ALEXANDROS PAPADIAMANTIS

AND THE LANGUAGE

QUESTION
Nicholas A. E. Kalospyros
Γ΄ συνέδριο της Ευρωπαϊκής Εταιρείας Νεοελληνικών
Σπουδών

1
 If we could justify the assertion that Papadiamantis’s otherworldliness
is a fair palate of his indulging in profound lyrical reveries about human
nature, we should have attended closely to his linguistic medium for their
respective description; in a modern Greek state being especially
tantalized by the so-called “Language Question”[1], Papadiamantis’s case
should have gained a particular attention under serious remarks relevant
to it, such as that “in the spheres of poetry and fiction, the search for a
written language has historically been in essence a search for
precedents”[2], not to mention the major issue of relating to the History
of Classical Scholarship. Therefore, for Alexandros Papadiamantis (1851-
1911), one of the most compendious diachronic Greek authors, who
occupies a unique and legendary status as a writer of prose-fiction in our
literature, the demanding challenge to underline his attitude towards the
linguistic debate aims to develop discussion of a particular dimension of
his work which earlier critics have already acknowledged but not
sufficiently elaborated on.

It remains undisputable that, though his works are susceptible of a

bewildering variety of multiple as well as of contradictory interpretations
–in opposition to the disruptive impact of a cosmopolitan Westernism and
insulting modernity which evoced the writer’s cautiousness, whereby he
poetically glossed a sense of subjectivity familiar in the Greek writers and
typically related by him to his childhood years, since his literary
landscape is dominated by God–, Papadiamantis’s hieratic efforts to
conjure up a divine presence in the words of the ancestral language entail
the fully purposive use of different phases of Greek language. Behold the
elliptical picture of the unrivalled language-independency of
Papadiamantis: we can observe such manoeuvres of poetic utterance in
the trends of linguistic usage throughout the last centuries in intellectual
life and in the contiguous debate about the place of the ancient language
in the school curriculum, both of which are often unintelligible without a
complete understanding of the Language Question. Although this dualism
in language –in the form of an escalating competition of archaization and
purifying mechanisms that expunged many non-Greek features from the
written language and enriched the modern Greek language with newly
coined words and morphological forms lacking in the colloquial modern
Greek but appropriate to different linguistic situations– originated in the
phenomenon of Atticism[3], the Language Question appeared to be a
modern phenomenon as an increasingly polarized linguistic debate
turning into a strict contradiction between i) the revival of long-vanished
linguistic features and purism prescriptions, by many writers, especially
those involved in more learned pursuits, who cultivated a pompous
rhetoricism, and ii) the extremes reached by the proponents of

2
demoticism, a language closer to the spoken standard, who produced
neologisms. Those writing in katharevousa[4], i.e. using variable
linguistic features of vocabulary, grammar and syntax based on Ancient
Greek (a modified form of Atticistic Greek) and feeling themselves as the
rightful inheritors of the classical world, and thus proclaiming their Greek
national identity as closely linked to language, “αφού γλώσσα και
θρησκεία είναι τα κυριώτερα γνωρίσµατα έθνους” [290. 23][5], couldn’t
avoid the accusation of exploiting an artificial and inexisting language
that was invented by indigenous scholars “αφόρητος δε µάλιστα τοις
αλλοφύλοις ελληνισταίς”[6]. Thus, rehearsing the disseminated in the
Greek-speaking world arguments of the expatriate classical scholar
Adam. Korais, whose model prevailed as the official written language, it
seemed inadequate to interact with the reality of Greek language
controversy, i.e. the embattled contours and the consequences of the
“Language Question”, resulting in the diglossia[7] institutionalized as a
formal division within written usage[8]. So, this substitute for socio-
political action within modern Greek bourgeois class[9], was one facet of
scientific retrogression, nationalism and irredentism, while “the debate
itself can now be interpreted as a symptom of what is often called a
‘reification’ or ‘objectivization’ of language, developed to an unusually
high degree”[10] and since it has been disputed that the elite language
declines and also compromises with the vernacular causing a fusion from
which the standard language is born[11]. The literary position of
Papadiamantis offers us –and here lies the noble desideratum of our
view– the chance not to re-examine the “Language Question” but to
approach its essence and simultaneously appraise the way he managed to
reverse it by reclaiming the entire history of the Greek language and
regaining access to the wide range of a literary language along with its
diversity, his preferences among ecclesiastical tradition and sterile
scholasticism being neither repeatable nor completely translatable.

