The Neo-Greek Literature – From the 18th Century to the Early 19th Century
A new secularization of culture was promoted in the centers where the Greeks, aggregated in more prosperous and numerous communities, were able to come into direct contact with the ideas of the Enlightenment. Compared with the new that was urgent in the various fields of knowledge, the Greek tradition was limited and in need of updating: hence the proliferation of translations, the impulse given to an embryonic dramaturgical activity, the elaboration of pedagogical proposals, the foundation of magazines (among them, Ermìs or Lòghios, published in Vienna from 1811 to 1821), the search for a suitable linguistic form. Well determined in proposing a compromise between ancient and recent forms was the philologist A. Koraìs (18th-19th century), publisher of ancient texts, but also the author of a fictional text in Demotic. In the same period, more problematic and yet…
