HOLTON, D., — Erotokritos.

Bristol Classical Press, Bristol / Caratzas, New Rochelle, 1991. VIII,88p. Paperback. (Rare). ‘The subject of this book, the 10,000-line romance ‘Erotokritos’ written in the Cretan dialect at the turn of the seventeenth century, is in several senses a central one in the study of Modern Greek literature, and a welcome addition to a series of studies aimed at students from A-level to undergraduate courses at British universities. As the author ably demonstrates, ‘Erotokritos’ represents a cultural meeting point between east and west (…), and between the medieval and Hellenistic romance, on which it drew on the one hand, and the later development of a national literature in Greek, to which it proved a decisive and formative influence on the other. Holton makes full use of recent advances in scholarship surrounding this text, notably the now standard critical edition by Stylianos Alexiou, first published in 1980, the proposals about date and scholarship developed by Panayotakis and Mavromatis during the last decade, and his own recent work on the structure and literary style of the poem. (…) The bulk of the book is taken up with a clear exposition of the generic, stylistic and linguistic nature of the text under discussion. Close reading is amply illustrated by quotation, and at every stage emphasis is given to the fictional nature of the narrative, and the technical means exploited by the poet to give depth and complexity to an overtly simple story. Successive chapters deal with the relation of story and plot, versification and language (…), the delineation of character and the place of the major characters in the fictitious world created by the poem, and the underlying themes of the work. A final chapter deals with matters of style, and under the heading ‘Recommended reading’ a concise annotated bibliography brings the book to a close. (…) The only major drawback of the book is the decision (…) to quote extracts and single words in Greek only.’ (RODERICK BEATON in The Slavonic and East European Review, 1992, pp.330-331).