Papadiamantis maintained a firm attitude even by challenging every

artificial constraint or compromising journalese and officialdom. He had
a conscious aversion to Psycharism; in the only interview he gave, he
expressed himself explicitly about J. Psycharis’s (1854-1929) intentions:
“Την δηµοτικήν γλώσσαν πού την είδε, πού την έµαθε, πού την
εσπούδασε ο Ψυχάρης; Αυτός είναι Χίος, σχεδόν ξένος, αριστοκράτης
Φαναριώτης, επιχειρών µε εν στρεβλωτικόν ιδίωµα να επιβληθή ως
δηµιουργός και διδάσκαλος ολοκλήρου έθνους. Όχι! αι γλώσσαι δεν
επιβάλλονται ούτω εις τα καλά καθούµενα υπό των ατόµων εις τους
λαούς”[12]. He was totally inimical against the idea of language
imposition: “Lingua nova Graeca inventa… Τότε µεν εις το Παρίσι είχεν
ανακαλυφθή, ως φαίνεται, νέα γλώσσα, Ελληνική καλουµένη· σήµερον

3
δε, όχι µία, αλλά περισσότεραι ελληνικαί γλώσσαι συγχρόνως έχουν
επινοηθή· άλλη µάς έρχεται από το Παρίσι, και άλλη επιδηµεί
ενθρονισµένη εδώ, εις τας Αθήνας· και όλαι λαλούµεναι, γραφόµεναι,
και αναγινωσκόµεναι ανά Ελλάδα πάσαν και την άγλωσσον, ηχούσιν ως
‘σύµµικτον είδος καποφώλιον τέρας’ ” [288. 10-15].

His friend, Ioannis Vlachoyannis, once remarked that Papadiamantis had

never read a book written in demotic, by specifying that “δεν χώνευε
όµως πάντα τον Ψυχαρισµό, δηλαδή την ψυχρή εφαρµογή του
γλωσσικού νόµου πάνου από το νόµο τον αισθητικό”[13]. On the
contrary, Papadiamantis in his interview to D. Chatzopoulos in the
newspaper ΤοΆστυ (1893) confessed his admiration for the naturalness
emerging from K. Krystallis’s language: “Τον Κρυστάλλην τον αγαπά ως
κλέφτην και ως τσοπάνον, και τον θεωρεί ως τον µόνον αγνόν δηµοτικόν
[ποιητήν], όστις εκ του φυσικού µόνον δανείζεται την δηµώδη
γλώσσαν”[14].

