Dissertation title:

“The reception of Cretan Literature by the Modern Greek and European critical discourse in the 19^th century: From popular literature to the national literary Canon”

Supervisor: Stefanos Kaklamanis

This dissertation investigates the critical reception of Cretan Literature from the end of the 18^th century and in the 19^th century, until the critical edition of Erotokritos (1915) by Stephanos Xanthoudides. This essay aspires to concentrate, systemize and study the whole of the critical discourse that was articulated for the five Cretan literary works, for which the most extended critical discourse was produced: Bergades’ Apokopos, anonymous’ Voskopoula, George Chortatses’ Erofili, anonymous’ Thisia tou Avraam and Vincenzo Cornaro’s Erotokritos. It is an effort to chart and explain the historical, textual and ideological processes that produced these critical approaches of the Greek and European scholarship and study them in terms of discourse networks. The charting of the evolution of the Modern Greek and European critical discourse, concerning the Cretan Literature, is extremely fruitful concerning the ideologies and the cognitive variations that constituted the Modern Greek cultural identity.

Alexandros Katsigiannis / Department of Philology, University of Crete.