even the mildest breeze can make alert, ringing; between Africa and what is most remote in Sicily, this air cloistered in time more than in infinite space. Here man can find himself, by gigantic catastrophe, as by the defeat of giants, restored to his own nature. The human voice is filled with meaning among these rocks, which were given form by man: a note on a violin would be enough to articulate this wildness. Indeed the human stature is a sanctuary, here where Orpheus is a household name, and where everything verges on the desert, except that the wind that runs across it is a wind in flower. Such high folly makes us more masters of ourselves, it brings a physical happiness, a jolt to our deepest self: at ease among the ruins, free of tiredness, merry (perhaps what drives us is a desert ecstasy), we talk as though standing in a colonnade in the time of Plato. Who would not feel like a Raphaelesque Plato or Aristotle? In effect the ruin raises up imaginary columns, temples of light, the fantastic speaking limbs of a city opposed to the tangible space surrounding it, to the winds from the interior and from the sea which penetrate it, linger there and suddenly fly for the open like migrating birds, shrieking. But with a shiver we remember, as we turn away from the ruin to look for an inhabited place (the closest, Castelvetrano, is fifteen kilometres away), that this could also be the place where Leopardi’s Icelander encountered Nature,43 and that all that broken ground could also be the giant body of a Nature torn to pieces by a god gone mad. And now thinking back: there, in that desert, we had spoken low, as though in a place that had witnessed a god erupt: it was, even with its signs of rage, a certainty, which left us no longer feeling orphans, although we were alone.

XIV – Misery and manna As we leave Segesta as though from some dark and stony full stop, already the liquefied blue of the little houses of Partínico introduces us to the Tyrrhenian. And from here on, all that we see is colour turning into stone, water, vegetation, words. Things yield to the hour that transforms them, time is space, the mountains are light which stays behind, suffocated in the sky even after the sun has set. Here the moon can do nothing: its reflected light, not made of matter, has no power over the glow of the land, over which it falls with a mysterious incredulity. So it is with the sun- lit bastions which defend Palermo, for whoever follows them along the

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seashore. So it is too with the immense riverbeds (as short as their courses might be), which open wide on the shoreline their debris of stony, blinding light, dropping straight from the Madoníe or from Val Dèmon: from the ash trees on their banks pours manna. Himera is a memory on the stony mouth of the Himera river: the remains of a Doric temple are debris among debris: they give off a calcified light. You would know Himera: here Hamilcar was undone in 480 B.C., here his nephew Hannibal inflicted the bloody rematch that made Greek Sicily overflow with mourning. And so here Greece is a noonday demon, or an ignis fatuus: anything but a consistent reality; and so it is that history yields to geography, nature triumphs over centuries of the efforts of men. If man has ever believed in truly pacifying nature, this place will disillusion him. Here Greece leaves us on tiptoe, an ever more sublime host to our thinking. [...] [...] Everywhere on these shores one has the sense of an eternity which acquires its earthly form as though by illusion; but it is a tangible illusion: reality is pitiable precisely by the grace of its extraordinary ambiguity. The fragility of its appearances testifies all the more to the height and ungraspa- bility of its substance. Here life seems a vision, with what in every vision in effect slips out of reach, if in every glance there is also a farewell. Here one gains mastery over life with the eyes. Seeing is seeing things that change, hours that seem like things. Beneath every conquest is the subtle artifice of spectacle: beneath every thought also. Here one feels watched even within one’s most intimate self: hence a more jealous closure of oneself, a diffi- dence as brusque as it is disarmed. What ardour is in these glances! Every- one is a particle of the fire which, between the Aeolian Islands and Etna and everywhere along this coast, is the implied leavening. Everyone carries it with them, into these valleys perpetually on the point of shifting from the pastoral to the tragic. On the northern coast of Sicily, Hellenic colonisation was spread thinly, without great epicentres. To the west of ancient Himera is Termini Imerese, where the crudest of the Syracusan tyrants, Agathocles, was born, and where Heracles, guided by the Nymphs, refreshed himself in the restor- ative waters after his bout with Eryx.44 To the east is Cefalù, which also may have grown out of the calamities of Himera. Alongside its ashen-grey cliff, a sort of immense natural Castel Sant’Angelo, there rises the Norman church,

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built in a shelly limestone similar to that which we saw had been used in the Greek temples, at Paestum for instance, but with a more subtle mixture, a more crumbly compactness, which glows in the evanescent and illusory light peculiar to these places, which it restores to nature even as it tries to flee from nature. This is a visionary Sicily; perhaps those other navigators, the Normans, knew better than the Greeks how to read its coasts.

XV – Tindari45 Tindari encapsulates this forgetful awareness of Greece. High above the sea, reaching out into the middle of the gulf of Patti, between Capo Ca- lavà and the slender, silvery peninsula of Milazzo, Tindari welcomed us in pastoral calm, bringing us face to face with the loveliest watercolour of the Tyrrhenian we had ever seen: the sea of a Japanese print. Here we really expected to see the roselli, a kind of white swan which they told us about at Pal- inuro.46 Much of the city has slid into the sea, swept away by a landslide, so Pliny says; and leaning out over the precipice we see strange, lunar tongues of sands emerging, with the play of currents, from the sea floor. A silvery fine dust blurs the infinite distance all around. Watching over it in silence, here there is the most incredible Greek theatrette in the world. It is small, and the seating tiers, which are of a silvery silicate, succumb here and there to a green gully where sheep browse; you could never see sheep so pastoral they seem imaginary: tethered to a peg, they are the only regulars at the theatrette, the low sun seems to get entangled in their fleece and to give their astonished idiocy the same importance as the restless surfacing of the seating tiers; in place of the fallen scenery, there is the spectacle of the green plunge towards the sea, with the Aeolians ghosting on the horizon. We might compare it to the theatres of Taormina, of Syracuse, but this theatrette, with its beauty not delirious but muted, does not lose in the comparison. Here nature retains a human form, but has returned to being nature. Here, if anything, we would see best not the fatal tragedies of Aeschylus, but the familiar “corrections” of the myth brought about by Stesichorus. [...] Tisias, who was known as Stesichorus, co-ordinator of choruses, is the first Greek poet of the western Mediterranean, from the end of the Seventh Century B.C.. Between Homer and Pindar this legendary figure emerges in the West, who in the fatiguing period of the elaboration of

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myths manages an interpretation, an arrangement of them that we could call rational. Between lyric and epic, he uses an intermediary language, with an impassive transfusion of epic data into lyric, and vice versa, which seemed, and is, a great thing. The most Doric of the Greek lyrics, that is the most impersonal, so it was said, with his psychological explanation of myth he decisively opened the path to Euripides and even Theocritus. [...] We go on, thinking: not far from here flourishes the great broad- leaved wild fig with broad leaves Ulysses clung to in saving himself from the black sea of Charybdis.47 And so, arriving here, Nausicaa has turned to us with the voice of the sea: we heard nothing else.