In another of his writings, he was wondering in presenting a good sense

of humour: “∆εν ηξεύρω διατί, προ χρόνων, όταν εσκεπτόµην αν έπρεπε
να γράψω την παρούσαν µελέτην, εσχεδίαζα να την επιγράψω, Ταξόανα.
∆ιατί άρα; Μήπως εσκόπουν ν' απαντήσω εις ‘Τα είδωλα’ του µακαρίτου
Ροΐδου;” [291. 8-10]. In his study The Idols, published in 1893, Emm.
Roïdis supported the cause of the spoken language, although he expressed
himself in an elegant katharevousa. Eleven years before, the Observations
on the Language by K. Kontos (1834-1909) were published in Athens,
summing up what he had elsewhere published separately. Kontos was
professor at the University of Athens since 1868, a pupil of the Dutchman
C. G. Cobet; his tendencies to correctness on Atticistic ground and his
intensive archaism made him an architect of purism, who, like his
intellectual ancestor Phrynichus, believed that he could eradicate
linguistic anarchy through variations, mistakes, barbarism and solecism,
by enriching the poor and vulgar Greek vernacular. Beyond Kontos’s
ultraconservatism, Papadiamantis conceded his knowledge of Greek and
his right to lead a chaste struggle for the notion of ελληνοέπεια: “Είτα ο
στιβαρός Κόντος, του οποίου τον ζυγόν δυσκόλως υπέφερον οι
γράφοντες, καί τινες µάλιστα επροσπάθουν µάτην να τον γελοιοποιήσουν
–και όµως, µε τον καιρόν οι ίδιοι υπέκυψαν– υπέδειξε το ορθόν” [292.
28-31]. He esteemed highly those who knew to express themselves in a
“flourishing” Greek language, as he accepts in the obituary he wrote for
Father Dionysios: “ήτο δε δόκιµος ελληνιστής ο ανήρ, και τοσούτον
ώστε τας προς λογίους επιστολάς αυτού έγραφεν εν ανθηρώ Ελληνικώ
λόγω” [328. 30-31]. But in other cases, Papadiamantis resorted to ironical
comments: “Ας ευχηθώµεν καλήν πρόοδον εις τους νεογλωσσίτας” [290.

4
18]. His ironic mood must not be interpreted as an acrimonious attack on
his opponents, but rather be seen as product of his dramatic agony. The
contradiction between the reality and the phenomena motivates his irony,
while this ironical reductio ad absurdum advances to the expressis verbis
revealing of the genuine literary intention. Then, he hurls the modified
ironic oppositions with unequalled acumen, thus combining stylistic
scholarship with Christian eschatological viewing[15].

D. C. Hesseling noticed carefully the spiritual veins of Papadiamantis’s

work: “son œuvre entière témoigne d’une grande connaissance de la
Bible et de la liturgie, et cet amour de l’Église a exercé une grande
influence sur sa langue. Il emploie le grec populaire, et souvent le patois
de son île natale, dans le dialogue, très rarement dans tout un récit, mais
en règle générale il écrit un grec qui se distingue de la langue officielle
par un nombre extraordinaire de mots archaïques, tirés pour la plupart des
vieux livres de piété. Il rend magistralement la langue et le style des vies
de saints. On ne saurait parler chez lui d’un style fixe: le sujet,
l’inspiration du moment, l’amènent à prendre ses formes au grec ancien,
chez les auteurs ecclésiastiques byzantins ou dans l’usage journalier.
Mais, lors même qu’il paraît perdre de vue la tradition orale, sa langue
n’a rien de mort; on sent que les expressions qu’il doit à ses nombreuses
lectures font partie intégrante de sa pensée. Il possède une tournure
d’esprit remarquablement originale et il est resté parfaitement indemne de
toute influence soit ancienne, soit occidentale”[16]. Only by taking under
consideration Papadiamantis’s enormous classical, biblical and
ecclesiastical scholarship it is probable to understand his conception of
moderation and caution against exaggerations, to which many of his
contemporaneous scholars were inclined; he indicates that sometimes
hypercorrection can lead to devastating results concerning sound texts:
“ένεκα της διορθωσιµανίας αυτής, φθείρονται τα κάλλιστα και
ελληνοπρεπέστατα (των τροπαρίων)” [218. 32-33].

Consequently, due to manifest ignorance of the Language Question and

its significance, the opinions of the critics on the kind of Papadiamantis’s
language –that gives life to the writer’s homesickness– are divided. Some
scholars hastened to depict Papadiamantis’s style by means of
oversimplified aphorisms, compared to the taste of his generation and
their own grasp. Other philologists emphasized on the opinion that he was
tightened to the chariot of katharevousa adding that his katharevousa was
entirely personal and inconsistent; others reached the conclusion that it is
possible to discern between the different layers/levels of his language: the
popular spoken language, almost photographically recorded and often
with idioms from Skiathos, which he used in dialogue; an admixture of

