Plays of the Cretan Renaissance

Georgios Chortatsis, a contemporary of Shakespeare, was the greatest playwright of Crete in the Venetian period. Writing in a polished form of the Cretan dialect, he produced the pastoral comedy Panoria, the tragedy Erophile, and the urban comedy Katzarapos; he may also have written some dramatic interludes on themes of mythology and chivalry and collaborated on the comedy Stathis . His works demonstrate wide reading in the classics and Italian literature, and are notable for their originality of conception, psychological insight, tender lyricism, and genial humour. This edition is the first to contain all four plays and twelve interludes attributed to him, and the first to appear outside Greece. It presents new texts of the plays accompanied by clear and performable English translations, a critical apparatus, a commentary, and an extensive glossary. Rosemary Bancroft-Marcus, a leading scholar of Cretan Renaissance studies, has devoted particular attention to recovering the linguistic authenticity and euphony of Chortatsis' verse. Her introduction includes material on biography, the Cretan Academies, literary and theatrical aspects of the plays, metre, dialect, and editorial principles. The commentary discusses literary sources, style, linguistic and metrical difficulties, and staging. This book thus makes a major contribution to Modern Greek scholarship, and at the same time introduces a fine dramatist to English-speaking readers.Chortatsis, Georgios is the author of 'Plays of the Cretan Renaissance' with ISBN 9780198158080 and ISBN 0198158084.