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Fauriel and Modern Greek Poetry
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
AN important chapter in the history of modern Greek poetry was opened by Claude-Charles Fauriel.1 He circulated a well-organized body of popular verse, fragments of which were known in western Europe to only a few travellers before him, and, of course, to Goethe.2 Yet modern Greek criticism has been ungenerous to him. Although no modern edition of Greek demotic songs can begin without acknowledging his ground-breaking contributions, his editing has been characterized as lacking fidelity,3 and his motives “naturally, indebted to the ideas of German romanticism.”4 Herder's methodological outlook, and Goethe's seminal specimens of 1802 had a great deal to do with the spectacular success of Fauriel's two volumes. Versions of his work were made available in St. Petersburg, Leipzig, and London in 1825, the year of the original publication in Paris.6 On the other hand, neither Goethe's nor Fauriel's motives can be conceived apart from the strong philhellenic sentiment that had so much to do with the physical fate of that province of the Ottoman Empire called Greece. That movement did not differ, either in the kind of dreams that it evoked or in the numbers of romantic and romanticizing adherents that it set dreaming, from those movements that found the Corsicans and the Spanish “exotic” and the Americans “innocent.”
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1969
References
1 Chants populaires de la Grèce moderne, 2 vols. (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1824–25), hereafter referred to in the text by volume and page numbers.
2 See Raffaele Cantarella, introd. to “Canti popolari neo-greci” in Poeti Bizantini (Milano, 1958), ii, 279, for bibliography on Goethe's and Tommaseo's interests in modern Greek poetry.
3 Aristos Kampanes, Hisloria les neohellenikes logotechnias, 5th ed. (Athens, 1946), p. 137.
4 Maria Rodiou, ed., Neohellenike philologia (after the lectures of Georgios Th. Zoras), 3rd ed. (Athens, 1958), pp. 11–12.
5 G. M. Valetas' article in Megale Hellenike Egkuklopaideia on Fauriel (Athens, 1934).
6 The best introd. to their work is found in A. B. Lord, The Singer of Tales (New York, 1965).
7 This has been the traditional view concerning the sagas. The theory of recreation has been advanced recently by Theodore M. Andersson in at least two publications: “The Doctrine of Oral Tradition in the Chansons de Geste,” Scandinavian Studies, xxxiv (1962), 219–234 (which contains an important examination of Fauriel's poetic theory without, however, enough attention to the occasional deviations from it), and The Problem of Icelandic Saga Origins: A Historical Survey (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press, 1965). See also Lord, The Singer of Tales, p. 79.
8 Published in Herakleion, 1915. For the use of formulas in written compositions see Larry D. Benson, “The Literary Character of Anglo-Saxon Formulaic Poetry,” PMLA, LXXXI (1966), 334–341; and Michael Curschmann, “Oral Poetry in Medieval English, French, and German Literature: Some Notes on Recent Research,” Speculum, xiii (1967), 36–52. I do not agree with all the conclusions of these scholars, but they are among the few who have gone beyond Parry and Lord. James A. Notopoulos in his “Studies of Early Greek Oral Poetry,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, LXVIII (1964), 14, n. 49, attests that he checked an illiterate Cretan's recitation of passages from Erolokritos against Xanthoudides' text and found the rendition verbatim. Notopoulos' understanding of Mnemosyne gave us a new Plato. But his unremitting pursuit of prodigies of absolute memorization have led him to conclusions that are not confirmed by the experiences of scholars in related fields. For a list of misgivings concerning Notopoulos' methodology see G. S. Kirk, “Formular Language and Oral Quality,” Yale Classical Studies, xx (1966), 155–174. E. Kriaras in a paper announced but not delivered at the 5th Congress of the International Comparative Literature Association held in Belgrade, Yugoslavia (30 Aug.-5 Sept. 1967), continues Fauriel's line when he speaks of “elements” of demotic poetry in Erolokritos.
9 Fauriel makes a natural mistake when he thinks that the modern lyra (a gusle-like instrument played with a bow) is the lyre of the ancients.
10 The Singer of Tales, p. 94.
11 Lord, The Singer of Tales, pp. 272–275.
12 D. H. Low, trans., The Ballads of Marko Kraljević, (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1922), “The Marriage of King Vukašin,” p. 6, II. 202–209, Jabučilo tells his master he cannot quite make it; cf. also “Marko Kraljević and the Falcon,” p. 59, 11. 20–30; and, incidentally, “Marko Kraljevic and Musa the Outlaw,” p. 126,11. 80–121, for the hero's overeating before the exploit.
13 See A. B. Lord, ed. and trans., Srpsko-Hrvatske Junačke Pjesme, i (Cambridge, Mass., and Beograd: Harvard Univ. Press and Srpska Akademia Nauka, 1954), 226–233, for a scene of recognition at the conclusion of Sulejman Fortic's “The Capture of Budapest”; for a series of recognitions see pp. 90–113 for Salih Ugljanin's “The Captivity of Dulić Ibrahim.” For returns, tests, and recognitions between brothers see Lord, The Singer of Tales, Appendix iii, pp. 243–259; see also D. H. Low, The Ballads …, “Marko Kraljević and Mina of Kostura,” p. 91, 11. 259 to the end, for a scene between the hero in black monk robes, his wife, and the usurper. Lines 10–20 of this ballad should be compared to “Georgakes” in Chants, 1,144, for the motif of heroic diversion or distraction.
14 G. Zoras, in Rodiou, Neohellenike philologia, p. 12.
15 In the older version of the name Salomos.
16 A. Kampanes, Historia tes neohellenikes logotechnias, p. 138.
17 Marked “3rd edition, 1825.” Now at the Gennadius Library in Athens.
18 Linos Polites, ed., Dionysiou Solomon Hapanta, i, Poiemata, 2nd ed. (Athens, 1961), 336.
19 Tommaseo's bilingual edition of songs came out in Venice in 1841–42. For details see n. 2 above.
20 Börje Knös, L'Histoire de la littérature néo-grecque (Stockholm, 1962), pp. 36–37. See also V. M. Yovanovitch, “La Guzla” de Prosper Mérimée (Paris, 1911), pp. 143–150; and Miodragu Ibrovać, Claude Fauriel et la fortune européene des poésies populaires Grecque et Serbe. Etude d'Histoire Romantique suivie du Cours de Fauriel professé en Sorbonne (1831–32) (Paris, 1966); this book should not be read without D. Eliadou-Hemmerdinger's review in Balkan Studies (Thessal-onike), vii (1966), 244–249.
21 B. Knös, L'Histoire de la littérature néo-grecque, p. 15.