With growing impatience I have been translating into English
an article by a well-known Greek literary critic whom I shall not name for fear
of being drummed out of such Greek literary circles as I’ve managed to get into.
(Oops! ‘Into which I have managed to get.’) It seems to me that most Greek lit.
crit. is full of bullshit. I wrote to the person I think is the best English
translator of Greek literature and was relieved to find he agrees.
So I tried to work out what it is I so much object to; ‘Full
of bullshit’ will hardly do as a considered literary opinion. (Well, I don’t
know though…) I think it’s that personally I try in everything I write to use
the simple short everyday word rather than the complicated long learned one,
whereas far too many Greek writers, at least of criticism, seem to operate on
the opposite principle. This results in a teetering pile of dictionaries
cluttering my desk, and the feeling — justified, I do believe — ‘This guy is
just a smart-arse trying, and failing, to impress me with his cleverness.’
Anyway, here’s a picture of a Greek writer who is by no
means a smart-arse:
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