Topics in Modern Greek Literature
Apocalyptic Imagination and the Violence of the Text in 20th Century Greek Fiction (1960's-1980's)
This course is concerned with works of fiction written before or after the seven-year military dictatorship of 1967, a regime marked by various degrees of censorship. These works examine the relationship between established structures (social, historical, religious) and modern worldviews that reflect multiple levels of reality and multiple belief systems. In these novels, whether written before or after the Greek totalitarian regime, the vision of the future is prophetic and frequently apocalyptic. It rests not on a clash but on a dialectical tension between divine and demonic concepts that define man’s world in literary representations. These concepts are communicated to the reader in enigmatic, unstable forms, in a climate of pervasive anxiety, or with latent energy released as textual violence. They appear as literary responses to a crisis, thus, forcing the political, social, or cultural space in the text to a dystopia.
Greek texts are available in English translation.
History, theory and criticism are in English.
Films are available with English subtitles.