Modern Greek literature is literature written in Modern Greek, starting in the late Byzantine era in the 11th century AD. It includes work not only from within the borders of the modern Greek state, but also from other areas where Greek was widely spoken, including Istanbul, Asia Minor, and Alexandria.
The first period of modern Greek literature includes texts concerned with philosophy and the allegory of daily life, as well as epic songs celebrating the akritai (Acritic songs), the most famous of which is Digenes Akritas. In the late 16th and early 17th century, Crete flourished under Venetian rule and produced two of the most important Greek texts; Erofili (ca. 1595) by Georgios Chortatzis and Erotokritos (ca. 1600) by Vitsentzos Kornaros. European Enlightenment had a profound effect on Greek scholars, most notably Rigas Feraios and Adamantios Korais, who paved the way for the Greek War of Independence in 1821.
After the establishment of the Kingdom of Greece, intellectual output was centered in the Ionian Islands, and in Athens. The Heptanese School was represented by poets such as Dionysios Solomos, who wrote the national anthem of Greece and Aristotelis Valaoritis, while the Athenian School included figures like Alexandros Rizos Rangavis and Panagiotis Soutsos. In the 19th, the Greek language question arose, as there was an intense dispute between the users of Demotic Greek, i.e. the language of everyday life, and those who favoured Katharevousa, a cultivated imitation of Ancient Greek. Kostis Palamas, Georgios Drossinis, and Kostas Krystallis, who belonged to the so-called 1880s Generation, revitalized Greek letters and helped cement Demotic Greek as the form most used in poetry. Prose also thrived, with writers like Emmanuel Rhoides, Georgios Vizyinos, Alexandros Papadiamantis, and Andreas Karkavitsas.
The most celebrated poets of the verge of the 20th century are Constantine P. Cavafy, Angelos Sikelianos, Kostas Varnalis, and Kostas Karyotakis. As of prose, Nikos Kazantzakis, is the best-known Greek novelist outside Greece. Other important writers of that period are Grigorios Xenopoulos, and Konstantinos Theotokis, while Penelope Delta is noted for her children's stories and novels. The Generation of the '30s first introduced modernist trends in Greek literature. It included writers Stratis Myrivilis, Elias Venezis, Yiorgos Theotokas, and M. Karagatsis, and poets Giorgos Seferis, Andreas Embirikos, Yiannis Ritsos, Nikos Engonopoulos, and Odysseas Elytis. Seferis and Elytis were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1963 and 1979 respectively.
In post-war decades many significant poets were published, such as Tasos Leivaditis, Manolis Anagnostakis, Titos Patrikios, Kiki Dimoula and Dinos Christianopoulos. Dido Sotiriou, Stratis Tsirkas, Alki Zei, Menis Koumandareas, Costas Taktsis, and Thanassis Valtinos are routinely mentioned as some of the most important post-war prose writers, while Iakovos Kambanellis has been described as the "father of post–World War II Greek theater". The 1980s saw the novel take over from poetry as the most prestigious genre in Greek literature, thanks to writers such as Eugenia Fakinou and Rhea Galanaki. Among more recent figures who have achieved critical acclaim and/or commercial success are Petros Markaris, Chrysa Dimoulidou, Isidoros Zourgos, Christos Chomenidis, and Giannis Palavos.
Periodization There has been much discussion concerning the division of modern Greek literature into distinct eras. It has been suggested that it begins in 1453, the year of the Fall of Constantinople, but most scholars now agree that its onset can be traced in the 11th century, with the epic song of Digenes Akritas. The contemporary high-school syllabus places its beginnings ever earlier, in the 10th century, and divides the history of modern Greek literature as follows:
First period: from the 10th century until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 Second period: the years until the Ottoman Conquest of Crete in 1669 Third period: the years leading to the independence of Greece in 1830 Fourth period: the period of the modern Greek state (1830–present)
Another widely accepted periodization is the following: 9th century - 1453 1453 - 1669 1669 - 1821 (start of the Greek War of Independence) 1821 - 1880 (emergence of the New Athenian School) 1880 - 1930 (emergence of the 1930s Generation) 1930–present
11th century to 1453
The epic of Digenes Akritas, the most famous of all Acritic songs, is often referred as the starting point of modern Greek literature. This notion is justified by the fact that it is written in a form of Greek that is more familiar to modern-day speakers. In fact, Digenes Akritas and other such epics, like the Song of Armouris, are the first attempts at a literary use of the spoken, common, i.e. modern Greek language. They are narrations of the heroic deeds of the akritai, the guards along the Eastern edge of the Byzantine Empire, and they use the political verse, which was probably a major medium of expression for the illiterate and half-literate members of the Byzantine society. These songs come from all parts of the then Greek-speaking world, and is argued that the oldest ones are from Cyprus, Asia Minor and Pontus.
During the 12th century, Byzantine writers reintroduced the ancient Greek romance literature and many such novels were composed in the following centuries. Perhaps the most popular was Livistros and Rodamni, written by a demotic writer in Cyprus or Crete. Others are Hysimine and Hysimines by Eustathios Makrembolites, Rodanthe and Dosikles by Theodore Prodromos, and Kallimachos and Chrysorrhoe and Belthandros and Chrysantza, both by unknown authors. Theodore Prodromos is sometimes identified as the author of the so-called Ptochoprodromic Poems, a collection of four satiric poems, written in the vernacular. Michael Glykas, who was imprisoned due to his participation in a conspiracy against Manuel I Komnenos, composed a petition in political verse, titled Poetic Lines by M. Glykas Which He Wrote during the Time He Was Detained because of Some Spiteful Informer, using vernacular and classical vocabulary.
