O Kapetán Mihális, an Epic (Romance?) Manqué

O Kapetân Mihális, an Epie (Romance?) Manqué Peter Bien My subject is probably the most praised of Kazantzakis' novels, yet I am going to suggest that this praise is undeserved because it derives from patriotic sentiment as opposed to aesthetic analysis. Furthermore, I will contend that the novel undermines its own patriotism . I conclude that OKapetanMihalis, whether considered aesthetically or politically, is seriously flawed. Kazantzakis started this book on 15 November 1949 (1972: 303), three and a half months after completing the first draft of Christopher Columbus. The interim was filled in part by a revision of Constantine Palaeologus (Kaz. 1965b: 612), a work that bears on the novel because of Captain Mihális' need to emulate the heroism of his cultural ancestors, among whom is of course the marmaroménos vasiliás who died on 29 May 1453 on the battlements of Constantinople. In Kazantzakis' play, Constantine Palaeologus is motivated in his own turn by ancestral example. When the sultan offers him his life if he will surrender peacefully, he answers that he cannot because he must obey the great figures of Greek history who valued honor above life (Kaz. 1956b: 523-524). This is what we see Captain Mihális doing throughout the novel as he strives to fulfill the requirements placed upon him by traditions of Greek heroism that go back most recently to Arkádi and from there to the Revolution of 1821, to Leónidas and his three hundred at Thermopylae, to Miltiades at Marathon, and ultimately to Homer's Achilles. Furthermore, both Constantine in the play (Kaz. 1956b: 527) and Captain Mihális in the novel choose to struggle despite their knowledge that they will be defeated and killed. The ultimate honor is "to fight bravely without hope" (Kaz. 1956b: 512); thus Captain Mihális says near the end that he should have written on his banner not freedom or death but freedom and death (Kaz. 1964: 482; 1956a: 426). Freedom in the last analysis is conferred by death; life's goal is to die well. 153 154 Peter Bien Constantine Palaeologus sets forth a paradigm of ancestral heroism to which latter-day heroes like Captain Mihális must conform. On the other hand, since none of the ideas in the play is new, we cannot suppose that Kazantzakis, in revising it, discovered the basic direction for his novel.1 What we can perhaps suppose is that the play's epical flavor—appropriate to its own subject matter and also to its time of original composition (1944) but inappropriate to the public and private circumstances of 1948-1950—may have seduced our author into reverting in O Kapetán Mihális to the nationalistic ethos that he had rejected in Life and Times of Alexis Zorbas. The emphasis on war, the narrow focus on Hellenism rather than mankind, the presence (both explicit and implicit) of Greece's past heroes, the general tone of inflated patriotic frenzy—all these staples of Dragoumian nationalism with their oversimplified schematization of history's complexities , reflect positions that Kazantzakis no longer espoused in 1948-1950. This reversion may account for the novel's flaws. To examine these suppositions I will attempt an aesthetic critique first and then a political one (insofar as the two can be separated ). In criticizing O Kapetán Mihális aesthetically it makes little sense to focus on individual scenes or characters before considering the uniform grout into which these tesserae have been laid. Moreover, it makes little sense to argue about the novel's supposed veracity or non-veracity with respect to 19th century Crete. A work of art can hold the glass up to nature and yet be aesthetically defective; conversely , it can distort what we suppose is "truth" and yet be aesthetically successful, like some of Shakespeare's "history" plays. What matters is the genre to which a particular work is perceived to belong , and whether that work satisfies, in its totality, holistic expectations established in the readership or audience by previous works in the same genre. O Kapetán Mihális is aesthetically flawed because its genre is confused . Kazantzakis himself described the novel as an " 'epic' work" (Knosos...