Reciting the Nation: Nikolaos Loukanes and the Poetics of a Renaissance Epos

Abstract

My dissertation focuses on Nikolaos Loukanes’ s 1526 Iliad, the first printed rendition of Homer’s masterpiece in a modern language, and fully explores the untapped hermeneutic potentials of this intriguing yet only partially probed work. Born at the dawn of the eventful sixteenth century, Nikolaos Loukanes, like so many of his erudite compatriots residing in flourishing cities in the West (Ianos Laskares and Markos Moussouros), appears to have ardently devoted himself to humanist intellectual endeavors aimed at instigating a revival of classical literature, without at the same time being irresponsive to an unremitting longing to keep alive in the hearts of his fellow Greeks the empowering legacy of their illustrious ancestors. Written in an era of profound ideological ferment that gradually culminated in a precocious conceptualization of national identity in Europe, Loukanes’ s patriotically imbued Iliad, long-predating the nineteenth century Hellenic Library of Adamantios Koraes, offers a unique glimpse into fascinating pre-Enlightenment conceptualizations of post-Byzantine Greek identity.