An interesting utopian undertaking : The Philhellenic Society of Amsterdam and the journal Ελλάς/Hellas (Leiden, 1889–1897)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lambros Varelas
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Greek Language ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
International Language ◽  
Modern Greek ◽  
Elementary Instruction ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
And Diffusion

This chapter deals with the journal Ελλάς/Hellas (Leiden, Holland, 1889–1897). It examines the broader frame of the periodical’s publication and the intentions of its editorial board. Ελλάς/Hellas was the organ of the Philhellenic Society in Amsterdam, which was founded in April 1888. The Society’s basic aim was the support and promotion of the modern Greek language (katharevousa, an archaic, purified form of Greek used for official and literary purposes) as an international language, in opposition to the appearance and diffusion of invented languages such as Volapük and Esperanto. The Society and its journal make also a special plea for substituting modern Greek, and the modern pronunciation with it, for the ancient Greek taught in elementary instruction in Europe. This chapter examines this experiment as a utopian effort in the late nineteenth century.

The emergence of modern Greek studies in late-nineteenth-century France and England: The yearbooks of the Association pour l’encouragement des études grecques en France (1867) and of the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies (1877)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandros Katsigiannis
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Modern Greek ◽  
Nineteenth Century France ◽  
French And English ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Modern Greece

Was the field of modern Greek studies perceived as an ‘exotic’ discipline in the making, or was it considered to be a branch of the already canonised Hellenic studies? This chapter examines two major associations that were established in the late nineteenth century in France and in England and dealt with the promotion of Greek studies: the Association pour l’encouragement des études grecques en France (1867) and the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies (1877). Their yearbooks constitute an unexamined treasure of information illuminating the reception of modern Greece and, at the same time, the construction of the modern Greek cultural identity by French and English Hellenists, from the mid-1860s onward.

Resonances of Henri Bergson's ‘music’ in the interwar aesthetic discourse of the journal Μακεδονικές Ημέρες: the idea of the nouveau romantisme

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-134
Author(s):  
Olga Bezantakou
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Narrative Fiction ◽  
Modernist Literature ◽  
Narrative Texts ◽  
Modern Greek ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Aesthetic

This essay examines the metaphorical use of musical terms in Greek aesthetic discourse during the interwar period by illuminating a crucial yet neglected moment in the reception of anti-rationalistic philosophical and aesthetic tendencies that had greatly influenced European modernist literature since the late nineteenth century. In particular, it points out the ways the reception of Bergsonian theories in Greece co-determined the formation of a new concept of Modern Greek narrative fiction, clearing the ground for the first modernist attempts to ‘musicalize’ fiction. The essay thus proposes a broader perception of the term ‘musicalization’ than the mere imitation of musical techniques in narrative texts, since the aesthetic discourse features not only actual music but also ‘music’ as an aesthetic category synonymous with transcendence, ambiguity and fluidity.

scholarly journals Elizabeth Mayhew Edmonds: Greek prose fiction in English dress

2016 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 23
Author(s):  
Γεωργία Γκότση
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Greek Literature ◽  
Prose Fiction ◽  
Literary Field ◽  
Victorian England ◽  
Modern Greek ◽  
Narrow Scope ◽  
Late Nineteenth

Elizabeth Mayhew Edmonds (1823-1907) played a significant role in the mediation of Modern Greek literature and culture in late nineteenth-century Britain, with her translations forming a vital aspect of her activity as a cultural broker. Focusing on Edmond’s transmission of late nineteenth-century Greek prose fiction, the article discusses her translation practices in the contemporary contexts of the publishing domain and the marketplace as well as of her effort to acquire authority in the literary field. Albeit impressive for a woman who was an autodidact in Modern Greek, the narrow scope of Edmonds’ translations offered a limited image of the developments in Modern Greek fiction. Her correspondence with John Gennadius and Thomas Fisher Unwin sheds light on her sense of superiority regarding male Greek authors such as Drosines and Xenopoulos, whose texts she rendered into English. Against this background, the article seeks to explain her translating choices and examines how a self-conscious translator such as Edmonds tried to shape the reception of Greek fiction in Victorian England by portraying it in terms of an ethnographic study of cultural survivals. Finally, through a parallel reading of the original texts and her somewhat mundane renderings, the article seeks to illuminate her translating craft: although worthy for their contribution to the promotion of Modern Greek literature in Great Britain, Edmond’s translations suffered from her inability to recreate the density of the original texts.

Saint-Saëns and Sophocles

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Steven Huebner
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Fin De Siecle ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Incidental Music ◽  
Southern France ◽  
Fin De Siècle ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Creation

Saint-Saëns's incidental music for Sophocles’ Antigone (Comédie-Française, 1893, trans. Meurice and Vacquerie) gives witness both to his engagement with culture classique and an experimental orientation in the context of fin-de-siècle music theatre. This essay situates Saint-Saëns's highly idiosyncratic score within the frame of late nineteenth-century research into ancient Greek music by François-Auguste Gevaert and Louis-Albert Bourgault-Ducoudray. It documents how Saint-Saëns aimed to participate in the creation of an authentic experience of ancient Greek theatre, one enhanced by the initiative of the Comédie-Française to stage its production at the open air Théâtre d'Orange in southern France. The article also shows the limitations of authenticity resulting from the nature of the translation as well as from Saint-Saëns's own compositional instincts.

scholarly journals Arthur Sidgwick'sGreek Prose Composition: Gender, Affect, and Sociability in the Late-Victorian University

2017 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Rutherford
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Emotional ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Cultural Changes ◽  
Single Sex ◽  
Women's Equality ◽  
Education Of Women ◽  
Conversational Language ◽  
Late Nineteenth

AbstractThe diaries and other papers of the Oxford classics teacher Arthur Sidgwick (1840–1920) show how men like Sidgwick used ancient Greek to demarcate the boundaries of an elite male social, emotional, and educational sphere, and how that sphere became more porous at the turn of the twentieth century through processes such as university coeducation. Progressive dons like Sidgwick stood by women's equality in principle but were troubled by the potential loss of an exceptional environment of intense friendships forged within intellectually rigorous single-sex institutions. Several aspects of Sidgwick's life and his use of Greek exemplify these tensions: his marriage, his feelings about close male friends, his life as a college fellow, his work on behalf of the Oxford Association for the Education of Women, and his children's lives and careers. The article recovers a lost world in which Greek was an active conversational language, shows how the teaching of classics and the inclusion of women were intimately connected in late-nineteenth-century Oxford, and suggests some reasons why that world endured for a certain period of time but ultimately came to an end. It offers a new way of explaining late-nineteenth-century cultural changes surrounding gender by placing education and affect firmly at their center.

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