1. ‘H X (1934), 305, quoted by Vitti, M., ‘H (revised ed., Athens, 1979), p. 237 Google Scholar.

2. See for example Ioannou, G. (ed.) (Athens, 1973), pp. 40, 90, 208, 280 Google Scholar.

3. Cf.Lodge, D., The Modes of Modern Writing (London, 1977), p. 25 Google Scholar: ‘Although in a simple sense realism is the art of creating an illusion of reality, one hundred per cent success in this enterprise equals failure’.

4. I am here adopting the ‘working definition’ of literary realism proposed by Lodge (op. cit.): ‘the representation of experience in a manner which approximates closely to descriptions of similar experience in nonliterary texts of the same culture’ (p. 25). Compare Genette, G., Narrative Discourse (Oxford, 1980 Google Scholar, first published as ‘Le discours du récit’, in Figures, III, Paris, 1972), p. 164: ‘narration, oral or written, is a fact of language, and language signifies without imitating’.

5. (revised ed., Athens, 1980), hereafter ‘Vitti’.

6. The exceptions are P. Kalligas, (1855) and E. Roidis, ‘H (1866), both of which contain powerful elements of social criticism levelled against aspects of contemporary life.

7. E. Roidis, op. cit., pp. 96 (photographic reprint ed. T. Vournas, Athens, 1971).

8. Zanetakis Stefanopoulos, XX (1869–70), 72–6, 81–6, discussed by Vitti, p. 44. Although for practical purposes is a neologism, cognates are also known from earlier stages of the language: the noun was even used by Aristotle, with the meaning of ‘painter of character’.

9. Published anonymously in Vraila in 2 vols. Only one copy of each survived to provide the basis for the modern edition: Vitti, M. (ed.) ‘H (Athens, 1977)Google Scholar. The importance attached to this work by Vitti (Vitti, pp. 46–50) and by Dimaras in his History is due in part to the belief of both writers that the growth of realism in Greek writing was necessarily linked to progress towards the acceptance of demotic.

10. in [Ioannis Kambouroglou] (Athens, 1880). Reprinted in Mastrodimitris, P., ‘O (Athens, 1980), pp. 239–63 Google Scholar. On the interrupted serial publication of Nana in Rambagas see Mastrodimitris, op. cit., p. 15n.

11. Ibid., p. Kγ′, = Mastrodimitris, p. 255.

12. Ibid., p. Kθ′ = Mastrodimitris, p. 260.

13. In the Ionian islands interest in popular culture goes back at least to the time of Solomos, and the first serious collections of folk poetry to be published in the geographical area of Greece were the work of his followers (Manousos, [Corfu, 1850]; Zambelios, [Corfu, 1852]). But in the Greek kingdom N. G. Politis, since hailed as the founder of scientific folklore studies in Greece, first appears in print in 1866 (Pandora, XVII [1866–7], 453–4), and although Pandora as early as its third issue (1852–3) had included in its table of contents a section entitled more than half the articles listed thus, throughout the life of the periodical, deal with travels and exotica in parts of the world remote from Greece. This delay on the part of the Athenian cultural milieu in turning to folklore as a means of refuting Fallmerayer’s challenge has still to be accounted for. Fallmerayer first produced his theory in his Geschichte der Halbinsel Morea während des Mittelalters, (Stuttgart, 1830–6), and in the historical field was quickly answered on an impressive scale by Paparrigopoulos and others. See Veloudis, G., ‘Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer und die Entstehung des neugriechischen Historismus’, Südostforschimgen (Munich), XXIX (1970), 43–90 Google Scholar. For a modern discussion of the genesis and motivation of folklore study in nineteenth-century Greece, see Herzfeld, M., Ours Once More, Austin, Texas, 1982.Google Scholar

14. Politis himself, defining the term in the first issue of (1909), 3, says he coined the term in 1884 in Vol. I of the [DIEE]. I have not been able to find the context for the coinage in the two issues of Vol. I published in that year.