XVI – Elea48 Elea is almost, at least for now, more a dream than an archaeological reality. The Alento, advancing down its broad valley of multicoloured patches, far-reaching, through the Cilento mountains, has spread out a dusty plain north-east of the hill of Elea, precisely where the sea once reached in and surrounded the whole place, recalling its birth, refilling it with light – that strange light of the sea – and with mirages. The sea is now far away, off-white, soundless as we climb up through the “yellow thorns”, a species of genista, which in the sunlight inflame this high ground deserted by any other voice. Another village died up here, on the ruins of Elea, Castel- lammare della Brusca: born soon after the year 1000, by 1600 it was already a memory: now an ancient little church has become a farm hut, but is uninhabited, and the fortress, further on, belongs to a priest who no longer lives here because he was frightened away by lightning. In all, it seems that Elea wishes to preserve its solitude. Few ruins see the light of day. The rest is all underground. Whoever reaches the acropolis and contemplates the plain on the south-west, stretching towards Marina di Ascea and in the far distance, a great whale turned blue by the horizon, Capo Palinuro; whoever approaches the fortress which tightly hugs the ancient traces of Elea left open at its feet, will forget themselves: it is possible to feel spreading all around the shape intuited by Parmenides: the sphere without shadows, without relief, without folds, spreading in the mind. Here space is like time. The enduring moment echoes out from this centre, all around, in a thickness that can be seen and touched. Magic, infinite, the true silence of Being, unmoving,

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unchanging, incorruptible. If even a dash of new colour runs through it, it is like blood reddening on the round cheek of a young girl. Truth, the “well-rounded Truth” of Parmenides, is still a virgin truth. The fire running through it is that of the intelligence enraptured by the fire of poetry, but which does not lapse into imagining traditional theogonies. The mind rebels not against poetry, but against false imagining: that mind desires poetry returned to its earliest steps. [...] One day, from faraway Colophon, there arrived here the rhapsodist Xenophanes, absorbed in the development of Ionian speculation. [...] Here he began to claim that the earth is finite in its upper part, in which we move about, limited by the air; and that it is infinite in its lower part, which makes things take form and grow from an intermixing of earth and water. Our Earth, like an extraordinary plant, put down its roots here; as well as whoever held it in his thoughts, he too put roots down here, having carried it with him on the infinite, rolling expanses of the Mediterra- nean. Xenophanes said furthermore that the shells found in the mountains and the imprints of fish in Sicilian caves showed how the Earth had slowly freed itself from the waters that submerged it in the beginning. It was an emergence from the Flood. On these very shores. And the seeds of this knowledge which Xenophanes carried with him seem to coincide with the Greek adventure in the west: it is a knowledge which knows of water and of earth: truth ripples like the eye of the sailor, of one seeking a homeland, and who set out to discover it far from the Persian tyranny. An affair of water and earth: as land is outlined on the horizon after an unending navigation. [...] The world is not yet completely born: we are its eternal youth. The crows, even the crows which fly away from the castle of Bruca in the fra- grant sunlight have a childlike cry: their cawing seems to ripple in a cradle, it does not recall death. And only here, among the many crows which come to the ruins, did we have this strange sensation: that they might be at the origins of the world, a moment of distraction before its rigorous logic. Descending, we pass by the opening of the railway tunnel that perforates the acropolis of Elea, and Sestieri49 points out to us that the stones of the tunnel archivolt, so beautifully carved, are none other than the stones

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which the Eleans themselves had worked. He makes a disappointed gesture, and who can blame him, but what a marvellous tunnel mouth!

XVII – The coast of legends Between Palinuro and Paestum, as far as the mouth of the Sele, ex- tends a coast which has not finished holding back all its surprises. Here there are always new discoveries and new hypotheses. The left bank of the Sele was even part of very ancient Oenotria,50 which spread to the east as far as the Gulf of Taranto. The Oenotrians, who by the Fifth Century B.C. had branched out into Morgeti, Siculi and Italics, are the most ancient inhabitants of this patch of Italy, and they are spoken of like the ancient Dorians who came to Italy seventeen generations before the Trojan War, following the two sons of Lycaon, king of Arcadia, Oenotrus and Peucetius. In this way we see opening out in Magna Graecia a positively fabled Greekness, or at least a Doric-ness, which likens the Oenotrians to the Arcadocypriots; and the Greeks of the colonies known to history did no more than rejuvenate a land that, ab antiquo, was similar to their own. Besides, along the Ionic and Tyrrhenian coasts we catch more and more glimpses, in the substratum, of a land held deep and tight by a unity of lineage, indeed the Oenotrians, which discoveries confirm. When one speaks of pre-existing populations at the advent of the Greek colonies, we must not forget these Doricising foundations. This is the coast on which, as far as Campania, the Chalcidian sailors spread the legend of the travels of Ulysses. And Elpenor, companion to Ulysses, and helmsman to Menelaus, have lent a little of their shadow to Palinuro. Here scientific research picks out the origins of myths, rediscover- ing their basis in a history which can be glimpsed through a cloak of legend, and which is no less fascinating. Even the foundation of the Heraion, at the mouth of the Sele, whose discovery constitutes the greatest archaeological surprise of our time, was attributed by Strabo to Jason and his Argonauts. What does this show if not that ancient sailors landed at the mouth of the river and, as a sign of thanks, founded a sanctuary which over the centuries was destined to grow so much in fortune as to become a sort of Delphi or Olympia of Magna Graecia? We arrive at Paestum from the south, cutting through the middle of mountainous Cilento; first along the valley of the Alento which sends from side to side across its slopes, where we too are invaded by that light which

