Πρωτόγονη ευαισθησία και νεωτερική διάνοια στο Βίος και πολιτεία του Αλέξη Ζορμπά του Νίκου Καζαντζάκη

Abstract

Please note: This article is in Greek. Primitive sensibility and modernist mentality in N. Kazantzakis’ Zorba the Greek: This paper explores the recreation of mythic or primitive sensitivity and the dissociation of rational thought and subjective feeling in the dialogical novel of Nikos Kazantzakis, Alexis Zorbas. It contends that the novel dramatizes the contrast between mythic sensibility and mental civilized self-reflection, revealing not only aspects of the modernist understanding of subjectivity but also the kind of imaginative creation which the narrative enacts reflecting the poetics of the twentieth-century primitivism. Mythic sensibility manifests itself as a form of otherness which motivates the subject’s nostalgic and tedious journey of return to archaic origins relating to the collective unconscious of the race. Drawing upon Michael Bell’s study on Primitivism and the inferences of anthropological studies in the beginning of the 20th century, it explores animism, natural or cosmic piety and rituals as the most pervasive manifestations of primitive sensibility which are opposed to the civilized mentality of the novel. Alexis Zorbas’ life and ideas substantiate the primitive urge of the novel which challenges the modern skepticism of the character-author, thus evoking the ancient response to life which occupies the kernel of the novel. Accordingly it concludes that Kazantzakis’ novel is constructed as great allegory about the destiny of the civilized man of the twentieth century. Reflecting on and longing for the unsearchable and grandiose moments in the history of human civilization, the author is in quest of a spiritual and philosophical recreation of the human consciousness whereby soul and body, spirit and matter would reconcile recovering their lost unity.