“Popular Songs of the Modern Greeks”

An enthusiastic review compares Fauriel’s achievement in familiarizing readers with the improvisational poetry of the modern Greeks to Walter Scott’s in popularizing the poetry of the Scottish borders.

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Language:
English
Publication Title:
The New Monthly Magazine
Article Title:
Popular Songs of the Modern Greeks
Page Numbers:
11:140-41
Additional Info:
A review of Chants populaires de la Grèce Moderne, recueillis et publiés par C. Fauriel, vol. 1: Chants Historiques, Paris, June 1824
Publisher:
Colburn
Place of Publication:
London
Date Published:
1824

Text:

[140] The lively imaginations of the Greeks turn every thing into poetry. Their voluptuous climate inspires them with an intense love of Nature, and their happy and indolent life disposes them to enjoy every change on her face: — to burst out into song on the return of spring, and the blossoming of flowers. Their faculty of improvisation, (which they possess even in a more remarkable degree than the Italians,) joined to the natural music of their delicious language, make even their common talk a kind of poetry: and when their feelings are heightened or deepened by joy or sorrow, their “thoughts voluntary move harmonious numbers.” There is a peculiar intensity in their attachment to home and to kindred, in their loves and hatreds, and in all their domestic [141] affections. Love, — marriage, — exile, — death, are all celebrated or lamented in verse. The loss of a brother or a child produces a delirium of grief; and sorrow is exalted into poetry. The myriologues (or laments) which are uttered on these occasions have all the characters of inspiration: sometimes tenderness prevails over enthusiasm, and the death of an infant is compared to the withering of a bud, or to a tender flower, ‘no sooner blown than blasted:’ but in general these compositions are of a more ambitious description, and are profusely figured with bold personifications, and gorgeously coloured with poetical images.

We have ascribed to the Greeks in general the faculty of improvisation; but there are certain vocations among which the faculty seems peculiarly to reside. The sailors and the tanners of Jannina, for example, are distinguished as the composers of hundreds of these songs; the shepherds are the poets of the beauties and the loves of the valleys, and the soldiers of the warrior-feats among the hills. The picturesque and precarious life — the love of wine and independence — and the inspiration of the air of Olympus and of Pindus, — which, though no longer the seat of gods and muses, keep still a portion of their old renown, make poets and musicians of these wild mountaineers, who seek to give a gaiety to feasts as rude and primitive as those recorded in Homer, by songs which they accompany, like his heroes, with the music of a lyre. These airs and songs are caught by the beggars and wandering minstrels, who follow the village feasts throughout Greece; and the loves and combats of her hills and valleys are thus spread speedily over the whole face of the country.

The Greeks seem to have as singular a talent for the improvisation of music as of poetry. The air of each new song must also be new, and is sung or forgotten with the words that gave it birth. The poet is always obliged to furnish with his song an air of his own composition: a title to fame, of which MOORE is in our country perhaps the only possessor.

Notes:

In the continuation, Greek poetry is compared to Spanish and Scottish ballads, and the reviewer provides some sample translations of his own into English. Full article on pp. 139-148.

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AE