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is diffuse, uniform, solitary but also, from switchback to switchback, serene and absorbed by the farmlands and crags far away, without reflections, and ourselves made almost transparent, so that the journey unfolds in silence and with each of us reading in the other, without error, the calm becoming lost and absorbed in that land; and then heading down on to the plain of Paestum where it is evening, and the temples rest in the first long shadows, their columns and architraves becoming once again the tentacles of that mysterious nocturnal coral polyp which feels around, hunting outsid- ers: there is something terrible about night at Paestum, especially if some wind clouds up the hard, stony air. Then the temples seem to extinguish themselves, seeking the original darkness: their travertine, so luminous and animated by day, and patient with the temptations of life, becomes blacker than the night, redescends to chaos, chases man and his designs into a fabu- lous mirage: history. At night the temples of Paestum disappear from history and its dimensions as from any human comprehension: in the shadows they seem to breathe like ferocious animals, and the plain, as far as Capaccio on one side, and far away to the deaf sea on the other, seems to ring with a savage howling, as from a lion or a tiger, like the forest or the desert. To sleep at Paestum demands a fearless heart. 1952, Translated at the University of Sydney, 2011

Eugenio Montale On the Sacred Way To the telluric laceration of the Earth’s crust the reply, in Greece, is an almost luxurious richness of poor vegetation. Little or nothing new for whoever knows the Italian landscape; but for us variety meddles with the continuity of pleasure, it provokes a satisfaction that alters hour by hour and does not allow the fruitful ruminations of a most elevated boredom. We Italians enjoy our landscape by the teaspoonful; while in Greece the measure is the gallon. Here the meddling of the human species, too, is thwarted. It is possible to travel one hundred kilometres meeting only a few donkeys or a few goats; and the only snag is the great torpedoes of tourists, frequent, fast and bothersome. Those who troop off on these trips, though, have the advantage of being able to spend the night more or less comfortably out-

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side Athens, because the best hotels belong to the tourist agencies, which reserve rooms for their own clients. The lone traveller has very little hope of spending the night at Delphi or at Olympia if he does not have his own caravan; and he must limit himself to a few brief incursions followed by a necessary return to base. Arriving at Delphi, whoever does not wish to retreat to Athens has only two choices: either to be ferried along the seashores of the Pelopon- nese, where the landscape is much less interesting but where there exists the possibility of finding a decent hotel; or to carry on as far as Lepanto, along a road riddled with screes and holes, judged unfeasible even by guide- books printed many years before. And this was the solution that I myself had to choose, because at Lepanto someone was waiting for me: an important personality who knows perfectly our language and our literature. But first I should say something of Delphi, the sacred place castled along an impervious rise that dominates the buttered steep of a waterless river and a little triangle of sea, far off. At Delphi, I was told by my friend Fenton, an American writer who has lived in Greece for years, one must set- tle for waiting a long time for the hour of revelation. Failing that, one must limit oneself to admiring the famous auriga with the enamel eyes and to im- mersing one’s hands in the fountain of Castalia while expressing, mentally, a wish. I did not hold back from this rite, but unfortunately my wishes were many and at odds and I do not think they can be granted. Around Delphi there are ruins of all kinds that can be visited on mule-back. The air of Del- phi is electric, exciting, probably mysteric; but mystery and tourism cannot be reconciled. There exists, if I am not misinformed, a project, backed by UNESCO, to found at Delphi a phalanstère reserved for intellectuals, poets and writers “at a high level” in the hope that a flicker of sacred fire will fas- ten to their souls. But I do not see how a Hölderlin or a Friedrich Nietzsche (neither of whom ever came to Greece) could find any advantage in lodging in such a friary. Probably the few elect will be chosen according to scientific criteria overseen by technocrats of intelligence and literary production. And Greece, the truly immortal Greece, will be known and venerated only by a few great spirits who will have never set foot there. Not that the Ellada of today could disappoint a “sentimental” traveller (a type of tourist that is destined to disappear) because even today it can offer much to those who have eyes and sensibility; but it is a question

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of years. Allow the river of tourism to turn to a flood and even here you will see the consequences. For now the Greek landscape has known how to defend itself: I suppose constructions that are too high are forbidden by certain laws, and also by the fact that here we are on volcanic ground, jolted by not uncommon earthquakes. The one sad exception, the Hotel Hilton, under construction in Athens: a monstrous semicircular building51 which will be able to host at least a thousand people. Another hotel of enormous proportions rises at an altitude of one thousand one hundred metres on the mountain of Parnitha, sixty kilometres from the capital. It cost enormous sums and this expenditure even threatened the stability of the Govern- ment. However on the summit of that mountain, which in winter is covered in snow, the white stain of the hotel cannot be called a dissonance. A miracle of harmony, on the other hand, is the long snaking road that leads from Athens to Eleusis, to Thebes (earthquaked several times and today little more than a village), to Levadia and finally to Delphi. Here the vegetation has the highs and lows of an epic in which aspiration alternates in phases with nourishing torpor. The landscape is all a succession of irregular strophes; the evident work of man does not arrive at making of it a humanistic frame. The valleyings and the brief uprisings exchange one with another, the pines, the olive trees and the eucalyptus give place to little vineyards protected by drystone walls made of large stones. A thick flock of goats can be seen assembled, with goatherd and dog, in the shade of a tree. But perhaps the greatest surprise is elicited by the variety of minute grasses, by the velvety cushions that reclothe the rocks, by the proliferating wild red berries. The daylights are often blinding, the wind that sighs from distant throats disturbs the carpet of mosses in places where some splashes of green insist on growing on ledges of rusted earth. Monotony and waste, misery and subterranean convulsed exuberance seem thus the characteristics of this “sacred way” of the ancient world. The most frequent bird is that black magpie streaked with white that the Spanish call hurraca and that is seen in such quantities only in Provence and Catalonia. The crows, too, are numerous; later the falcons will appear. After Delphi I saw two, young, robust, squabbling amorously on a little wall by the road, indifferent to the passing of our car. Leaving Delphi, having had a brief look at what is left of the Temple of Apollo, the most tedious part of the journey began. At first the attention falls on an endless woodland of wild olive trees (endless but not so much as

