Mythen, Metaphern und Metamorphosen : Weibliche Parodie in der zeitgenossischen griechischen Literatur

Abstract

Reviewed by: Mythen, Metaphern und Metamorphosen: Weibliche Parodie in der zeitgenössischen griechischen Literatur Gregory Jusdanis Michaela Prinzinger, Mythen, Metaphern und Metamorphosen: Weibliche Parodie in der zeitgenössischen griechischen Literatur. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler. 1997. Pp. 252. Who could possibly have expected a decade ago that the field of comparative literature would find itself in a crisis today? For this field has flourished first in Europe then in North America for about a century. Yet almost every theoretical study of this discipline today refers to a crisis, to a lack of relevance, declining enrollments, and absence of purpose. When it emerged in the latter part of the nineteenth century in continental Europe, comparative literature was intended as a hydrant to douse the raging fires of nationalism. By that time literature had been serving the interests of the nation-state for many decades. Alarmed with this appropriation of literature by the nation-state and with the unceasing spread of nationalist feelings, writers and philosophers began to foster an ecumenical outlook. Critics and readers, they argued, should be preoccupied with not just one but several literary traditions. They wished to promote the universalist values of a comparative discipline. [End Page 186] It is strange, therefore, that this very discipline should flounder at a time of rampant globalization. For while practitioners of comparative literature mourn their declining fortunes, students of cultural studies, diaspora, and multiculturalism sing the praises of transnationalism. How can this be? The answer is simple—language. When multiculturalists celebrate diversity they mean by this term cultural rather than linguistic heterogeneity. Who wants to study languages these days in the English-speaking world in such depth as to be able to read literary texts? How many critics can actually deal with literary texts in two or three languages? It is thus with pleasure and relief that one picks up a study like Michaela Prinzinger’s. For it exemplifies the best in comparative literature—the ability to move through several literary traditions. The aim of Prinzinger’s book is to look at Greek women’s writing from contemporary theoretical perspectives. After outlining her theoretical presuppositions, Prinzinger provides a useful summary of the state of women’s writing from the 1870s until today. This chapter is followed by an examination of feminist discourse in Greece and abroad since the 1970s. Prinzinger thus is able to locate her own analysis historically with regard to the span of Greek fiction by women and theoretically with regard to contemporary feminist discussions. Having established this background for her readers, Prinzinger then moves to the main body of her analysis, an exploration of three well-known women authors: Rea Galanaki, Alexandra Deligiorgi, and Margarita Karapanu. Specifically, she examines how these authors use the literary trope of parody in order to come to terms with as well as criticize Greek society and the Greek literary tradition. In so doing, she investigates how their relationship to this tradition differs from that shared by men authors. As Prinzinger explains, the women writers of the 70s and 80s appropriate such male myths as the murder of the father or king by the son—myths transformed by Harold Bloom into a theory of literary influence—in order to change them through “textual metaphors” (13). The pose they adopt vis-à-vis their literary forebears is, in other words, ironic. While in the previous section Prinzinger shows her broad knowledge of Greek literature and literary theory, in this part she displays her capacity for detailed analysis of the writings by Galanaki, Deligiorgi, and Karapanu. Her readings are fascinating and well documented. Particularly interesting for me was her analysis of Karapanu’s enigmatic, disturbing, and challenging novel Kassandra and the Wolf. Her reading of this difficult text is illuminating because she is able to connect it not only to a greater theme, in this case the costumes and disguises of the carnival, but at the same time to Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass and Henry James’s short-story “The Turn of the Screw.” Prinzinger is thus able to show that Karapanou’s text is a meaningful document because it shares links not only with Greek social issues but also with works of art...