A Country for the Savant: Paganism, Popular Fiction and the Invention of Greece, 1914-1966

Authors

  • Nick Freeman Loughborough University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/pome.v10i1.21

Keywords:

Pagan, Greece, Classics

Abstract

This essay explores the ways in which certain British writers reimagined Greece in the period 1914-66. It is especially concerned with the ways in which Greece represents a ‘pagan’ space in which characters encounter modes of living and belief far removed from those they are used to. With particular reference to John Buchan, Sarban, and Robert Aickman, the essay argues that the disparity between ‘real’ and ‘imagined’ Greece led writers into the deliberate fictionalisation of Mediterranean islands in search of a ‘paganism’ that may or may not actually exist.

Author Biography

  • Nick Freeman, Loughborough University
    Senior Lecturer in English. Author of *Conceiving the City: London, Literature, and Art, 1870-1914* (Oxford University Press, 2007) and many articles on late-Victorian literature and culture.

References

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Published

2008-10-03

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Freeman, N. (2008). A Country for the Savant: Paganism, Popular Fiction and the Invention of Greece, 1914-1966. Pomegranate, 10(1), 21-40. https://doi.org/10.1558/pome.v10i1.21