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to form a forest: more of an immensely long arboreal gallery), then the road becomes almost impassable, full of humps and holes, scattered with screes and mountains of debris. The sea can no longer be seen; one rises and falls continually surrounded by rocks and the vehicle is forced to travel almost at walking pace. On reaching the village of Amfissa we succeeded in finding two worthies of the township (a policeman and the mayor) who courteously offered to telephone to Naupactus (Lepanto) to inform our host that, with the help of the gods, we would arrive at our destination extremely late. In the meantime it had grown dark. We did not meet a living soul; on resum- ing the journey a wheel had to be changed. We would have felt more at ease if only we had been able to see the sea; but the road – if that rocky crust of earth could be called that – continually goes on rising through bristling rock faces and only in its last kilometres plunges over the little city. Luckily the worthies of Amfissa had kept their promise and on the last stretch we were met and relieved by the car belonging to our host, Mr. Novas, deputy of the college of Missolonghi, belonging to a dynasty of deputies of that college, many times a minister and academician at Athens. A writer and poet, as well as a politician marshalled alongside the ralliement of opposition political parties headed by Papandreou, Kyrios Novas is the most important public figure in Lepanto, his native city. Recently he rebuilt his house, destroyed in a fire during the civil war, and he has assembled an impressive documenta- tion of all that has been published about the famous battle that unfolded almost four centuries ago off the coast of what is now Naupactus. With him and with the bearded papas of the city, who arrived to give us his auspicious greetings (and what a surprise to see a thick black beard looming into our car window at dead of night) without incident we continued the journey as far as the hospitable house of our protector. On arriving there I consulted I do not know how many carmi and epinici [victory odes], for the most part published in Venice in 1571-72 in honour of Don John of Austria and his admirals. Nor does the rare collection end here, because it is completed with curious prints from that era: in one of these, evidently executed ad hoc by a modern draughtsman, it is even possible to see Cervantes, who with the one hand left to him is embarked on a fight to the death with a Turk. Apart from this collection, which will eventually go to a local museum, there is not much to see at Lepanto. The port forms a quite harmonious ring and between little oleander woodlands one makes out the ruins

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of a Venetian castle. There is much silence at Lepanto and if the little city possessed a comfortable hotel it could be recommended to anyone wishing to live out a few days in peace. The following morning, waking up early, I heard the lamenting sound of a human voice, alternating with a chatter of sparrows. It was a travelling octopus salesman letting out his call. It is possible that in a few years the name of Lepanto will be associated in my memory with the tentacles and suckers of an octopus nest in a basket. All of Greece is this, it is also this, for whoever happens not to be an archaeologist and not to know how to command the relics of its vanished civilisation. It is a togetherness of natural apparitions that could be said to be impossible elsewhere and that in reality can be seen everywhere, but that only here assume the value of a mysterious calling: it is in the visionary magic of its landscape, poor but intense, indigent and sublime. Unfortunately such a discovery would have had another value in other times, when to come to Greece was a much more difficult undertaking. To become spiritual citizens of Greece meant something in the time of Byron who met his death here; it is impossible today for those who arrive by jet52 for a few days. And yet it is an error to come here with the soul of someone entering a museum. One must dissolve the fascinating and sometimes fearful curtain of images that are seen, of forms that are touched, to enter, live, into the Greece of today, to know its men, to learn how they love, what they can still give us and what we can learn from them. To know, in short, if there is a living Greece alongside the land of the dead that can be studied and loved while standing closed inside a library. And that is what sooner or later I would like to attempt, even if my visit today has been too brief. 1962, Translated at the University of Sydney, 2011

Notes 1 Giorgio Zampa, ‘Cronologia,’ in Eugenio Montale, Tutte le poesie (Milan: Mondadori, 2004), p. lxxvii. 2 Montale had been a mentor to Bigongiari and several other younger poets in the 1930s, when, despite the strictures of Fascism, Florence had a remarkably rich and liberal literary culture. When Bigongiari arrived in Florence as a student in the early part of the decade, Montale was director of the prestigious Gabinetto Vieusseux archive, a position from which he was later

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sacked for refusing to join the Fascist party. Montale embodied the browbeaten stoicism of the intellectual unable to take action for fear of reprisals, waiting instead for better times. Bigongiari and company, who had grown up under Fascism and so had no experience of better political conditions, looked to him for moral strength as well as advice on poetry. On that count, Montale’s contributions were invaluable, but his technical influence turned from inspiration into benign addiction. Montale’s writing was increasingly turning inwards and voicing the ironies of ordinary life under repressed conditions. His style was abstract, pithy and memorable, built incrementally from densely-worked and emotionally loaded syllables, and it became infectious. Bigongiari and other poets such as Mario Luzi, Alessandro Parronchi and Alfonso Gatto had to work extremely hard not to lapse into it. They eventually succeeded and had diverse and interesting careers, but Bigongiari stayed closer to Montale than the others. He was also among Montale’s most sensitive critics in that younger generation. 3 Piero Bigongiari, Greece in Italy, or A Great Silence, trans. Theodore Ell, inModern Greek Studies 15 (2011), p. 75. 4 Piero Bigongiari, L’elaborazione della lirica leopardiana (Florence: Le Monnier, 1937), p. 7. My translation. 5 Giacomo Leopardi, “La Ginestra o il fiore del deserto,” in Canti (Milan: Rizzoli, 1953), p. 135. 6 Piero Bigongiari, “Un lume velenoso,” in Tutte le poesie I: 1933-1963 (Florence: Le Lettere, 1994), p. 172. My translation. 7 Piero Bigongiari, “Ibis redibis,” in Tutte le poesie I: 1933-1963 (Florence: Le Lettere, 1994), p. 172. 8 Ibid., p. 172. My translation. 9 George Gissing, By the Ionian Sea: Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy (London: T. Fisher and Unwin, 1905), p. 9. 10 Ibid., p. 10. 11 Ibid., p. 32. 12 Ibid., p. 32. 13 Piero Bigongiari, Greece in Italy, or A Great Silence, trans. Theodore Ell, inModern Greek Studies 15 (2011), p. 78. 14 George Gissing, By the Ionian Sea, p. 43. 15 Piero Bigongiari, Greece in Italy, or A Great Silence, trans. Theodore Ell, inModern Greek Studies 15 (2011), p. 77. 16 George Gissing, By the Ionian Sea, p. 82. 17 Piero Bigongiari, Greece in Italy, or A Great Silence, trans. Theodore Ell, inModern Greek Studies 15 (2011), p. 82. 18 George Gissing, By the Ionian Sea, p. 93. 19 Ibid., pp. 130-131. 20 Ibid., p. 15. 21 Ibid., pp. 26-27. 22 Ibid., p. 166. 23 Ibid., p. 187. 24 Martin Heidegger, Sojourns: The Journey to Greece, trans. by John Panteleimon Manoussakis (Albany: State University of New York, 2005), p. 12. 25 Ibid., pp. 25-26. 26 Ibid., p. 31.

