Artemis Leontis

Table of Contents Athens: Vassilis Vassilikos "The White Bear" Marios Hakkas "The Fresco" Odysseus Elytis "Funerary Epigrams" The Peloponnese: Nikos Kazantzakis "Pilgrimage Through Greece" Ilias Venezis "Mycenae" Thanassis Valtinos "Panayotis" Mani: Leonidas Zenakos "The Hole in the Rock" Central Greece: George Seferis "Delphi" Eva Vlami "Galaxidi: The Fate of a Maritime Town" The Ionian Islands: Ilias Venezis "Lefkas" Epirus: Dimitris Hatzis "Sioulas the Tanner" Christoforos Milionis "Carnival" Thessaly: Georgios Drosinis "Angel John the Thief" Macedonia: Yorgos Ioannou "The Dogs of Seikh-Sou" Yiorgos Chouliaras "America Is No Longer Here" Thrace: Elli Alexiou "The Fountain of Brahim-Baba" Michel Fais "Autobiography of a Book" The Eastern Aegean: Alexandra Papadopoulou "The Regards" The Cyclades: Kostas Ouranis "In the Old Catholic Syros" Melpo Axioti "My Home" Crete: Manolis Xexakis "The Smile from the Abyss" Rhea Galanaki "Black and White" The Dodecanese: Margarita Karapanou "Kalymnos" Eugenia Fakinou "Astradeni"

A Traveler's Literary Companion

Greece

Gregory Nagy

How do people map a homeland? How does the homeland define them? Focusing on the interrelations between culture and geography, Artemis Leontis illuminates the making of modern Greece. As she fashions a new approach to contemporary Greek literature, Leontis explores the transformation of Hellenism from a cultural ideal to a nation-state. In Leontis's view, a homeland exists not when it has been inhabited, but after it has been mapped. The mapping of Hellenism, she maintains, has required that modern Greek writers reconstruct a topos, or place for Hellenism through their own national literature. Leontis compares literary topographies of Hellenism created by Greek poets, novelists, and intellectuals from the 1880s to the 1960s with those constructed by European travelers, diplomats, and scholars. In her discussion of both modern and ancient Greek texts, she reconsiders mainstream poetics in the light of a marginal national literature. Leontis examines in particular how the Nobel laureates George Seferis and Odysseus Elytis both incorporate ancient texts and use experimental techniques in their poetry. Charting the constellation of factors that influence our sense of place, collective identity, and tradition, Leontis confronts questions central to current national struggles throughout the world.

Mapping the Homeland

Topographies of Hellenism

The first biography of a visionary twentieth-century American performer who devoted her life to the revival of ancient Greek culture This is the first biography to tell the fascinating story of Eva Palmer Sikelianos (1874–1952), an American actor, director, composer, and weaver best known for reviving the Delphic Festivals. Yet, as Artemis Leontis reveals, Palmer’s most spectacular performance was her daily revival of ancient Greek life. For almost half a century, dressed in handmade Greek tunics and sandals, she sought to make modern life freer and more beautiful through a creative engagement with the ancients. Along the way, she crossed paths with other seminal modern artists such as Natalie Clifford Barney, Renée Vivien, Isadora Duncan, Susan Glaspell, George Cram Cook, Richard Strauss, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Nikos Kazantzakis, George Seferis, Henry Miller, Paul Robeson, and Ted Shawn. Brilliant and gorgeous, with floor-length auburn hair, Palmer was a wealthy New York debutante who studied Greek at Bryn Mawr College before turning her back on conventional society to live a lesbian life in Paris. She later followed Raymond Duncan (brother of Isadora) and his wife to Greece and married the Greek poet Angelos Sikelianos in 1907. With single-minded purpose, Palmer re-created ancient art forms, staging Greek tragedy with her own choreography, costumes, and even music. Having exhausted her inheritance, she returned to the United States in 1933, was blacklisted for criticizing American imperialism during the Cold War, and was barred from returning to Greece until just before her death. Drawing on hundreds of newly discovered letters and featuring many previously unpublished photographs, this biography vividly re-creates the unforgettable story of a remarkable nonconformist whom one contemporary described as “the only ancient Greek I ever knew.”

A Life in Ruins

Eva Palmer Sikelianos

The Parthenon. Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle. Homer's epic poems. Gods and goddesses lounging around, indulging in pleasures on Mount Olympus. All of these images bring to mind the traditional icons of Greece, the cradle of Western Civilization. But what do we know of modern Greece? The answer to that question and more can be found in this comprehensive look at contemporary Greek culture. This one-stop reference source is packed with illustrative descriptions of daily life in Greece in the 21st century. Ideal for high school students and even undergraduates interested in studying abroad, this extensive volume examines topics such as religion, social customs, leisure life, festivals, language, literature, performing arts, media, and modern art and architecture, among many other topics. Woven into the text are beautiful and accurate vignettes of Greek life, helping to illustrate how it is people live. A crossroads between Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, Greece is fighting to hold on to the culture of yesterday, while still looking toward modernity. Culture and Customs of Greece is a must-have volume for all high school and public library shelves.

Artemis Leontis

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