Kazantzakis, Volume 2: Politics of the Spirit

Peter Bien

Published by Princeton University Press 2007

Kazantzakis, Volume 2

Politics of the Spirit

Peter Bien

Volume 21 in the series Princeton Modern Greek Studies

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400824427

Overview
Contents

About this book

Putting Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis's vast output into the context of his lifelong spiritual quest and the turbulent politics of twentieth-century Greece, Peter Bien argues that Kazantzakis was a deeply flawed genius--not always artistically successful, but a remarkable figure by any standard. This is the second and final volume of Bien's definitive and monumental biography of Kazantzakis (1883-1957). It covers his life after 1938, the period in which he wrote Zorba the Greek and The Last Temptation of Christ, the novels that brought him his greatest fame.

A demonically productive novelist, poet, playwright, travel writer, autobiographer, and translator, Kazantzakis was one of the most important Greek writers of the twentieth century and the only one to achieve international recognition as a novelist. But Kazantzakis's writings were just one aspect of an obsessive struggle with religious, political, and intellectual problems. In the 1940s and 1950s, a period that included the Greek civil war and its aftermath, Kazantzakis continued this engagement with undiminished energy, despite every obstacle, producing in his final years novels that have become world classics.

Author / Editor information

Peter Bien is Professor Emeritus of English and Comparative Literature at Dartmouth College. His Kazantzakis: Politics of the Spirit, Volume 1 was first published by Princeton in 1989 and was translated into Greek in 2001. It will be published in paperback by Princeton in February 2007. Bien has translated Kazantzakis's books The Last Temptation of Christ, Saint Francis, and Report to Greco into English, and is the author of Kazantzakis and the Linguistic Revolution in Greek Literature (Princeton).

Reviews

Bien is fair and balanced, and he avoids black-and-white simplifications. In a masterly manner, he sorts out the good from the bad, sensing what Kazantzakis was trying to achieve and seeing where he went wrong and where he got it right. Bien brilliantly shows how Kazantzakis progressed from his concern with politics, sensuality and ethics to a love of art.---Peter Mackridge, Journal of Hellenic Studies

The sequel to Bien's very successful Kazantzakis: Politics of the Spirit consolidates our impressions of the first volume, creates an elaborate, almost complete picture of the Cretan author, and spreads the interest in Kazantzakis to a far greater audience.---Lena Arampatzidou, Hellenic Review

"Bien's book is at once a comprehensive intellectual biography of its subject, and the definitive synthesis of many years of scholarship. With the first volume, it offers the fullest study of Kazantzakis's prodigious oeuvre ever published in any language. It admirably bridges the gap between readers worldwide who approach Kazantzakis's work through translation and specialists with access to the originals, and to the huge bibliography of minor and secondary material available only in Greek. It establishes the standard in Kazantzakis scholarship and will be an essential point of reference for all future studies of him."—Roderick Beaton, King's College London, author of George Seferis: Waiting for the Angel, A Biography

"This is a magisterial work, without equal in English or Greek, and promises to be the single most significant book on Kazantzakis for a generation, or more."—Richard P. Martin, Stanford University

Although others have tried to account for Kanzantzakis's life and literary art, no other book so comprehensively and insightfully captures it like Politics of the Spirit. Readers will marvel at Bien's tirelessly attentive approach to historical detail and acclaim his adroit description of Kazantzakis's ironic soul. A sympathetic though not uncritical account of a flawed genius, this book is a towering achievement. Every reader of modern literature can learn from it.---Darren J. N. Middleton, Modernimsm/modernity

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Preface Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xvii
Technical Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xix
Chapter One. Kazantzakis’s Attraction to Fascism and Nazism in the 1930s Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter Two. Travel Writing Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	16
Chapter Three. Spain Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	22
Chapter Four. Journey to the Morea Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	33
Chapter Five. Greek Politics, 1922–1936; Metaxas Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	43
Chapter Six. Writings Ca. 1935–1939: Jardin des rochers Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	60
Chapter Seven. Writings Ca. 1935–1939: Othello Returns Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	81
Chapter Eight. Writings Ca. 1935–1939: Melissa Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	86
Chapter Nine. Writings Ca. 1935–1939: Julian The Apostate Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	100
Chapter Ten. Period 1940–1944: The Albanian Campaign And Axis Occupation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	111
Chapter Eleven. Buddha Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	134
Chapter Twelve. Aléxis Zorbás: A Philosophical Interpretation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	144
Chapter Thirteen. Alexis Zorbas: A Political Interpretation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	157
Chapter Fourteen. Prometheus Trilogy And Greekness Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	165
Chapter Fifteen. Kapodistrias Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	197
Chapter Sixteen. Constantine Palaiologos Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	224
Chapter Seventeen. Athens, October 1944–June 1946 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	237
Chapter Eighteen. London and Paris, 2 June 1946–2 June 1948 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	273
Chapter Nineteen. Sodom and Gomorrah Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	279
Chapter Twenty. The Political Comprehensiveness of Christ Recrucified Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	292
Chapter Twenty-One. The Fratricides Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	328
Chapter Twenty-Two. Kouros Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	356
Chapter Twenty-Three. Christopher Columbus: Kazantzakis’s Final Play Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	363
Chapter Twenty-Four. O Kapetán Mihalis: An Epic Manqué Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	372
Chapter Twenty-Five. Kazantzakis’s Long Apprenticeship to Christian Themes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	394
Chapter Twenty-Six. The Last Temptation as a Religious Novel Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	428
Chapter Twenty-Seven. Is the Last Temptation a Religious Novel or a Political Novel? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	442
Chapter Twenty-Eight. Kazantzakis’s Meta-Christian Saint Francis as a Model of Soul-Force Creating His Own Fate Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	453
Chapter Twenty-Nine. Report to Greco Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	524
Appendix. Kazantzakis and Women Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	547
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	551
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	583
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	603

(Deutsch)