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27 Ibid., p. 4. 28 Ibid., pp. 55-56. 29 Ibid., p. 54. 30 Ibid, p. 3. 31 George Gissing, By the Ionian Sea, p. 235. 32 Walter Benjamin, “One-way Street,” in One-way Street and Other Writings (London: Penguin, 2009), p. 113. 33 Ovid, Metamorphoses, V. When the water-nymph Proserpine is abducted to the Underworld, her companion Cyan despairs and melts in tears into her own river. Bigongiari’s citation, “Nulla rimase lei che si potesse prendere,” is from the Italian translation by Salvatore Quasimodo, a contemporary with a very different view of the legacy of Magna Graecia (see Introduction in previous issue). See Salvatore Quasimodo, “Proserpina, Cyane (Lib. V – vv. 385-520),” in La vita non è sogno (Milan: Mondadori, 1949), 29. 34 Between 415 and 414 BC an Athenian force, led by Alcibiades, Nicias and Demosthenes, attempted to conquer the territory of Syracuse. The invasion failed disastrously thanks to overconfidence, bungled tactics and acrimonious leadership disputes. The Athenians who survived the battles against Syracuse were scattered and confused. They were taken prisoner and were so numerous that they could only be held in quarries in the region described here by Bigongiari. There, hemmed in, diseased and starving, great numbers of them died, and only a few managed to return to Athens, much later, to tell of the catastrophe. 35 The original Vincenzo Rindone was a black market racketeer and robber in this area during the Second World War. He was gallant and charismatic but ruthless – landowners died at his hand. He avoided capture and escaped to Rome but was eventually discovered, tried and imprisoned for life. We should assume that the Vincenzo Rindone whom Bigongiari names here was a less noteworthy copycat. 36 Most sources date this event at 406 B.C.. Bigongiari’s source may have differed or he may have been slightly mistaken. 37 Archaeologist (1859-1935) who pioneered the excavation of sites throughout the region. 38 Virgil, Aeneid, III, 701-705. The Aeneid was translated by C. Day Lewis in the exact year of Bigongiari’s journey, 1952. Day Lewis renders this passage thus: “and now, far off, is Kamarina, which fate said / Must never be reclaimed, and the Geloan plains, / And Gela, which is named after its own wild river. / Then Acragas [Agrigentum] on its crag shows from afar its great walls – / A town renowned one time for its mettlesome breed of horses. / The wind blows fair, and we leave palm-fringed Selinus behind...” The Aeneid of Virgil (New York: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1953), 79-80. 39 Virgil, Aeneid, IV, 1-2 (“At regina gravi iamdudum saucia cura / vulnus alit venis et caeco carpitur igni...”). 40 Pindar, Pythian Ode XII, str. 1. 41 Gellias, an opulently rich citizen of Agrigentum, met a tragic end. When the Carthaginians besieged the city he sought refuge in the Temple of Athena, but on realising that there was no redeeming the barbarity of the invaders, he set fire to the temple and was swallowed up in the flames. 42 A long and spectacular cliff running eastwards from the city of Agrigento. 43 Giacomo Leopardi, “Dialogo della Natura e di un Islandese,” in Operette morali (Milan: Garzanti, 1982), 147-158. In this philosophical fable an Icelander complains to Nature that he has been driven from place to place across the world by hardship and suffering, and that

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he no longer believes that man can be capable of peace or happiness while Nature treats him so cruelly. Nature replies that it is not Man’s place to expect anything from her, or to assume that the world is made to suit his happiness at all. 44 Eryx was a formidable boxer, but Heracles vanquished him. 45 In antiquity, Tyndaris. 46 The site of ancient Palinurus, in Campania. We should assume that Bigongiari had already passed through there on his way south, to return towards the end of his journey. 47 Homer, The Odyssey, XII, 425-436. 48 Bigongiari does not describe the journey from Sicily northwards to Campania. 49 Sestieri, we should assume, was Bigongiari’s guide on this particular day. 50 Among the most ancient of names for the south of Italy; very little survives of Oenotria. 51 Here Montale uses the actual word building, the English intrusion into his Italian matching the intrusion of the Hilton. 52 Once again, the English word jet intrudes into Montale’s Italian.

References Bigongiari, Piero, 1985. “La Grecia in Italia, o Un grande silenzio.” In Visible invisible, 46-84. Florence: Sansoni. Gissing, George, 1905. By the Ionian Sea : Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy. London: T. Fisher and Unwin. Heidegger, Martin, 2005. Sojourns: The Journey to Greece. Trans. John Panteleimon Manoussakis. Albany: State University of New York Press. Leopardi, Giacomo, 1982. “Dialogo della Natura e di un Islandese.” In Operette morali. Milan: Garzanti, 147-158. Montale, Eugenio, 1995. “Sulla Via Sacra.” In Prose e racconti. Ed. Marco Forti. Milan: Mondadori. 483-488. Quasimodo, Salvatore, 1949. Translation from Ovid, Metamorphoses, “Proserpina, Cyane (Lib. V – vv. 385-520), in La vita non è sogno, 25-32. Milan: Mondadori. Virgil, 1953. The Aeneid of Virgil, translated by C. Day Lewis. New York: Doubleday Anchor.

