A Greek Diptych: Dionysios Solomos and Alexandros Papadiamantis (review)

Reviews Louis Coutelle, Theofanis G. Stavrou, and David R. Weinberg, A Greek Diptych: Dionysios Solomos and Alexandres Papadiamantis. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Nostos Books. 1986. Pp. ix-xi + 3-113. $25.00. This volume is the 15th in the series of Nostos Books devoted to Greek history and culture; it comprises papers delivered at the 6th (1983) and 7th (1984) Annual Celebration of Modern Greek Letters at the University of Minnesota. The present volume contains four papers: two on Solomos, one by Professor Stavrou and one by Professor Louis Coutelle of the University at Aix-en-Provence, and two on Papadiamantis, one again by Stavrou and one by Dr. David Weinberg. Each of Stavrou's two essays includes a short biography of the author, a list and very brief discussion of his principal works, a bibliographical commentary, and a description of the Celebrations and the program in modern Greek at the University of Minnesota. The essays of Coutelle and Weinberg deal with aspects of Solomos' and Papadiamantis' work. The Nostos series under the vigorous direction of Professor Stavrou has done much to bring eminent writers of modern Greece to the attention of the English-speaking public. It is therefore especially disappointing to have to say that this volume is seriously flawed. In three out of the four essays, the reader is often hard pressed to understand what is being said, so filled are they with errors in English grammar, syntax, diction, and idiom. Particularly flagrant is the mishandling of English idiom in Professor Coutelle's essay, e.g., "That part of Italy . . . was engaged deeply in the practice of a particular poetry that the rest of Italy by no means honored to the same extent" (p. 52). The reader is especially troubled when a failure of vocabulary makes Coutelle's meaning unclear. Does he really mean that the subject matter of Solomos' Lambros is "trash" (p. 40), or that it was Greek "social prejudice" (pp. 39, 40, 48) that gave a patriotic interpretation to much of Solomos' poetry? And what is an English reader to make of these translations from Solomos' The 267 268 Reviews Cretan?: "Be sure I'll be speaking sheer truth" (p. 44), "I love her like before" (p. 45), "Fori felt her eyes in my trembling bowels" (p. 46), "And the mounts, seas and fields smiled up to it [the blazing sun]" (p. 47). This abuse of Solomos' original is all the more blameworthy in that a good English translation of The Cretan was available to Coutelle, that by Roderick Beaton in his essay "Dionysios Solomos : The Tree of Poetry," [Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 2 [1976], pp. 163-166). Professor Coutelle has contributed much to Solomos scholarship with his Formation poétique de Solomos (18151833 ); it is too bad that this paper is made so indecipherable by its broken English. There are, in addition, a number of errors and inexactitudes in the two essays of Professor Stavrou. I mention only a few examples. Solomos did not attend the University of Padua as twice stated (pp. 8, 9); he was at the University of Pavia near Milan. That is how he came to have literary acquaintances in Milan. Papadiamantis wrote about 170 stories, short and long, not "over two hundred" (p. 74). In literary criticism the terms "novel" and "novella" (pp. 76, 78) are not used interchangeably. No matter what system of transliteration one uses from Greek to English, the spellings "Vyziinos" (p. 71), "Skopellos" (pp. 69, 71) and "Avtoviographoumenos" (p. 86) are not acceptable, nor are the translations "Dirge of the Phoca" (p. 79) for To miroloyi tisfokias ( = "Dirge of the Seal") and "Guard at Sporka'' (p. 76) for Vardianos sta sporka ( = "Guard over the Quarantined Ships"). One comes with some relief to the last essay of this volume, David Weinberg's fine appreciation of Papadiamantis' work. This is a good introduction for the educated non-specialist who might wish to learn about the most eminent story writer of Greece. It was a worthy undertaking to present Dionysios Solomos and Alexandras Papadiamantis to an English-speaking audience. It is a pity that it could not have been carried out better. Elizabeth Constantinides (Queens College, City University of...