Made in Greece

Made in Greece

This article relates to Outline

In choosing to set Outline in Athens, Rachel Cusk is the latest in a long line of authors, poets and playwrights who have gravitated toward or drawn inspiration from Greece - its geography, its history and its vast canon of ancient writings.

The tradition of Grecian influence on literature began over two thousand years ago when the scribes of the Roman Empire began to borrow heavily from their earlier Greek counterparts. The plays of Plautus, for example, were influenced markedly by Ancient Greek comedies while the Roman poet Catullus adapted Greek lyrical verse into Latin. Indeed, Latin translations of Grecian literature remained popular until medieval times. And let's not forget perhaps the most enduring original poetic work of the Middle Ages, Dante's The Divine Comedy, which is entirely built upon a foundation of Greek myth.

As the Middle Ages gave way to the more enlightened and creative Renaissance period, the impact of Greek classicism continued to hold sway. The use of the Greek chorus (a device often used in the Ancient Greek dramatic canon which sees a group of supporting performers provide a collective voice which both corroborates the narrative and moves it forward) was resurrected by the neo-classical dramatists of the Italian Renaissance. This was also reflected in English theatre, most notably by the Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe, who used the Greek chorus to great effect in his seminal play, Doctor Faustus. Similarly, using Greece as a dramatic location become popular during the Elizabethan and Jacobean period in England. Many of Shakespeare's plays are set in the country, including Timon of Athens, The Comedy of Errors, A Midsummer's Night Dream, and Troilus and Cressida.

Later, Greece would inform the lives and work of the English Romantic poets. While at Cambridge, Coleridge received an award for composing a Grecian ode. In the eighteenth century, Keats translated the epic Aeneid into English while still a schoolboy, and would later go on to write that perennial favorite of the English school syllabus, Ode On a Grecian Urn. Having travelled to the country as part of his infamous Grand Tour, Byron set part of his long narrative poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage there¸ while the political dynamics of the country informed the revolutionary inclinations of both Byron and a number of his contemporaries, including Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley was himself a scholar of the language of ancient Greece, and published a well-received translation of Plato's The Symposium in 1818, a work which remains in print to this day. Female poets of the day, in particular Elizabeth Barrett Browning, would also mine ancient Greece in their work. A century later, Hellenism, and in particular ancient Grecian attitudes towards homosexuality, would continue to inspire such Victorian literary luminaries as Algernon Charles Swinburne, John Addington Symonds and Oscar Wilde.

Grecian politics, particularly during the Greek Revolution from 1821 to 1832 also proved inspirational, particularly to American writers and intellectuals. Seeing much of their own recent revolutionary experience reflected in the Greek battle for independence from the Ottoman Empire, the majority of American men of letters wholeheartedly supported the Greek cause, with many expressing the wish that the revolution would eventually occasion a renaissance in Greek classicism. This so-called "Greek Fever" in America particularly influenced the poetry of William Cullen Byrant.

So how to explain this extraordinary sphere of Greek influence? The appeal of the country is, in fact, manifold. Its rich tapestry of mythological characters - from the beautiful and dangerous Helen of Troy to the many fabled deities including Aphrodite, Apollo, Hades, Poseidon and Zeus - have long been irresistible fodder for historical novelists, as has the magnificent ruined architecture of The Acropolis. With regards to the popularity of Greece as a setting, there is no great mystery - surrounded by the crystalline, deep-blue waters of the Aegean and Ionian seas, the beguiling beautiful Greek islands provide a magnificent backdrop to modern novels.

But, when all is said and done, perhaps it was that roguish Romantic adventurer Lord Byron who best encapsulated the enduring attraction of the beautiful Mediterranean country when he wrote:

The Isles of Greece! the Isles of Greece
Where burning Sappho loved and sung.
Where grew the arts of war and peace
Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!
Eternal sun gilds them yet
But all, except their sun, is set.

Picture of Midsummer Night's Dream, Oberon, Titania and Puck with Fairies Dancing, by William Blake from Tate Britain
Picture of John Keats from Poetry Foundation
Picture of the Greek Santorini island from Graphics Library

Filed under Places, Cultures & Identities

This "beyond the book article" relates to Outline. It originally ran in February 2015 and has been updated for the January 2016 paperback edition. Go to magazine.

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