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Ναυσικά Κωνσταντίνος Παρθένης5 9 5 Contributors

Tatjana Aleksić Daniela Cosmini-Rose [email protected] [email protected] Tatjana Aleksić is Associate Professor of South Slavic Daniela Cosmini-Rose is Lecturer of Italian and and Comparative Literature University of Michigan, Coordinator of the Italian Section in the Department Ann Arbor. She has published her monograph of Language Studies at Flinders University. Her Sacrificed Body: Balkan Community Building and the primary area of research is the history of Italian Limits of Freedom (2013) and edited a volume on migration to South Australia. She has published Mythistory and Narratives of the Nation in the Balkans, nationally and internationally and her most (2007). Her contributions have appeared in many well-known publication, with Professor Desmond academic journals in Europe, USA and Australia. O’Connor, is Caulonia in the Heart, The story of the settlement in Australia of migrants from a Southern Italian town (2008). She is currently working on a Eric Bouvet project which investigates the ageing Italian migrant community in South Australia as well as being actively [email protected] involved in a Migrants’ belongings project, which Eric Bouvet is Associate Dean (Academic) in the examines the significance of belongings included in School of Humanities and Creative Arts at Flinders the ‘trunks’ of post-Second World War Greek and University. He is also Coordinator of French in Italian migrants who settled in South Australia. the Department of Language Studies. His research interests are in applied linguistics, with a focus on language learning strategies, and in migration George Couvalis studies. In particular, he has been researching the history of French community in Australia. He is the [email protected] the co-editor, with Diana Glenn and Sonia Floriani, George Couvalis teaches philosophy at Flinders of Imagining Home: Migrants and the Search for a new University. His research focuses on ancient Greek Belonging (2011). He is currently involved in the philosophy with special emphasis on Aristotle and Migrants' belongings project, to which Tales of glory late Greek philosophers. His publications also include boxes, suitcases and dreams contributes. essays on Plato, John Philoponous and David Hume

Martyn Brown Anthony Dracopoulos [email protected] [email protected] Martyn Brown is currently a Ph. D. student with the Anthony Dracopoulos is a senior lecturer with the School of History Philosophy Religion and Classics department of Modern Greek and Byzantine Studies at the University of Queensland. Previously he at the University of Sydney. He has published completed an M.A. in Modern Greek Studies at the extensively on the works of G. Seferis, C.P. Cavafy and University of Sydney. His research area is the New Greek Modernism. His latest publication is the study: Zealand-Greek wartime relationship. C.P. Cavafy: The Open Work (2013).

5 9 6 Theodore Ell Nicolas Evzonas [email protected] [email protected] Theodore Ell obtained his PhD in Italian at the Nicolas Evzonas, after receiving his BA in Classics University of Sydney, Australia, in October 2010, from the University of Athens, completed his M.Phil with a thesis on the poetry and philosophy of Piero degree with distinction in Modern Greek Literature Bigongiari from the time of the Second World War. from the University Paris-Sorbonne Paris IV and As well as Bigongiari, his subjects have included subsequently his Ph.D with highest honours from the 18th Century Italian geology, Romanticism, and same university. His thesis entitled Erotic Desire on Italian poetry of today. Theodore remains active as the Work of Alexandros Papadiamantis is scheduled to a translator and his own poetry has appeared in the be published by Harmattan by the end of 2015. His Sydney Morning Herald. He has wide interests in publications include articles on Ancient and Modern writing of all kinds, ancient and modern. He is the Greek literature as well as forthcoming contributions chief-editor of the literary journal Contrappasso. on cinema, psychopathology, and psychoanalysis. Since 2012, he has collaborated with the French Freudian journal Topique and been a member of Anna Efstathiadou the committee of the International Association Interactions of Psychoanalysis. [email protected] Anna Efstathiadou is a post-doctoral Fellow at the School of English, Media Studies and Art History in Diana Glenn the University of Queensland. Her area of research is cultural history, and in particular visual imagery [email protected] and expressions of nationhood through propaganda Diana Glenn is Dean of the School of Humanities and posters and photography produced during the Second Creative Arts at Flinders University. She is the author World War in Australia and Greece. She is a member of of Dante’s Reforming Mission and Women in the Comedy the Australian Historians Association and a honorary (2008) and has published numerous scholarly articles fellow of the Hellenic Photographic Society in Athens, nationally and internationally. She has jointly edited promoting Greek photography and organizing the following volumes: Dante Colloquia in Australia exhibitions around Australia. Her publications appear 1982-1999 (2000); Flinders Dante Conferences 2002 & in a number of international journals, while she 2004 (2005); Imagining Home: Migrants and the search frequently writes brief articles for the Greek photo- for a new belonging (with Eric Bouvet & Sonia Floriani, magazine ΦΩΤΟγράφος. 2011); The Shadow of the Precursor (2012); and (with John Kinder) ‘Legato con amore in un volume’: Essays in Honour of John A. Scott (Olschki, 2013). She is Eleni Elefterias Kostakidis currently active in the Migrants’ belongings project.

Eleni.Elefterias.Kostakidis@sydney. e d u . a u Eleni Elefterias-Kostakidis teaches Modern Greek at the University of Sydney. Her research focuses on Music, Ethnomusicology and Cinema. She is currently a M.Phil student exploring Balkan Documentary Films.

5 9 7 Eleanor Hancock Ioannis Kalaitzidis

[email protected] [email protected] Eleanor Hancock is an Associate Professor of History Ioannis Kalaitzidis holds a BSc Hons in Psychology at the University of New South Wales, Canberra. and a MA in Counselling Psychology from the Her area of academic interest is the history of 20th University of Nottingham. He received a BSc Hons century Germany. She has published a study of The in Education from Patras University and a Certificate National Socialist leadership and total war, 1941-5 in Professional Education from Harvard University. (1992) and Ernst Röhm Hitler’s SA Commander (2008). He is currently a PhD candidate at the Department Her most recent research project (with Associate of International Studies at Macquarie University. The Professor Craig Stockings) concerns the Axis invasions title of his thesis is “The relation between Working of Greece in 1940-1. Memory and Creativity”. He is working as an educational psychologist and a teacher.

