Topics in Modern Greek Literature
Voices of Children and the Experience of History in the Creation of Modern Greek Fiction
This course examines the role of the child’s voice in Modern Greek fictional narratives, novellas and novels, in which the common thematic thread is the impact of historical events on Modern Greek life, society and family. In these narratives, the ever silent children, passing undetected through the pages of canonical history, are given a voice, whether as narrators or characters, a voice used to establish a different view and perspective on Modern Greek history. It is a view that veers away from traditional gender roles, such as the male heroic, or the female suffering and forbearing.
Given the experiences related by these narratives, the violence and ruptures of wars, the breakdown of supports for the civilian populations, the annihilation of political life, famine and death, the absurdity of power structures, it is natural that the children’s responses will underscore the psychological, moral and ethical implications embedded in the impact of such historical events. However, in the Modern Greek fiction selected for this course, the voices of children are also critical voices. They are frequently subversive and reach out, often with sharp irony and humor, into the relationships between the historical and the social realm as well as the literary. As such, these narratives highlight a whole range of authorial strategies that aim at the meeting of the historical event and the literary production. In fact, they illuminate the distance required for the transformation of historical experience into story and narrative. Within the self-consciousness of modernist and post-modernist fiction narratives, these voices of children critically bring out not only the moral, ethical and psychological dimensions of the experience of history but also its impact on the creation of fiction. In addition, these voices present us with implications regarding the writing of history itself.
No prerequisites.
Greek literary texts are available in English translation.
History, theory and criticism are in English.