15. CCCXXXIII (15 May 1883), 1. Reprinted in Mastrodimitris, op. cit., pp. 269–70. Vitti (pp. 63–4) provides evidence that the unsigned text was the work of Politis.

16. Cf. Vitti, pp. 68, 75.

17. Karkavitsas published his accounts of Kravara in 2nd series, II (1890). See also Drosinis in XIV (1882), 425–7, 486–90, 501–5, 531–6, 563–7, 600–4, 630–4, 658–61; XV (1883), 11–12, 121–6 and in DIEE, I (1883–4), 133–8, 356–61; II (1884–5), 344; and I. Kondylakis, ibid., I (1883–4), 273–8, 526–30.

18. N. G. Politis, I (1909), 3; K. Palamas, II, p. 166 (quoted by Vitti, p. 88).

19. Vitti, pp. 53–4.

20. Cf. what Genette calls the ‘shifting but sacred frontier between two worlds, the world in which one tells, the world of which one tells’ (Narrative discourse, p. 236).

21. ch. 8 (ed. Grigoris, [Athens, 1967], p. 93).

22. For the dating of Vizyinos’ stories, and modern critical assessments, see M. Chryssanthopoulos, M. XXXVIII (1980), 64–9 and P. Moullas, introduction to Ermis edition (Athens, 1981).

23. Goethe is frequently alluded to in the text, not only in the songs which are liberally quoted in Vizyinos’ Greek translation, but in the choice of setting in the Harz Mountains, close to the scene of Walpurgisnacht, a fact which the characters themselves allude to. The love of Paschalis and Klara, and his abandonment of her because, owing to an earlier experience, he feels himself unworthy of her, parallels that of Faust and Gretchen — and there is even a verbal play on this in Paschalis’ outburst that (diamonds and pearls) once thrown before swine are defiled forever: Gretchen is the diminutive of Margareta. The satanic forces of Goethe’s pagan festival are unleashed in the story over the period of 15 August, and appropriately for the Greek characters, take the form of apocalyptic rain, mist and darkness. The song sung by Klara in the lunatic asylum, ‘Kennst du das Land wo die Zitronen blumení, takes on a new ironic meaning when the lover who has abandoned her comes himself from the Mediterranean. And the whole extended allusion both to Faust and to Wagner’s Flying Dutchman (also copiously mentioned in the text) allows Vizyinos a superb opportunity for ambiguity at the end of the tale. We cannot read the text without reference to these other ‘texts’ in which the erring and adamantine soul of man is redeemed by the forgiving love of a woman. But for all the metaphysical frisson of the ending here, there is every reason to doubt that salvation comes either to Klara, dying insane, or to Paschalis, killed underground in a mine on the very day that he and the narrator had been due at last to climb to the top of the snow-capped mountain above them.

24. The story ends: ‘“I don’t know how to answer you, my boy”, she replied thoughtfully. “The Patriarch is a wise and saintly man. He knows all God’s will and His bidding and forgives the sins of all the world. But how can I put it? — he’s a monk. He hasn’t had children, how can he know what it’s like to kill your own child?” Her eyes filled with tears and I fell silent’.

25. Papadiamandis, A., II (ed. Valetas, G., Athens, 1960), p. 11 Google Scholar.

26. Ibid., III, pp. 347–8.

27. Ibid., II, p. 179; ‘… as well him as another…’, Joyce, James, Ulysses (London, 1937), p. 742.Google Scholar

28. See the respective conclusions of Vitti (p. 96) and Kyriakidis, S., XXVI (1939), 1480–8 (discussed by Kyriakidou-Nestoros, A., [Athens, 1978], pp. 78–85 Google Scholar).

29. See for example S/Z (London, 1975, first published in French, Paris, 1970), pp. 9–10 and passim.

30. See M. Chryssanthopoulos, op. cit.

31. ‘The world as object’, in Critical Essays (Evanston, 1972), p. 12. (First published 1953, reprinted in Essais critiques, Paris, 1964).