AA. VV.

AA. VV. : WHY IS GREEK SUCH A GREAT LANGUAGE ?

I can only suppose that the normal language of Greek poetry is in itself in some sense sublime. Most critics accept this as an obvious fact, yet, if true, it is a very strange fact and worth thinking about. The sound of a great deal of Greek poetry, either as we pronounce it, or as the ancients pronounced it, is to modern ears almost ugly. It depends partly, perhaps, on the actual structure of the Greek language: philologists tell us that, viewed as a specimen, it is in structure and growth and in power of expressing things, the most perfect language they know. And certainly one often finds that a thought can be expressed with ease and grace in Greek which becomes clumsy and involved in Latin, English, French or German. But neither of these causes goes, I think, to the root of the matter. 

AA. VV.: THE SHADOW THEATER

In the course of the last decades, Greek shadow theater was at last officially recognized as an fundamental element of the culture of modern Hellenisms. After a long period of decline, it is nowadays enjoying new popularity, many theaters for its performances have been built, magazines and newspapers publish articles and essays about it. Surprisingly enough, Karagiozis, the sloppy character of almost every plot, has turned out to be some sort of a national symbol, representing the individual Greek of unlimited ambition, who fights against overpowering odds with great determination and who in the end makes it thanks to his shrewdness and creativity. Karagiozis stands for the incarnation of the supple spirit that has allowed Greece to continue to exist through centuries of oppression.

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