Home life in Hellas, Greece and the Greeks - eBooks4Greeks.gr

282 HOME LIFE IN HELLASabout woman ancient andthe Dawn, has writtenmodern, and her novel The Witch is perhapsthe best known of her works. This list by nomeans exhausts the names of writers in verse andprose who would claim notice in a treatise dealingwith contemporary literature in Greece.Theauthor does not pretend to do more than callattention to its existence, otherwise it would benecessary to give some account of the work ofProvelenghios, Polemis, Porphyrias, Gryparis,and others. The Greek public is naturally restricted,and a section of it finds its literarypabulum in foreign authors, so that not a fewmen who could do original work are forced tooccupy themselves with translation and journalism.The drama suffers most heavily on thisaccount, owing to the mania for French playsand musical comedy. The most popular contemporarydramatist is Melas, and Tangopouloscomes next perhaps. In the immediate past thetwo most prominent names are those of Ranghabesand Bernadakis. Both have gone tohistory for inspiration. The latter in MariaDoxaparte has taken an incident of the FrankishConquest of the Morea ; and in Nikephoros Phokasthe action is laid in Crete of the tenth century.Hehas also presented a modern version of Euripidesand a translation of Faust. ^Eschylus has foundan interpreter in Soteriades, and Sophocles inManos and A. Vlachos. But the Greeks do nottake kindly to the metamorphosis of their ancient