Andrew S. Horton Vrasidas Karalis [email protected] Andrew S. Horton (Ph.D., University of Illinois [email protected] at Urnbana), is the Jeanne H. Smith Professor of Vrasidas Karalis holds the Sir Nicholas Laurantos’ Film and Video Studies. Horton is the author of 18 Chair in Modern Greek Studies at the University of books on film, screenwriting, and cultural studies, Sydney. He has published extensively on Byzantine including Screenwriting for a Global Market ( 2004), historiography, Greek political life, Greek Cinema, Henry Bumstead and the World of Hollywood Art European cinema, the director Sergei Eisenstein and Direction (2003), Writing the Character Centered contemporary political philosophy. He has also worked Screenplay (2000, 2nd edition), and The Films of Theo extensively as a translator (novels by Patrick White) Angelopoulous (1999, 2nd edition). His films include and the theory of the transcultural translation. He Brad Pitt's first feature film, The Dark Side of the Sun, has edited volumes on modern European political and the much-awarded Something in Between (1983, philosophy, especially on Martin Heidegger, Hannah Yugoslavia, directed by Srdjan Karanovic) Arendt and Cornelius Castoriadis. His recent publications include A History of Greek Cinema (2013) and Greek Cinema from Cacoyannis to the Present Joanna Hyslop (Forthcoming by I.B. Tauris). [email protected] Joanna Hyslop is a professional artist and teacher Elizabeth Kefallinos based in England. She is conducting research on New Zealand military chaplains of the First World War and [email protected] is the granddaughter of Charles Dobson, Anglican Elizabeth Kefallinos is the Head of the Program Chaplain at Smyrna in 1922. of Modern Greek Studies in the Department of International Studies at Macquarie University.

5 9 8 She has published mainly on literature and social Eleni Leontsini narratives but some publications also appeared [email protected] on language and education in various academic journals. Her research focuses on oral historical Eleni Leontsini is Lecturer in Philosophy at the intergenerational narratives in order to examine the Department of Philosophy of the University of maintenance, the development, the transformation or Ioannina, Greece. Currently, she is also teaching at the rejection of Greek traditional values in Australia. the Greek Civilization Undergraduate Program of the She currently investigates the Jews of Zakynthos and Hellenic Open University and at the Postgraduate their survival during the 2WW. Program (M.A. in History and History Didactics) of the Department of Primary Education of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. She Patricia Koromvokis specializes in ethics and political philosophy and the history of these subjects, particularly Aristotle. She [email protected] has given papers in conferences and has published Patricia Koromvokis has a BSc in Greek Literature, widely in journals and collected volumes at home Philology Studies and a MSc in “Teaching Modern and internationally. She is currently completing a Greek as foreign language” from Greek National monograph on Acts and Omissions: Problems in Applied Kapodistriako University of Athens. She is a PhD Ethics and a book on Aristotle’s moral and political candidate at the Department of International Studies philosophy, both in Greek. Also, she is currently at Macquarie University. The title of her thesis is co-editing (with Emrys Jones) a volume of collected “The acquisition of gender in Greek for adult second papers on Friendship in Society: The Idea of Friendship language learners”. She works as an Associate Lecturer in the Age of the Enlightenment and working on a at Macquarie University. monograph on Aristotle’s notion of civic friendship, both in English.

George N. Leontsinis Golfo Maggini George N. Leontsinis is Emeritus Professor of Modern Greek History and Teaching of History at [email protected] the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Golfo Maggini (PhD, University of Paris, 1997) is Greece. He is currently teaching at postgraduate Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University level at the National and Kapodistrian University of of Ioannina, Greece. Since her undergraduate years at Athens and at the Harokopio University in Athens. the University of Athens, Golfo has been concerned He is also President of the newly established “Society about the modern technology and the ontological, of Theory, Research and Teaching of General and ethical, and political questions it poses to mankind. Local History” that aims to promote the research and Her research takes contemporary phenomenology, teaching of general and local history in Greece. He has especially the hermeneutic phenomenology of written widely on Modern Greek History and History Martin Heidegger. Her books include: Technoscientific Didactics, having published 25 books (authored) and Posthumanism: a Philosophical Approach, (2014) ; 11 conference proceedings volumes. Towards a Hermeneutics of the Technological World (2010); Habermas and the Neoaristotelians. The Ethics of Discourse in Jürgen Habermas and the Challenge of Neoaristotelianism, (2006).

5 9 9 Panayota Nazou S. Nikoloudis

[email protected] [email protected] Panayota Nazou teaches Greek language and culture Stavroula (Stephie) Nikoloudis, is an Honorary Fellow, at the University of Sydney. She has published with the Department of Classics and Archaeology extensively on women’s writing in Greece and School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at Australia. Her latest publication is the book Proxy The University of Melbourne. She has published on Brides: Experiences and Testimonies of Greek Women the history of Greek language especially of the early in Australia (1950-1975) (Periplus, 2013). She is Mycenaean period. currently contacting research on Melina Mercouri - an International Star and a Cultural and Political Symbol. Dimitris Paivanas

[email protected] Toula Nicolacopoulos Dimitris Paivanas has studied Greek and Modern [email protected] Greek Literature at Melbourne University and has taught Modern Greek Literature at Melbourne and George Vassilacopoulos La Trobe Universities during 1984-1993. He has [email protected] published articles in the weekly Australian newspapers as well as in literary periodicals in Australia, USA Toula Nicolacopoulos and George Vassilacopoulos and Greece. In 1997, he published a book of poetry lecture in Philosophy at the University of Melbourne. and prose titled Monyeloi kai dioptres. He received his They have published books and articles in European doctorate from Birmingham in 2008. His monograph philosophy, political theory, critical race and whiteness on the work of Thanassis Valtinos appeared in 2012 theory and the history of Greek-Australian political (Estia Publications). activism. George Vassilacopoulos is the author of Monumental Fragments: Places of Philosophy in the Age of Dispersion, Melbourne: re.press, 2013. Toula Maria Palaktsoglou Nicolacopoulos is the author of The Radical Critique of Liberalism: In Memory of a Vision Part 1, Melbourne: [email protected] re.press, 2008. Together they are the co-authors of Maria Palaktsoglou is a Lecturer in Modern Greek The Disjunctive Logic Of The World: Thinking Global Civil language and culture at the Department of Language Society With Hegel, Melbourne: re.press; Indigenous Studies, Flinders University, and the Director of Sovereignty and the Being of the Occupier, Melbourne: Studies and the Coordinator for first year topics in re.press, 2014; Hegel and the Logical Structure of Modern Greek. She has an MA (1996) and a PhD Love, Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999; and From Foreigner (2002) on Greek Literature from Flinders University. to Citizen: Greek Migrants and Social Change in White Her areas of research are: twentieth century Greek Ausralia 1897-2000, (Greek), Melbourne and Pireas: literature and literary criticism and Greek-Australian Eothinon, 2004. migration in Australia. She has published one book and a series of articles on literature and migration and has taken part in many National and International