5
katharevousa with many demotic elements (perhaps the most individual
style), which he used in narration; and a more archaizing katharevousa, a
kind of traditional prose language inherited from the earlier generation,
which he reserved for his lyrical digressions. Papadiamantis was
introduced as an author of high quality representing katharevousa, “so
that a respected puristic tradition has established itself. Papadiamantis
was a particularly important actor in this because of his great popularity,
his stories being serialized and read aloud in village cafés”[17]. For
instance, K. Chatzopoulos characterized Papadiamantis’s katharevousa as
pedantic, A. Terzakis as problematic, M. M. Papaïoannou as inert
survival of the past and P. Moullas as a language undisciplined dressed in
her puristic garment, whilst T. Agras and O. Elytis regarded it a language
with a history through the centuries, hoarded up from multiple cultural
layers, and Z. Lorentzatos along with N. B. Tomadakis a language which
denies its submission to the monochrome of the one or another
expression. Ar. Nikolaïdis considered Papadiamantis’s work from a
linguistic aspect to be a self-evident overstepping of the linguistic debate
between demotic and katharevousa[18]. In the opinion of the majority of
scholars Papadiamantis’s katharevousa should be considered Byzantine
or, at least, sacerdotal.

Still the problem remained: What was such an author trying to do, e.g.
when he applied his lyric confession in the “Rosy Shores”, pouring deep
suffering, tender longing and transcendent eroticism lingering in him?
Cherishing the vivid tradition of Mount Athos, he chose a language that
could grant him the pathway from prose to poetry, and, in other words, its
supersubstantial prosperity[19]. To surpass the theoretical question
between the form of written language (katharevousa vs demotic)
Papadiamantis needed to possess an infinitesimal literary creature which
would incorporate in morphological, typological and syntactical features
the previous generations of poetical experience and literary devoutness.
With detailed correlations between Homeric and Papadiamantical
“language” as inseminating matrices of sublime style, we can trace the
homogeneity and harmony in the tradition that Papadiamantis’s language
suggests: an almost “Homeric” katharevousa (with several meaningful
allusions to the classics and the Homeric models to which it may aspire),
hieratic, biblical and, above all, anagogical, which would express
perfectly every nostalgic whispering of lyric feelings. In declaring the
admirable style of hymnography (: “Και κατά την έννοιαν και κατά την
γλώσσαν τα ανωτέρω παρατεθέντα αποσπάσµατα, αδιστάκτως φρονώ,
ότι είναι εκ των ωραιοτέρων λεκτικών καλλιτεχνηµάτων πάσης εποχής,
και το λέγω χάριν εκείνων εκ των ηµετέρων, όσοι εκ προκαταλήψεως
νοµίζουσιν, ότι δεν εγράφοντο Ελληνικά κατά τον Ζ΄ και Η΄ αιώνα,

6
υποθέτοντες καλοκαγάθως, ότι τα παρ' ηµών των σηµερινών γραφόµενα
είναι ελληνικά, και ότι θ' αναγνωσθώσι ποτέ ως Ελληνικά υπό των
επιγιγνοµένων” [135. 22-28], composed in a superlative and sublime
language (“Εν γλώσση αλλοία ή η συνήθης” [152. 22]) he simply warned
us that his language had to override any mundane barrier, in order to
testify verbal conducts from another sphere: “Μικρολόγος σχολαστικότης
αδυνατεί να αισθανθή και να εκτιµήση την παιδικήν και αγγελικήν
απλότητα των θείων ρηµάτων, την αγνοούσαν το κακόν, ή την
περιφρονούσαν τούτο. Άλλως το µεγαλείον της ποιήσεως της ανατολικής
είναι άλλο, και οι τρόποι, αι µεταφοραί και εικόνες της γλώσσης των
Ιερών Γραφών δεν θα γίνωσι ποτέ νεωτερικαί ούτε δυτικαί” [220. 9-14].
That is why he couldn't but agree with Longinus writing about sublimity
in an elevated style (whereas he seems not only to be representing the
style indicatively but also to be expressing sublimity by embodying it in
his own words[20]). Therefore, Papadiamantical language knows no
simple opposition between archaism and innovation, since the innovative
tendencies extend mainly to the manipulation of archaisms for literary
effect[21]; as a modus loquendi it forms a suggestive symbolism that can
mutually integrate the world of ancient myth into his portrayal of
contemporary reality, in the sanctity of divine eros.

