A01=Peter Bien
Aegina
Aeschylus
Allegory
Ancient Greece
Antithesis
Asceticism
Author_Peter Bien
Autobiography
Buddhism
Career
Category=DNBL
Category=DSBH
Category=DSK
Christ Recrucified
Christianity
Civilization
Coalition government
Communism
Comrade
Criticism
Diary
Dichotomy
Dictatorship
Dionysus
Disgust
Enthusiasm
Ephemerality
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Existentialism
Fatalism
Greeks
Ideology
Literature
Modern Greek
Mount Athos
Nazism
Nikos Kazantzakis
Nonviolence
Novelist
Omnipotence
Optimism
Pacifism
Paganism
Parable
Patriotism
Persecution
Pessimism
Poetry
Political party
Politician
Politics
Populism
Pretext
Prose
Rapprochement
Renunciation
Result
Rhetoric
Romanticism
Sancho Panza
Sentimentality
Sodom and Gomorrah
Spirituality
The Other Hand
The Various
Thought
Totalitarianism
Treatise
UNESCO
Vitalism
War
Warfare
William Shakespeare
Writing
Zorba the Greek
Product details
- ISBN 9780691128801
- Weight: 510g
- Dimensions: 152 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 22 Jan 2007
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
"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.
Peter Bien is Professor Emeritus of English and Comparative Literature at Dartmouth College. "Kazantzakis: Politics of the Spirit, Volume 2" is published in hardcover by Princeton. Bien has translated Kazantzakis's novels "The Last Temptation of Christ, Saint Francis," and "Report to Greco" into English, and is the author of "Kazantzakis" and the "Linguistic Revolution in Greek Literature" (Princeton).
