The aim of this thesis is to examine Psycharis's Greek novels by focusing on his modes of writing and the ideas manifested in them. Psycharis saw his role as that of an intellectual aiming to reform Greek culture and he fought consistently for the establishment of the demotic - as he understood it as the language of literature. Yet his novels serve as a filter not only for his views on language and literature, but also for other social and philosophical issues of relevance to his time, and even to contemporary readers. I have defined three major areas for examination: the didacticism of the novels, expressed in the themes and in the narrative techniques employed by the author; the overall recurring cultural views presented in them, and the preoccupation with the importance of fiction, the role of literature and of the prose writer. The novels will be examined in chronological order and I shall address each of the three major areas explained above in turn, emphasising the most prominent one in each case. The objective of this thesis is to make Psycharis's Greek novels better known and to indicate the role that he played in the development of Modern Greek prose and culture.

This thesis offers the first full-length comparative study of George Seferis and Ezra Pound. The analysis begins by establishing, in the first chapter, a field of research by looking at the ways in which Pound was read, translated and received in Greece from 1935 onwards, and, in doing so, maps out the important Greek publications on Pound. Prominent among the discussed poets and translators, it is argued, Seferis showed a deeper affinity with Pound and developed a significantly similar modernist poetics at once singularly Greek and aligned with the Anglo-American example. This thesis, then, proceeds to elucidate the affinities between the two poets through a detailed comparative reading. The second chapter offers an in-depth analysis of the two poets’ views on translation theory and practice, building on Hugh Kenner’s concept of ‘touching distance’. The third chapter concentrates on the two poets’ responses to place in both their poetry and their travel writings, by problematising the conceptual ‘mobility’ of place at work in their writings. Through these explorations, this project offers insights on both poets individually and helps to broaden current understandings of their poetry and poetics comparatively, ultimately demonstrating that Seferis’ modernism, despite being articulated in Greek, was never far removed from high modernist poetics as represented by Pound.

Employing a methodological approach informed by sociological social constructionist theories of gender, I endeavour to explore representations of Spartan masculinity in the works of Xenophon Thucydides and Plato, to gain better understanding of portrayals and usages of ideologies of Spartan masculinity in Classical Athenian philosophical and historical works. I structure my project by focusing on seven categories which constructionists believe to be important to the formation of masculinity. My aim is to demonstrate the utility of this methodological framework for exploring historical masculinities and to contend that there is no singular representation of Spartan masculinity within Classical Athenian prose. Rather, representations of Spartan masculinity are complex and multifaceted, with authors constructing and employing different ideologies of Spartan masculinity situationally and for a variety of purposes, both internal and external to the texts. In chapter one, I examine Xenophon’s Spartan Constitution, demonstrating the role of masculine ideals in the “Lycurgan” system and suggesting Xenophon depicts Spartan masculinity as highly competitive and performative in nature. In chapter two, I examine Plato’s Laws and Republic, to demonstrate that Plato portrays Spartan masculine ideals as playing a prominent role in the imbalanced development of Spartan character. I also analyse Plato’s depiction of the auxiliary guardians to suggest that problematic elements he associates with Spartan men are unresolved, even within his idealised polis. In chapter three, I explore Thucydides’ History. I elucidate the role of masculine ideals in characterisations of Spartan individuals and the Spartan polis and argue that characters’ redefinition of Spartan masculine ideals is portrayed as politically useful in the text. Finally, in chapter four, I examine Xenophon’s historical works, focusing primarily on the Hellenica. I explore a number of episodes to demonstrate characters’ employment of masculine ideals for political purposes, to demonstrate correspondences between masculine ideals identified in the Lac. and Xenophon’s characterisations of Spartan individuals in the Hellenica and argue that hegemonic masculinity is observable in depictions of of Spartan societal processes and mechanisms.

