The Journal of the Society for Modern Greek Studies

Τhe intention to change the dominant is often declared—since classical Greek and Latin literature—by writers through the use of recusatio. In more recent writers, the recusatio is included not only in the self-referential portions of their literary works but also in their theoretical texts. One of the main modern Greek novelists who used the recusatio technique is G. Theotokas. In this article it is argued that Theotokas in his novel Argo proceeds to thematize his theoretical recusatio previously developed in his essay Free Spirit. Thus, he creates a typical—according to his theoretical views -- character of ethographia, Dimitros Mathiopoulos; he then proceeds to ridicule the said character by bringing him into direct confrontation with new types of literary characters. Mathiopoulos’s rejection by all his fellow students indicates Theotokas’s rejection of the ethographia convention, while the simultaneous highlighting of his individual virtues by the character Damianos Frantzis can be seen as an allusion to the author’s own admission in the Free Spirit that contemporary novelists should not be driven by a blind dissatisfaction to a total rejection of their literary predecessos.