reimagining-abstracts - University of Birmingham

In twentieth-century Greek song production antiquity has been negotiated in a number
of selective albeit, in some cases, parallel ways. For example, in state-sponsored
compositions intended for particular contexts the ancient ancestors are collectively
invoked as models to be emulated (military songs) or eternal glories to be prided on
(Eurovision song contests). Characters from mythology, on the other hand, usually
appear when their story provides an edifying parallel to be exploited either in a lighthearted
(Photeinakis’ Nine girls) or a more sophisticated manner (Gatsos’
Persephone’s nightmare). Finally, the reader comes across the use of ancient
philosophers as wise men (Eustathiou’s Diogenes the wise) or familiar figures of the
Attic landscape (Lades’ Sacred Way).
The most emblematic philosophical figure of all provides the subject for the
present paper. Sokrates features in a few songs normally in the presence of other
ancients. Two compositions, however, merit special attention for they focus almost
exclusively on him, at the same time representing the two main strands in Socratic
reception: (a) Mister Teacher (1972) is a surrealistic dialogue between a
schoolteacher and his students who want to learn about the teachings of Plato and
Sokrates (!): this ingenious piece of mock-wisdom literature exploits fully the motif of
Sokrates the wise teacher; (b) Sokrates, Greece’s Eurovision song for the 1979
contest, is a narrative “hymn” praising Sokrates as a martyr of philosophy, victim of
social prejudice, and forerunner of Christ: the song pays homage to a powerful
Socratic image born in the first Christian centuries and current throughout the
Byzantine times up until the Enlightenment.
The paper ends with a brief comment on Sokrates’ unexpected appearance in a
hip-hop 2004 song.
Ana Chikovani
The Image of Medea in Modern Greek Poetry
The paper aims to investigate the literary image of Medea, a heroine of some Modern
Greek poems. Medea’s image, interpreted in many different ways, has been popular
among writers for thousands of years. Medea, who contained within herself mutually
contradictory traits, was an ideal vehicle through whom authors and artists could
explore what modern scholarship has called the problem of “self” and “other”. 1
Greek poets - Kostis Palamas, Petros Vlastos, Giorgos Seferis, Andreas
Embirikos, Nikos Engonopoulos and later - Petros Pieris, Konstantinos Bouras and
others in one way or other refer to the theme of Medea. The poets revived the myth
about Medea and the comparative approaches of the poems that refer to Medea bring
out all that is tragic and ambivalent in her nature. Medea attracts the attention of poets
mainly as a symbol of the terrible murder, but poets also are interested in the image of
Medea as of a traitor daughter, as loving wife, as abandoned women left alone in a
foreign country, or as a representative of Barbarian world. In the late 1990-ies,
Modern Greek playwrights started to take vigorous interest in the Medea’s character.
There are various motivations. Some authors are more concerned with discharging
Medea from moral responsibility; others turn her image into a certain symbol of
accomplishment of the so-called feminist ideas.
Bearing in mind many various interpretations, the 20 th century Greek poets
mainly are inspired by Euripidean version of Medea’s image, but toward the end of
the 20 th century and the beginning of the 21 st century in the Greek poetry the new
interpretations of Medea’s image occur and disorganization of the Hellenocentric
1 Sarah Iles Johnston, “Introduction”, in James J. Clauss & Sarah Iles Johnston (eds): Medea, Essays on
Medea in Myth, Literature, Philosophy and Art, Princeton University Press, New Jersey 1997, p. 7.
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