With the minor substitution of ‘folk’ for ‘man’, Foucault’s comment on the discipline of anthropology, which concludes his Order of Things (1970: 387), provides an appropriate starting-point for a reappraisal of the present state and future prospects of Greek folklore studies. Kyriakidou-Nestoros (1978) and Herzfeld (1982) have already charted, from different perspectives, the major developments since the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is the intention of this paper to raise a series of questions relevant to folklore as an academic discipline in order to clarify some of the central issues, both theoretical and practical. First, what is folklore, and who are the folk? Why has it occupied such a prominent place in both the intellectual life and the educational system of Greece? Second, what factors have shaped its direction? Which features does Greek folklore share with European folklore, and which are peculiar? Third, what role can it play during the last decades of the twentieth century, when the very foundation of traditional life — the village community — is being rapidly eroded by the process of urbanisation and by the mechanisation of agriculture? Will it cease to exist except as an antiquarian pastime, just as in the many centuries prior to its ‘invention’? And finally, how can the relationship between ‘folk’ and ‘art’ culture be defined in the present Greek context? How can folklore be related to other disciplines, such as mythology, anthropology, literary history and criticism, history and sociology?

Mythos is used by Aristotle both in its received sense in his day, meaning a story which need not be literally true but has a special institutional status outside of literature, and in a sense which seems to be new in the fourth century B.C., as a rational ordering of events (synthesis ton pragmaton), a mediating term between story (pragmata) and discourse (tragodia). It is specifically by means of mythos (whether invented or traditional) that tragedy (discourse) can be an imitation (mimesis) of action (praxis/story).

Byzantine women’s history, Byzantine attitudes towards women and men, Byzantine conceptions of gender: that these are all areas still awaiting their reseacher is a fact both obvious and well known. It is not my intention to reiterate here the problems connected with the enormous task of undertaking research in women’s history in general and Byzantine women’s history in particular. Such problems are well known to those interested in the subject and have already been partly pointed out in terms of suggested ‘avenues of approach’ and possible areas of research. It is my intention, however, to take up one of these suggestions, develop and apply it to Byzantine source material.

In recent years ‘theory’ has been much debated in journals devoted to, among other areas of study, literary and historical research. Depending on your outlook, theory is seen either as of positive value to an advance in the understanding of a particular problem or set of problems; or as an irritating irrelevance, indeed a hindrance, to the progress of good research work. Many ‘theorists’, certainly, have gone to the extreme of dismissing empirical historical research as itself irrelevant, founded upon epistemologically indefensible premises and hence misleading if not worthless. While such views are hardly designed to encourage serious engagement with theoretical issues, it is the polarisation of positions of which they are symptoms that I would like to look at in what follows. This article is an overview that will deal in basics. I want to look at the role theoretical debate has taken in historiography generally, and in the area of Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies in particular, and the attitudes of its practitioners.

Two recent publishing events have once more focussed the attention of the Greek public on the writings and personality of General Makriyannis (ca. 1797-1864). The first is the publication of a three-volume computerised concordance to his Memoirs, which paves the way for more systematic linguistic and stylistic study of this particular work, and at the same time demonstrates — apparently for the first time as far as modern Greek philological studies are concerned, at least in Greece itself — the usefulness of the computer in handling lengthy literary texts.

The Life and Manners of Alexis Zorbas is Kazantzakis’ most popular and successful novel: in Greece it has been reprinted repeatedly, while abroad it has been the subject of many translations, having been adapted also for the stage and screen. In Europe and North America Alexis Zorbas perhaps ranks as the most widely read Greek novel and is widely perceived as the literary work which best represents the essence of Greece. A number of studies have been devoted to it in Greece and overseas, a fact which also attests to the novel’s strong appeal.

Most critics read the novel in biographical terms, that is, they see the narrator as Kazantzakis, and Zorba as the real peasant the author met in Macedonia. They account for the novel’s popularity by pointing to the legend of Zorba that Kazatzakis created, of the man who had a tremendous zest for life and who moved relentlessly towards the radiant path of freedom. Zorba and the entire novel come to be understood as a mythopoiesis of the life force and a parable of its immediate fulfillment on earth. The novel is thus an affirmation of life and the élan vital. It celebrates life’s struggle against inertia and decay.

The work of half a dozen scholars, which has appeared during the last twenty years, has brought about a veritable revolution in the way Solomos’ poetry (and in particular ‘The Cretan’) can be read. Their publications have enabled us at last to view Solomos’ work in its proper context and in its proper perspective.

The first and without doubt the most significant of these publications was the late Linos Politis’ edition of the autograph manuscripts (Solomos 1964), which literally made it possible for the first time for anyone to read what could not previously be deciphered except by a handful of dedicated and experienced palaeographers (foremost among whom was, of course, Politis himself). With the Autograph Works before us, we need no longer rely solely on Polylas’ (albeit inspired) choice of variants; instead, we can observe the mature poems in the very process of their growth, appreciating the whole variety of versions that Solomos considered using.

It has been a common assumption that the great number of existing Histories of Modern Greek Literature reflects the growing maturity and sophistication of Greek literary studies. Specialists in the field argue that the variety of approaches and perspectives used in these surveys, while establishing a sense of tradition and achievement, has also stimulated both significant research and major reappraisals. If one adds to this scholarly labour the anthologies, the dictionaries, the encyclopaedias, as well as the studies on particular periods and schools, the picture of a thriving critical industry emerges clearly. It is then very difficult to try and reconcile these promising signs with the pervasive scarcity of meta-theoretical work, beginning with the embarrassing absence of a History of Modern Greek Criticism itself. For how can a field develop without introspection? How can a discipline refine its methods or advance its causes without undergoing vigilant self-examination? The lack of theoretical reflexivity on the part of contemporary Greek literary studies gives often the alarming impression that Greek criticism does not even know its history …