Another group of early modern Greek texts is that of allegorical and didactic poems. Story of Ptocholeon is one of the earliest such poems, and has oriental origins, probably Indian. Spaneas, a poem containing moral advice for a young man, was frequently copied. Amusing tales about animals must have also been popular. Examples include the poems Tale about Quadrupeds, dated to 1364, about a meeting of all the animals at the invitation of their king, the lion; the Poulologos, a similar tale about birds; and The Synaxarion of the Estimable Donkey, a 14th century fable of a donkey travelling to the Holy Land with a wolf and a fox. There is also the Porikologos about fruits, written in prose as a parody of the official language of the Byzantine court. In the early 14th century, the vernacular became the accepted medium for fiction of any kind.
From 1453 to 1669 There are very few signs of intellectual activity during the first two centuries of Ottoman rule, as the Byzantine scholars fled to Italy. Their migration during the decline of the Byzantine Empire and mainly after its dissolution greatly contributed to the transmission and dissemination of Ancient Greek letters in western Europe, and thus in the development of the Renaissance humanism. Such émigrés included Gemistos Plethon, Manuel Chrysoloras, Theodorus Gaza, Cardinal Bessarion, John Argyropoulos, and Demetrios Chalkokondyles. Therefore, from the middle 15th century to the 17th century, the most notable literary texts come from areas under Francocracy, such as Rhodes, the Ionian Islands, and Crete, as well as from Greeks who were active in Italy. Western literature was highly influential, both in content and in form. It is believed by many scholars that the use of rhyme in Greek poetry, despite being sporadically present in works of previous centuries, was a result of that influence.
Cretan Renaissance
Crete was a Stato da Màr from 1205 until 1669. Venetian rule proved troubled from the beginning, but after the mid-16th century the change of policy towards natives and the improvement in welfare of both communities, led to a long period of peaceful coexistence and cultural crossfertilization. Some scholars even talk about a shared Veneto-Cretan cultural consciousness. Italian influence is apparent in these works, but there is a distinctive "Greekness" nonetheless. As David Holton has put it: "Crete is the place par excellence where the meeting of the West with the Greek East took place." The first important works of Cretan literature appear in the 14th and early 15th centuries. Stephanos Sahlikis, the first known Greek poet to use the couplet form consistently, wrote humorous poems with autobiographical elements, such as Praise of Pothotsoutsounia, Council of the Whores and The Remarkable Story of the Humble Sachlikis. Janus Plousiadenos' Lamentation of the Mother of God on the Passion of Christ, a religious poem, was arguably quite popular. Nevertheless, perhaps the most important of these early texts, is Apokopos by Bergadis. It was probably written around 1400, and is the earliest known vernacular text to have passed into printed form, in 1509. Composed in rhyming couplets in political verses, it is a tale of a trip to Hades which pokes fun at religion and popular beliefs of that time. Other known poets are Marinos Falieros, and Leonardos Dellaportas.
The heyday of Cretan Renaissance literature is placed between 1590 and the Ottoman conquest of Crete in 1669. The principal characteristic of this period is that almost all the works are dramas. The two most prominent figures are Georgios Chortatzis and Vitsentzos Kornaros.
Georgios Chortatzis' Erofili (ca. 1595) is deemed as the finest play of Cretan theatre. Written in the local idiom, it is a violent tragedy narrating the condemned love between Erofili, daughter of the Egyptian king Philogonos, and the youth Panaretos. Before Erofili, Chortatzis also wrote Katzourbos, a comedy, and Panoria, an influential pastoral drama. Vitsentzos Kornaros is best-known for Erotokritos (ca. 1600), which is regarded as the undoubted masterpiece of this period, and one of the greatest achievements of modern Greek literature. It is a poem of over 10,000 rhyming 15-syllable iambic verses in the Cretan dialect, narrating the chivalrous love of Erotokritos for the princess Aretousa and their union after long and arduous adventures of deception and intrigue. Kornaros is also believed by some to be the author of The Sacrifice of Abraham (1635), a religious drama inspired by the famous episode of the Old Testament, considered a landmark of Cretan theatre.
Other surviving plays are the comedies Fortounatos (ca. 1662) by Markos Antonios Foskolos, and anonymous Stathis, and the dramatic King Rodolinos (1647) by Andreas Troilos. Voskopoula (ca. 1600), a short narrative poem of unknown author, is the only non-drama text of this period, apart from Erotokritos.
Ionian islands, Aegean Archipelago, and Cyprus In the 16th and 17th centuries Ionian islands, some lyric poetry existed alongside a didactic or hagiographical prose tradition, much of which was printed in Venice. Corfiot Iakovos Trivolis wrote The Story of Tagapiera, a panegyric of a Venetian admiral, and The History of the King of Scotland and the Queen of England, a tale taken from Boccaccio's Decameron, or, more possibly, from one of its imitations. Alexios Rartouros, also from Corfu, devised a prototype of popular preaching in his Sermons (1560). In 1526, Nikolaos Loukanis, who lived in Venice, printed a paraphrase translation of Homer's Iliad, noted for being the most lavishly illustrated edition of any vernacular