Apart from his personal and individual Sprachkritikastereien, he refutes

dilemmas such as the imitation of classic patterns or the adoption of
archaiognostic practice. In his lifelong service of the ecclesiastical
speech, whereby classic Greece met Christian thought and doctrines, he
reconciled stylistical imperatives and linguistic quandaries in terms of
sublime beauty. By overriding the Language Question in his unique way
of embracing the entire Greek language, he marked his position
deliberately. He could equally align the vernacular language “ήτις είναι
ζωντανή εις τα ηρωικά και ερωτικά άσµατα του λαού” [237. 12-13] with
any possible form of katharevousa. “True language does not confine the
freedom of expression in a ‘from above’ established type of linguistic
orthodoxy. […] When language does not subjugate life, but life
subjugates language, then the archaizing expression can be just as much
genuine as the folk song – just as the language of Kalvos, Papadiamantis
and Kavafis has been true”[22].

His article “Γλώσσα και κοινωνία” (1907) [288-299] constitutes his

testament on language topics. Papadiamantis summarizes his views and,
at the same time, he provides us with a genuine wit. I shall touch on just
to a few examples to indicate that his constant agony for the Greek
language and its sacred tradition define an outline of language theory
which rejects the presuppositions of holding on obscurantism and

7
language problems and attests an uncompromising attitude towards
language itself.

a) Although the pursuit of an authentic form seems incomprehensible to

many uneducated, it usually incurs the taunts of them: “Μόνον εις την
γνησίαν µορφήν δεν πρέπει να το γράψη, διότι αλλοίµονον εις όσους
γράφουν την καθαρέβουσα” [293. 13-14]. In the press we find numerous
examples of the debasing and barbarization of Greek language which
suffers gravely in the hands of the illiterate: “υπόδειγµα σχεδόν
πρότυπον, λίαν παραστατικόν περί του πώς γράφεται η Ελληνική γλώσσα
την σήµερον εις τον Αθηναϊκόν τύπον. Συνίσταται από ένα βαρβαρισµόν
εις την αρχήν, από ένα ξενισµόν εις το µέσον, και από ένα αστείον
παραλογισµόν µετ' ακυρολεξίας περί το τέλος. [...] Τώρα κηρύττεται
πλέον φανερά η αγραµµατωσύνη, και το ανωφελές του ορθώς γράφειν ή
οµιλείν” [294. 18-22 and 30-31].

b) Furthermore, an alibi for this misery is objectionable due to a complex

of provincialism towards the ostensible progress achieved by other
European countries: “Ωχ, αδελφέ! Μήπως η Ελλάς φιλολογικώς δεν είναι
‘µία επαρχία’ της Γαλλίας, όπως είπε προ χρόνων ο κ. Γρ. Ξενόπουλος;”
[295. 6-7].

c) On the other hand, the immoderate purism combined to excessive

verbosity and pretentious preciosity cannot but produce a counterfeit
fabrication, instead of elegant Greek expressions: “Το ελληνικά, κατά την
αντίληψιν των πολλών, εσήµαινεν άρρηταθέµατα, λεξίδια όχι συνήθη εις
τον κοινόν λόγον. Αλλά µε την λογικήν και την µέθοδον αυτήν
κατήντησε να γίνη όλη σχεδόν η γλώσσα νόθον και κίβδηλον
κατασκεύασµα, άκοµψον, και κακόζηλον· τεχνητόν και κατά συνθήκην”
[295. 17-21].

d) He implied that nowadays a general confusion is common: “Καίτοι

αγράµµατη η γραία µ' εδίδαξεν ότι, εις την ελληνικήν γλώσσαν, άλλως
νοούµεν, άλλως οµιλούµεν, και άλλως γράφοµεν” [296. 1-3].

