Peter Bien

The Eustace and Hilda trilogy (1947) and The Go-Between (1953) are acknowledged to be among the most important and best-liked works by the twentieth-century British novelist L. P. Hartley (1895-1972). Peter Bien, making use of extensive correspondence with the author, who sent him unpublished materials and also met with him personally, discusses these novels at length, adds a chapter on The Boat (1949), and examines Hartley's other novels, his book reviews, essays, and lectures. Employing biographical, historical, symbolistic, and Freudian critical approaches, he is primarily concerned with Hartley's reconciliation of the conflict between aesthetic and moral values. This study, originally published in London in 1963 by Chatto & Windus, was the first full-length treatment of Leslie Poles Hartley's work to appear; it was also Peter Bien's first published book of literary criticism, preceded by translations of two novels by Nikos Kazantzakis and followed by critical studies of writings by Kazantzakis and other modern Greek authors.

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Peter Bien focuses on Kazantzakis' obsession with the demotic, the language "on the lips of the people," showing how it governed his writing, his ambition, and his involvement in Greek politics and educational reform. Kazantzakis' obsession worked against him in his Odyssey and found its natural vehicle only in his translation of Homer's Iliad and his novels, Zorba the Greek, The Last Temptation of Christ, and The Greek Passion. Originally published in 1972. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Peter Bien focuses on Kazantzakis' obsession with the demotic, the language "on the lips of the people," showing how it governed his writing, his ambition, and his involvement in Greek politics and educational reform. Kazantzakis' obsession worked against him in his Odyssey and found its natural vehicle only in his translation of Homer's Iliad and his novels, Zorba the Greek, The Last Temptation of Christ, and The Greek Passion. Originally published in 1972. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

"No author who lives in Greece," writes Peter Bien, "can avoid politics." This first volume of his major intellectual biography of Nikos Kazantzakis approaches the distinguished--and controversial--writer by describing his struggle with political questions that were in reality aspects of a fervent religious search. Beginning with Kazantzakis's early career in fin-de-siecle Paris and his discovery of William James, Nietzsche, and Bergson, the book continues by describing his experiments with communism in turbulent Greece, his visits to Soviet Russia, and the publication of his epic Odyssey in 1938. Bien demonstrates that politics and religion cannot be separated in Kazantzakis's development. His major concern was personal salvation, but the method he employed to win that salvation was political engagement. Did deliverance lie in nationalism? Communism? Fascism? He eventually rejected each of these possible solutions as morally appalling. Abused by both left and right, he insisted on an "eschatological politics" of spiritual fulfillment. This compelling biography will be essential reading for Kazantzakis scholars and for a wide audience of those who already admire the Greek author's work. In addition, it will provide an introduction to the first three decades of Kazantzakis's career for those who have yet to enjoy such passionate and stirring novels as Zorba the Greek, The Greek Passion, and The Last Temptation of Christ. This first volume provides an introduction to the initial three decades of Kazantzakis's career for those who have enjoyed such vibrant and stirring novels as Zorba the Greek, The Greek Passion, and The Last Temptation of Christ.

Putting Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis's vast output into the context of his lifelong spiritual quest and the turbulent politics of twentieth-century Greece, Peter Bien argues that Kazantzakis was a deeply flawed genius--not always artistically successful, but a remarkable figure by any standard. This is the second and final volume of Bien's definitive and monumental biography of Kazantzakis (1883-1957). It covers his life after 1938, the period in which he wrote Zorba the Greek and The Last Temptation of Christ, the novels that brought him his greatest fame. A demonically productive novelist, poet, playwright, travel writer, autobiographer, and translator, Kazantzakis was one of the most important Greek writers of the twentieth century and the only one to achieve international recognition as a novelist. But Kazantzakis's writings were just one aspect of an obsessive struggle with religious, political, and intellectual problems. In the 1940s and 1950s, a period that included the Greek civil war and its aftermath, Kazantzakis continued this engagement with undiminished energy, despite every obstacle, producing in his final years novels that have become world classics.

This companion workbook contains additional exercises as well as a crossword puzzle, ideas for student compositions and dialogues, an English-language explanation of an aspect of Greek culture, a grammar review, and an exam, all aimed at inspiring students to explore the Greek world in lively and often humorous ways.

Greek Today presents an up-to-date communicative approach for students of Modern Greek. Aimed at the introductory to intermediate levels, it is a completely revised and expanded edition of the popular Demotic Greek I. Presenting material that relates to a wide range of cultural interests, the textbook offers twelve lessons with a total of sixty grammar points, all conveyed through dialogues that present the realities experienced by young people and adults in contemporary Greece. Lessons are supplemented by songs, poems, realia, images, and cultural texts. A large number of cartoons by Greece's eminent artist Kostas Mitropoulos provide a running commentary on modern Greek culture and its relation to Europe and the ancient Greek past. Employing a vocabulary of more than 2,000 words and introducing students to the most current Greek idioms, Greek Today also includes etymological notes on the evolution of the Greek language and the Greek roots of many English words.

Integrated sequel to DEMOTIC GREEK I for second-year students uses scenarios and readings based on authentic Greek texts drawn from folktales, ballads, and writers such as Herodotus, Kazantzakis, Koraes, Myrivilis, and Seferis.