This thesis will provide a sustained analysis of the relationship between the Rhetorica ad Herennium and its context in early first century BCE Rome. Over 250 examples in the Rhetorica ad Herennium illustrate the text’s rhetorical theory, but in so doing they also provide a significant insight into the history, law, and politics of this period. As I demonstrate, these examples show the preoccupations and perspectives of orators who were not necessarily from the political elite. They illustrate what could and could not be discussed in speech, and the modes of oratory that were encouraged by the author – popularis or not. The author’s focus on forensic oratory also has important implications for understanding the use of the law and legal knowledge. An important strand of this thesis is to compare the examples in the Rhetorica ad Herennium to those of Cicero’s contemporary De Inventione. Although the two texts have often been treated as a pair, there are differences between the two. The contrasts are noteworthy in themselves, but they also emphasise the independence of the author of the Rhetorica ad Herennium and the potential to adapt theories and approaches as necessary. This is also an educational text, and the way it is constructed relates closely to its audience. I argue that the post-Social War context of the Rhetorica ad Herennium is key to understanding this audience, who may include newly enfranchised Italians using the Roman legal system for the first time. By recontextualising the Rhetorica ad Herennium, it becomes clear that it is a very different text to the De Inventione in many ways. By highlighting these differences, I show that the work can stand alone as an object of enquiry and serve as a rich source for Roman Republican historians.

Proefschrift--Utrecht. / Also available in print.

Academisch proefschrift--Vrije Universiteit te Amsterdam, 1990. / Summary in Dutch. Errata slip inserted. Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Globalisation along with dramatic increases in immigration, have led to increased levels of diversification in modern societies. The rapid change of the Cypriot society to a multicultural and multilingual one has resulted in the presence of a multitude of additional languages in Cypriot primary classrooms, reinforcing the concern for the education of pupils whose first language is other than the dominant language of the country. As a primary school teacher I am concerned in developing an effective pedagogy that can support these pupils’ additional language learning. Thus, the specific action research project at the heart of this research examines how educational drama can be used to facilitate the acquisition of Greek as an additional language by ethnic minority pupils in a Cypriot primary classroom. Throughout this thesis language learning is understood as a social construct, a continual, negotiated exchange of meanings, between the child and the environment, drawing on social theories of language that stress the overarching importance of cultural and social interactions for second language learning. Guided by theory, this research argues for the inter-relationship between social and linguistic processes and how specific drama strategies enable both one and the other. Evidence from this research suggests that a dramatic context that reflects the cultural and linguistic diversity of the classroom has a positive effect in GAL students’ affective variables, and particularly the socio-cultural factors and the personal variables within oneself, as well as the affect on L2 learning of the reflection of that self to other people. Illustrative drama schemes, developed throughout the project, together with concrete examples of children’s work are provided to represent more clearly how living contexts and fictitious worlds can be created within which the different functions of language can be identified and developed. At the same time unconventional and anxiety-reducing strategies for assessing second language learning are presented.

Academisch proefschrift--Vrije Universiteit te Amsterdam, 1990. / Summary in Dutch. Errata slip inserted. Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Proefschrift--Utrecht.

This dissertation aims to study the reception of the Latin poet Horace in the Italian Renaissance, taking into consideration works composed in several different genres both in Latin and Italian vernacular between 1498 and 1600. This thesis follows five main pathways of investigation: 1) to study the Renaissance biographies of the poet; 2) to analyse several exegetical works both in Horace’s single texts and his whole corpus; 3) to study the Italian translations written both in prose and verse which were made during the Cinquecento; 4) to study in depth those who imitated Horace in their lyrical and satirical poems composed in Italian; and 5) to examine those Neo-Latin poetical works (mainly pertaining to the lyrical and satirical genres). This dissertation points out that the numerous and various forms of Horatian reception help to evaluate the real flourishing of sixteenth-century interest in the Latin poet, interest that reflects the fact that Horace was part of the new Renaissance canon of classical authorities. Within the sixteenth-century conflict of cultures, Horace appears as one of the main protagonists of the critical and literary scenes, as is shown by the attention that his works received from the point of view of editions, commentaries, and translations respectively, as well as by the fact that his texts were placed at the centre of several literary imitative practices, his example being able to offer the Renaissance one important basis upon which to found part of its new culture. Indeed, Horace allowed the emergence of an ethical strain to the Renaissance lyric, as well as contributing to the provision of rules for sixteenth-century literary criticism.