e) We should let our language take its own natural course, without
external interferences owing to foreign standards, since language is a
living organism and, so, cannot be suffocated: “ Όπως έν ζωντανόν σώµα
δεν δύναται να ζήση δι' ενέσεων, τρόπον τινά, από κόνιν αρχαίων
σκελετών και µνηµείων, άλλο τόσον δεν δύναται να ζήση, ειµή µόνον
κακήν και νοσηράν ζωήν, τρεφόµενον µε τουρσιά και µε κονσέρβας
ευρωπαϊκάς” [296. 10-13], because “τας γλώσσας τας νεωτέρας έπρεπε
να τας έχη σύµπλους, χωρίς να ρυµουλκήται από καµµίαν εξ αυτών”
[296. 26-27]. Therefore, we cannot tolerate loaning and imitation of

8
outlandish linguistic models or modernisms but only as a necessary evil.
Unfortunately, “Έχει πολλάς ανάγκας και αδυναµίας η γλώσσα. Έχει την
δεσπόζουσαν ανάγκην και την αδυναµίαν του νεωτερισµού. Φοβερά είναι
του ξενισµού η επίδρασις. Είναι αναγκαιότατον κακόν, το οποίον ποτέ
δεν απείργεται” [296. 13-16].

f) The glamour of our ancestral language must function as a lighthouse

directing to the harbour, not as the harbour itself: “Αδύνατον είναι
γλώσσα ζωντανή, σύγχρονος, έχουσα πόθον και αξίωσιν να ζήση, να µη
αισθάνεται βαθείαν την αλληλεγγύην αυτήν. Αλλ' η γλώσσα η Ελληνική
έπρεπε <να> βλέπη µακράν, ως φάρον παµφαή, την λαµπράν αίγλην της
αρχαίας, χωρίς να έχη τέρµα τον φάρον αυτόν. Ο φάρος οδηγεί εις τον
λιµένα, δεν είναι αυτός λιµήν” [296. 20-25].

It is daring to imagine how the Language Question itself could stand as

an ambiguous comment in Papadiamantis’s work, from the gruff demotic
of the local Skiathos idiom, to liturgical Greek and back to antiquity, in
an astonishing long duration, which bequeathed to our literary tradition
two currents, the scholarly and the popular one. By this synaxarian
mosaic empebbled on the typology of a mature katharevousa,
Papadiamantis gathered around his work and opened up a world of silent
devoutness and later of a laudatory loquaciousness. It is noteworthy that
most of the demoticists understood well the inner relation established
between Papadiamantis and the people concerning the world that was
echoed through this linguistic choice, and that he had already transcended
the dilemmatic questions that torture feeble minds and suspend poetic
temper: Papadiamantical language fulfills the catharsis necessary for a
grammatical soul to relieve from its passions, not by ordering but by
conveying aesthetic magnificence, so that each one of us could advance
till the summit he is able to. Surpassing the Language Question’s major
problems, he became homeland and language himself, and by setting
language matters right he proceeded over to a boundless poetic temper
that could easily attract faithful and distrustful travellers in Greek
language. Perhaps, there lies the reason why it is rather difficult, very
difficult, rather impossible to render him into any foreign language, for
his “idiomatic” language causes the translators’ failure to contextualize
him. What can we do but follow his advice: “Ας οπισθοχωρήσωµεν, ή
µάλλον ας σταµατήσωµεν εδώ. Σαρκικοί, υλόφρονες και νωθροί
άνθρωποι, δεν δύνανται ν' ανέλθωσιν εις τον ιερόν βράχον της
Ακροπόλεως” [272. 26-28]?

9
[1] On this topic see A. E. Megas, Ιστορία του γλωσσικού ζητήµατος,
Μέρος Α΄. Αιώνες γλωσσικών αλλοιώσεων (300 π.Χ.-1750 µ.Χ.), and
Μέρος Β΄. Αιώνες γλωσσικών συζητήσεων (1750-1926), Athens 1925 and
1927 (repr. 1997), P. Bien, Kazantzakis and the Linguistic Revolution in
Greek Language, Princeton 1972, B. Joseph, “Language, Power and
Freedom in Greek Society”, Journal of Modern Greek Studies 10 (1992),
pp. 1-120, R. Beaton, An Introduction to Modern Greek Literature,
Oxford 1994, pp. 296 ff., S. Swain, Hellenism and Empire: Language,
Classicism, and Power in the Greek World, AD 50-250, Oxford 1996, pp.
35-40, P. D. Mastrodimitris, Εισαγωγή στη Νεοελληνική Φιλολογία, 7th
ed., Athens 2005, pp. 53-71.