6 0 0 Conferences both in Australia and Europe. She Craig Stockings is currently involved in several projects such as [email protected] Migrants’ belongings, Migrant Domestic servants, and Migration Experiences through Blogging. Craig Stockings is an Associate Professor of History at the University of New South Wales, Canberra. His areas of academic interest concern general and Peter Prineas Australian military history and operational analysis. He has published a history of the army cadet [email protected] movement in Australia entitled The Torch and the Peter Prineas is an independent scholar and Sword (2007), and a study of the First Libyan Campaign researcher. He has published a number of monographs in North Africa 1940-41: Bardia: Myth, Reality and on Greek and Australian history; amongst them the Heirs of Anzac (2009). He has also edited Zombie Katsehamos and the Great Idea (2006), Britain’s Greek Myths of Australian Military History (2010), Anzac's Islands (2009) and Wild Place (2012). Dirty Dozen: 12 Myths of Australian Military History (2012), and Before the Anzac Dawn: A military history of Australia up to 1915 (2013). His most recent research Catalina Ribas Segura project (with Associate Professor Eleanor Hancock), concerning the Axis invasion of Greece in 1941. [email protected] Catalina Ribas Segura has completed dissertation on Greek-Australian Literature at the University of Nick Trakakis Barcelona (Spain). She has also worked on migrant literature and has finished her PhD on “Neither here [email protected] and nor there does water quench our thirst”: Duty, N.N. Trakakis is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the Obedience and Identity in Greek-Australian and Australian Catholic Philosophy. He works primarily Chinese Australian Prose Fiction, 1971-2005. in the philosophy of religion, and his publications in this area include The God Beyond Belief: In Defence of William Rowe’s Evidential Argument from Evil (2007), Cheryl Simpson The End of Philosophy of Religion (2008), and (as co- editor, with Graham Oppy) The History of Western [email protected] Philosophy of Religion, vols 1-5 (Acumen, 2009). He Cheryl Simpson is a research student with the also has a strong interest in literature and poetry: Department of Modern Greek at Flinders University. he has edited Southern Sun, Aegean Light: Poetry She has published many essays on the cultural of Second-Generation Greek-Australians (Australian implications of tourism, as well as contributed to Scholarly Publishing, 2011), and has published several volumes on popular cultures, with special emphasis on collections of poetry, the most recent being From Dusk Greek textiles. Recently she co-edited a book on From to Dawn. His translation of Tasos Leivaditis, Heritage to Terrorism: Regulating Tourism in an Age of The Blind Man with the Lamp, was published by Denise Uncertainty (2011). Harvey Publications in 2014.

6 0 1 Michael Tsianikas [email protected] Michael Tsianikas is Professor of Modern Greek at Flinders University. He has published extensively on modern Greek, comparative and language studies. Amongst his publications Homo Tremulus: Enthusiasm, Trembling, and Spirit (2011), Kavafis' Photo-Mind and Other Texts (2007), The Fingers on the Skin: Critical Texts for Literature (2003) and Flaubert's Trip to Greece: One Stop After the Orient, One Stop Before Literature, (1997).

John Yiannakis

[email protected] John Yiannakis was born and educated in Perth, Western Australia. He is a Research Fellow and Historian at Curtin University. He recently completed researching Greek migration and adaptation to W.A. since 1947, and the History of Dentistry in Western Australia. Two major books resulted from this work: "Odysseus in the Golden West" and "A History of Dentistry in Western Australia". In 2009 he also contributed an article to and edited a special edition volume about the Perth locale of Northbridge.

6 0 2 6 0 3 Hercules battle with the amazons Κωνσταντίνος Παρθένης

Vol. 16-17 B 2013 - 2014 a Journal for Greek letters

Crisis, Criticism and Critique In Contemporary Αυτοαντίληψη και αυτοπαρουσίαση: η Greek Studies Αυτοβιογραφία της Μελίνας Μερκούρη, Γεννήθηκα Ελληνίδα Part B - Self-perception and Self-presentation: Melina Mercouri’s Autobiography I Was Born Greek Παναγιώτα Νάζου L a n g u a g e Panayota Nazou Commemorating the decipherment of Linear B and the discovery of Mycenaean Greek Stavroula Nikoloudis C. P. Cavafy: Anthonism Michael Tsianikas The acquisition of grammatical gender in Greek P. P. Koromvokis and The Body of a Political Masochist: I. Kalaitzidis Torture, Performance and Power in Elias Maglinis’ The Interrogation Tatjana Aleksic C u l t u r e Hume’s Lucianic Thanatotherapy Η Περιπέτεια του Αντρέα Κορδοπάτη και ο Ενδιάμεσος Χώρος του Θανάση Βαλτινού George Couvalis The Adventure of Andreas Kordopatis and the Interstitial Space of Thenanis Valtinos Contemporary Greek Philosophy at the Crossroads: Anthony Dracopoulos Neokantianism – Existentialism – Phenomenology Golfo Maggini Parody and National Crisis: Alexandros Papadiamantis: Thanasis Valtinos’ Three Greek One-Act Plays and A Passionate Saint its critical reception Nicolas Evzonas Dimitris Paivanás

Who is Kazantzakis’ God? Greece in Italy, or, A Great Silence Sections X-XVII Nick N. Trakakis Piero Bigongiari

Επιθυμία, Έρωτας, Συναισθήματα: On the Sacred Way Μια Φιλοσοφική Ανάγνωση του Eugenio Montale Κίτρινου Φακέλου του Μ. Καραγάτση Translated with introduction and notes by Desire, Love, Emotions: Theodore Ell A Philosophical Reading of M. Karagatsis’ Kitrinos Fakelos Ελένη Λεοντσίνη Eleni Leontsini