| Abstract |
This work constitutes the critical edition of the drama “Ποιμήν Πιστός” (Poimen Pistos), which was printed in 1658 in Venice. It unfolds in two parts: the first one is related to the presentation of the critically transcribed and restored poetic text, the second one to the study of important philological issues of the text, as well as issues relating to its author and the intellectual environment from which it came from. In 1658 was printed in Venice the pastoral tragicomedy “Ποιμήν Πιστός”, which was a translation of the famous Italian play “Pastor fido” by G. Guarini. The translator Michael Soummakes, probably destining his work for his birthplace, the island of Zakenthos, personally supervised the printing process and undertook its economic burden with the help of his compatriot Nikolaos Kommoutos.The Italian pastoral “Pastor fido” was a pioneering drama, structurally innovative and classicist, bold and prudish. Even before its completion and publication, it was criticized for its tragicomic nature (violation of the integrity of each act), for its rhetoric (undramatic, inappropriate eloquence of low persons) and its immorality. The “Ποιμήν Πιστός” was not the only Greek translation of Guarini’s pastoral tragicomedy. Another one was preceded, known as “Πιστικός Βοσκός”, probably by a Cretan poet and in Cretan language. According to documentation, “Πιστικός Βοσκός” was used together with the Italian play by the translator. Previous research, which has underlined the impact of the previous translation to “Ποιμήν Πιστός”, considered the first one to be more exact and poetically more important than the second one. However, more assiduous comparisons between the two plays do not confirm such an estimation. In fact, they prove that, first of all, Soummakes’ translation was the most exact and, secondly, that its value lies in the accurate reproduction of the prototypes’ poetics. The second Greek adaptation of “Pastor Fido” depended phrasally on “Πιστικός Βοσκός”, but differentiated from it on an aesthetic level. The Cretan translator, bringing many alterations to the Italian drama, treated it with hesitations similar to those of the Italian criticism, while Soummakes accepted almost totally the poetics of the foreign play. The poetic formation of “Ποιμήν Πιστός” meets not only with the prototype, but also with the norm that had shaped the Cretan heyday, as well as with the poetic tradition of the author’s time. The structure of the prologue and the versification of the poetic text constitute the contact points with the Cretan theater. Its language, even though it shows dependence upon texts of Cretan literature, differentiates from them coming closer to other contemporary writers (Montzeleze, Mpounialis).
|
Collections
