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From being to becoming: reflections on the enduring popularity of Kazantzakis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2016

Dimitris Tziovas
Dimitris Tziovas*
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham
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Extract

In this article, Kazantzakis’ popularity over the years is briefly reviewed and it is argued that the two dominant approaches to his work, which could be described as ethnographic and philosophical-theological, respectively, correspond to the antithesis between being and becoming. The question addressed here is whether we can read his fiction in a new way, and pass from the ontology of being to the contingency of becoming, following the example of the process theologians who brought him closer to postmodernism.

Type
Articles
Information
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies , Volume 33 , Issue 1 , 2009 , pp. 83 - 91
Copyright
Copyright © The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 2009

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References

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5 For a critique of this approach, see Politi, J., ‘H ιδεολογία της αυθεντικότητας κοα о Ζορμπάς του N. Καζαντζάκη’, in her book H ανεξακρίβωτη σκηνή (Athens 2001) 15–47 Google Scholar.

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13 Middleton, ‘Kazantzakis among the postmoderns’, 72.

14 Middleton, ‘Kazantzakis among the postmoderns’, 84.

15 Middleton, ‘Kazantzakis among the postmoderns’, 83.

16 Middleton, e.g., refers to ‘Zorba as a symbol of process, not a static repose’ in Novel Theology, 182–3.

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19 Only recently Charitini Christodoulou highlighted the openness of The Last Temptation in her unpublished doctoral thesis, Dialogic Openness in Nikos Kazantzakis’ О Τελευταίος Πεφασμός, University of Birmingham 2007.

20 Philippidis, S. N., ‘O Λόγος του Πατρός και о Λόγος του Υιού: Αυθεντική ζωή κοα αυθεντικός λόγος στο μυθιστόρημα Βίος ¡ecu ηολιτεία. του Αλεξη Ζορμπά του Νίκου Καζαντζάκη’, in his book Αμφισημίες: Μελετήματα. για τον αφηγηματικό λόγο έξι νεοελλήνων συγγρχφεων (Athens 2005) 159-60Google Scholar.

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23 Vrasidas Karalis, in his editorial note to a special issue on Kazantzakis, talks about outmoded literary devices’, as if Modernism had never existed, which ‘make his work something of an unexpected challenge to the reading habits and aesthetic addictions of the postmodernized cultural subject’ (Modern Greek Studies (Australia & New Zealand) 8–9 (2000-2001) 7; see also S. N. Philippidis, ‘O Λόγος του Πατρός, 156, 171).

24 Kastrinaki, A., ‘О Νίκος Καζαντζάκης και о αισθητισμός: έλξη και άπωση’ in JVúcoç Καζαντζάκης: Σαράντα χρόνια. από το θάνατο tou, Πεπραγμενα Επιστημονικού Διημέρου (Chania 1998) 127-53Google Scholar.

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26 Kimon Friar has argued that: ‘A revealing parallel may be drawn between Kazantzakis and D. H. Lawrence. Both were Dionysian, demon-driven men, placed instinct and the promptings of the blood above the ordered deductions of the mind, celebrated the primitive and atavistic origins of the human spirit, were insatiable travelers who in landscape and inscape discerned the contours of God’s or Nature’s purpose, turned to the physical universe for their imagery and away from urban mechanics and subtleties, extolled strife and crucifixion as the unavoidable and necessitous law of life and even of love, were impatient with refinements of craft and entrusted themselves to the demonic outpourings of creative inspiration, placed the prophet above the man of letters, were obsessed with messianic drives and dreams’ ( Friar, K., Modern Greek Poetry (New York 1973) 32)Google Scholar.

27 Beaton, R., ‘The temptation that never was: Kazantzakis and Borges’, in Middleton, D. J. N. (ed.), Scandalizing Jesus (New York 2005) 85–95 Google Scholar.

28 S. N. Philippidis, ‘Λαϊκότροπα στοιχεία στα μυθιστορήματα του Καζαντζάκη’, in Τόποι, 229. Middleton also argues: ‘Now, most literary critics acknowledge Kazantzakis’s modernism. I am one of them. But as I established in chapter six, his work also points forward to the ideas and themes we associate with postmodernism’ (Broken Hallelujah, 126).

29 See Tziovas, D., ‘The poetics of manhood: Genre and self-identity in Freedom and Death ’, in his book The Other Self: Selfhood and Society in Modern Greek Fiction (Lanham 2003) 153-74Google Scholar.

30 Kazantzakis, N., Report to Greco, trans. Bien, Peter (London 1973) 144-5Google Scholar.

31 Kazantzakis, Report to Greco, 322.

32 Kazantzakis, Report to Greco, 450.

33 Kazantzakis, Report to Greco, 471; see also C. Dounia, “‘Με αλήθεια кои φαντασία”: О Καζαντζάκης αυτοβιογραφουμενος’, in Νίκος Καζοίντζάκης: To εργο кса η πρόσληφή τοο, 255–70.

34 Kazantzakis, N., The Last Temptation, trans. Bien, Peter (London 1975) 488 Google Scholar.

35 Kazantzakis, N., Θέατρο, Τραγωδίες, III (Athens 1956) 222-3Google Scholar.