[2] R. Beaton, l.c., p. 331.

[3] See Κ. Α. Trypanis, Ο Αττικισµός και το γλωσσικό µας ζήτηµα, Athens

1984.

[4] See P. Mackridge, “Katharevousa (c. 1800-1974). An Obituary for an

Official Language”, in: M. Sarafis & M. Eve [ed.], Background to
Contemporary Greece, 2 vols, London 1990, pp. 25-51.

[5] All references to tales of Papadiamantis appear in square brackets and

refer, by page and lines’ number, to the 5th volume of the edition by N.
D. Triantafyllopoulos ΑλέξανδροςΠαπαδιαµάντηςΆπαντα, Athens 1988.

[6] E. D. Roïdis, Τα Είδωλα. Γλωσσικήµελέτη, Athens 1893, p. 286, a

citation of Th. Livadas’s words.

[7] A special form of bilingualism, in which two distinct forms, legally

sanctioned, of the same language are used side by side in the same
community for different purposes.

[8] See J. Niehoff-Panagiotidis, Koine und Diglossie, Wiesbaden 1994.

[9] G. Kaklamanis, Ανάλυση της νεοελληνικής αστικής ιδεολογίας, Αθήνα

1989, p. 116 and also passim.

[10] Beaton, l.c., p. 353.

[11] H. Kahane & R. Kahane, “Decline and survival of Western prestige

languages”, Language 55 (1979), pp. 183-198.

[12] Τα Άπαντα του Αλεξάνδρου Παπαδιαµάντη, ed. G. Valetas, vol. V,

Athens, p. 496.

10
[13] «Πώς γράφεται η ιστορία», Νέα Εστία 24 (1938), p. 1634.

[14] «Γνώµες του Παπαδιαµάντη για τους συγχρόνους του», Νέα Εστία
(Αφιέρωµα στον Παπαδιαµάντη), 355 (Christmas of 1941), p. 113.

[15] N. A. E. Kalospyros, Η αρχαιογνωσία του Αλεξάνδρου

Παπαδιαµάντη, Athens 2002, p. 210.

[16] D. C. Hesseling, Histoire de la littérature grecque moderne, French

transl. by N. Pernot, Paris 1924, p. 137.

[17] Bien, l.c., p. 118.

[18] See T. Agras, “Πώς βλέποµε σήµερα τον Παπαδιαµάντη”, in N. D.

Triantaphyllopoulos [ed.], Αλέξανδρος Παπαδιαµάντης. Είκοσι κείµενα
για τη ζωή και το έργο του, Athens 1979, pp. 119-130 and Α. Β. Zorbas, Η
γλώσσα της Αγίας Γραφής και των λειτουργικών βιβλίων στο έργο του
Παπαδιαµάντη, Diss. (Athens Univ.), Athens 1991 (typewritt. ed.), pp.
19-32.

[19] See N. A. E. Kalospyros, “Προοίµιο στην ενδελεχή έρευνα για το

ξένον παπαδιαµαντικό ύφος”, Νέα Εστία 1747 (July-Aug. 2002), pp. 21-
31.

[20] G. B. Walsh, “Sublime method. Longinus on language and

imitation”, Classical Antiquity 7 (1988), pp. 252-269.

[21] Especially by using animating metaphors and metonymies; on their

function see C. M. Schmidt, “Die metaphorische Funktion literarischer
Texte. Ein methodengeschichtliches Problem und sein
sprachphilosophischer Lösungsansatz”, Orbis Litterarum 56 (2001), pp.
319-333.

[22] Chr. Giannaras, Η νεοελληνική ταυτότητα, Athens 1978, p. 149.

11