Alexandros Rizos Rankaves, Martyria logou, and: Diegemata (review)

Alexandros Rizos Rangavis (1809-1892) was a Phanariot of boundless energy, and an intellectual of versatile interests, his time shared between literary endeavors and public service. For a man of such varied enterprise and so rich an oeuvre (his , 1874-1889, amount to 19 volumes), it is remarkable that since his death, Rangavis was remembered so seldom, and then mainly for a limited portion of his writings: his historically informative (1894-1930), and, to a lesser extent, his novel (1850) and his longer story (1850). In the course of the recent reevaluation of nineteenth-century Greek literature, Rangavis's fortune has improved considerably. The publication of a small anthology of his poems, new editions of his short stories, his novel, and his memoirs, as well as of a number of essays on his methods of composition and its ideological and social contexts mark a renewal of interest in his work. Today, Rangavis's legacy seems to consist less of his erudite writing or his poetry than of his contribution to prose fiction.

Litsa Hatzopoulou's detailed study of Rangavis's fiction, and Dimitris Tziovas's meticulous edition of his shorter narratives, preceded by a lengthy and well-researched introduction, provide an image of the author in all his complexity and sophistication. Both critics begin by dismissing the long-standing claim that Rangavis considered his prose fiction a secondary activity, a view that cannot explain his constant concern over the stylistic appearance and reception of his fiction. Nonetheless, they follow different interpretative approaches in order to establish two central points: Rangavis's self-consciousness as writer of fiction, and his contribution to the development of Greek literary prose.

Hatzopoulou sets out to explore the distinctive characteristics of Rangavis 's fiction, dealing, as she goes along, with narrative strategies, plot devices, and treatment of characters. Much of her energy is devoted to determining how Rangavis tried to ascertain the veracity of his stories and to brand his characters as morally good or bad, especially by reference to their external appearance and their similarities to particular animals. Her discussion offers the reader valuable background, contributing to a broader understanding of Rangavis's fiction, yet there are moments when her penchant for taxonomy verges on the tediously mechanical. One would have welcomed more reflective comments on perplexing issues, such as Rangavis's "truthfulness," which needs to be qualified vis-à-vis the realist notion of verisimilitude. Moreover, Rangavis's relationship with romantic narratives (17, 398) would have profited from a comparative consideration of his dialogue with romanticism, which is repeatedly mentioned but never fully explored. Such an approach might well have revealed, for instance, the conditioning of Rangavis's descriptions by contemporary decodings of physiognomy and discourses on superior and inferior races.

The first and final chapters are the most rewarding parts of Hatzopoulou 's book. Here, she addresses larger questions such as the primacy of poetry over fiction in Greek literature of the first half of the nineteenth century, and the relationship of fiction to morality and pleasure. Her thoughtful account hints at Rangavis's adaptability—at least on a theoretical level—to the changing attitudes towards the novel, which came under attack as a genre in the 1850s. In her concluding chapter, Hatzopoulou dwells on ideological issues such as the nature of political power, the implementation of the Great Idea, and the preservation of Greece's national unity. This discussion reinforces recently expressed views on the ideological concerns of Rangavis's fiction but does not respond to the interpretations of some of these critics (such as, for instance, Takis Kayialis, in 1830-1880, edited by Nasos Vayenas, Iraklio: Panepistimiakes Ekdoseis Kritis, 1997:119...