Kassandra and the Censors: Greek Poetry since 1967

Savvas, Minas; Galanaki, Rhea; Mastoraki, Jenny; Laina, Maria; Dyck, Karen Van

doi:10.2307/40154187

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Our last text was Jenny Mastoraki's poem "Περίληψη" (Το σόι, 1978), which contains information on the maternal model and outdated perceptions about upbringing and childcare, and is a representative sample of writing stemming from a younger generation which challenged social conventions and claimed more freedom (Van Dyck, 1998;Panagiotou, 2017):…”

Section: The Exploitation Of the Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender in Literature. Woman's Position from traditional to modern society

Menti

Sideri²

2020

JLE

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The remarkable influence of gender studies in recent years on the Greek educational system has inevitably led to the integration of a multi-focal thematic section entitled “Gender in Literature” in the new Lyceum curriculum. This section truly captures the interest of adolescents, as it stimulates the approach of literary texts and promotes constructive discussions that often lead to further enjoyment of reading. On this base a collaboration between University of Athens and Anavryta Model Lyceum was carried out in Literature class in both institutions. This article aims to present the main stages of this cooperation on the subject of “Literary Representations of Women’s roles from traditional to modern society”, as the institutional framework for teaching literature clearly supports the historicity of texts. Besides explaining the rationale behind this educational action, we are proposing a selection of literary texts that were used in class and presenting the objectives and didactic methods practiced, the type of tasks assigned to the pupils as well as the skills developed by them. The paper insists on certain texts that are particularly valuable for this approach and offers examples of taking advantage of contextual elements. Finally, we are showing how this collaboration became a real example of extroversion for both institutions and we are attempting a comprehensive evaluation of this project and its impact within the students’ and teachers’ community.

show abstract

Section: The Exploitation Of the Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender in Literature. Woman's Position from traditional to modern society

Menti

Sideri²

2020

JLE

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Forgotten Theater, Theater of the Forgotten: Classical Tragedy on Modern Greek Prison Islands

Steen¹

2005

mgs

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

From the late 1940s to the early 1950s, a little-known theater practice took root on the remote Greek prison islands of the Civil War. Classicizing productions and readings of ancient Greek tragedy were staged by the detainees of various internment camps-male and female, young or old, educated or illiterate, communist or not. These performances, seen in their sociopolitical context, voiced concerns about patriotism, victory, defeat, recognition and memory. Among other Greek and foreign plays, the inmates produced Sophocles's Philoctetes and Antigone and Aeschylus's Prometheus Bound and Persians. These productions are eye-openers for anyone studying the theater of that period as well as wider issues of theatricality. The inmates generated performative and protest statements that, despite the constraints of censorship and constant surveillance, went well beyond the scripts, their staging and performance.

show abstract

The Story of Ali Retzo : Brechtian Theater in Greece under the Military Dictatorship

Steen¹

2013

mgs

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Brecht's epic theater offers a valuable platform for examining the intense political drama that unfolded in Greece of the late 1950s through mid-1970s.Petros Markaris launched Brecht's reception with the comprehensive approach of "rewriting" the German author. In 1971, the Free Theater staged The Story of Ali Retzo, a 1965 play that Markaris had composed in the Brechtian vein with poetic overtones. The production became a collective effort to subject the military regime of 1967 to the probing lens of dialectic theater. Set in a mid-twentieth-century Turkish village, The Story of Ali Retzo captured a postmodernist ethos of ambivalence, which questioned oppressive power structures and social inequities. Markaris used the "distant" setting to investigate the problems posed by capitalism, mechanization, and exploitative means of production. The Free Theater's show became a tremendous success for expressing the frustration of unreconciled audiences and of an "unruly" youth movement. Also, it laid out a model for a new, radical understanding of theater as process. The Story of Ali Retzo is remembered to this day as a definitive Brechtian moment in Greek theater under the dictatorship. It marked a sociocultural as well as a theatrical breakthrough, if not a (modest) revolution. Theater as process, acculturating Brecht as processWe wanted to change the structures and the production method of the spectacle as well as its contents, but always geared toward the broad public. That was our goal and our strength. (Kotanidis 2011:178) Before delving into the details of the interaction that Petros Markaris (1937-) and the Eléfthero Théatro (Ελεύθερο Θέατρο, Free Theater) pursued with Bertolt Brecht , this article needs to explain some key notions of Brechtian dramaturgy. Brecht and Piscator cofounded the "epic theater" as a politically committed theater whose praxis drew on the historical materialism of Marx.1 Its aim was to subject economic and sociopolitical forces to an objective and 86 Gonda Van Steen conscious analysis, which would expose how oppressive powers and ideologies had developed historically and continued to hold sway (even if this entailed that any representation of history would necessarily be reductive). Thus, Sarah Bryant-Bertail notes, epic theater presents history from the perspective of conflicting classes and, more importantly, it suggests that world orders are subject to change (2000:2-4). Brecht's drama is indeed a social and ideological forum that envisions the possibility of change, and the same holds true of Markaris's play. The more rational side of epic theater, on the other hand, requires that actors do not embody but demonstrate their roles, and that the spectators remain aware that they are watching a performance. Brecht himself claimed that his epic theater does not make the spectator the victim of a "hypnotic experience"; instead, he or she inevitably has to "take a critical attitude while . . . in the theatre (as opposed to a subjective attitude of becoming completely 'entangled' in what ...

show abstract

Kassandra and the Censors: Greek Poetry since 1967

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

Gender in Literature. Woman's Position from traditional to modern society

Gender in Literature. Woman's Position from traditional to modern society

Forgotten Theater, Theater of the Forgotten: Classical Tragedy on Modern Greek Prison Islands

The Story of Ali Retzo : Brechtian Theater in Greece under the Military Dictatorship

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About