Symposium

Embodied in SYMPOSIUM is the rough core of Nikos Kazantzakis’ philosophy. Written early in his career, and forgotten or lost, it gives us an invaluable record of his early adult life, while his philosophy was taking shape. These early concepts appear and reappear continuously throughout his later works. We can trace them in the philosophy of “Zorba,” in the profound and powerful "Saint Francis," in the brilliant semiautobiographical "Report to Greco" (of which SYMPOSIUM is the nucleus), to name but a few of the later masterpieces. SYMPOSIUM, like his other modern sequel, and epic "Odyssey," is a provocative work, structured somewhat along the lines of its classic prototype, but without any of the slavish imitation he so despised. The challenge to compare the parallels and contrasts with the Platonic prototype will interest both student and general reader alike. Also, those interested in comparing Kazantzakis’ early philosophy with his later views will find a wealth of information in this work, and surprisingly little change in his basic views. SYMPOSIUM’S unique charm lies in the way it is expressed—in the form of a confession-an eloquent outpouring of the soul, devoid of contrived oratory—devastatingly more effective in many ways than a more formally expressed philosophy. It is the struggle of a man’s soul (his own) to find God—that is, to be liberated. Through it we become privy to the Kazantzakis struggle in search of meaning, both for his own life and that of his country, in the context of the political and intellectual climate of his time. In the process, we see him rejecting equally the "ready-made" philosophies of Western Europe and the strict imitation of past achievements, reaching back into primal creation, gathering strength from the collective, transubstantiated spirit of his Tribe, from its very inception, through all its subsequent evolutionary stages and, with Pythian-like authority, powerful and poetic, awkward and zealous, describing the tortuous journey of his soul in search of liberation. Much has been written about Nikos Kazantzakis, and a great deal more is yet to be written. Hardly a seminar is held on modern Greek literature that does not include a new paper on Kazantzakis. The discovery of SYMPOSIUM is a most fortunate addition to modern literature. The manuscript of this one of the earliest (1922) works of the author of Zorba the Greek and The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel, who lost the Nobel Prize to Albert Camus in 1957, was only recently rediscovered and published in Greece with the help of the author's wife. The editors offer various reasons why Kazantzakis may have "forgotten" it, but neglect the most obvious -- that Symposium was never completed to the author's satisfaction, that it is inferior to his later work, that he probably never intended its publication. Modeled somewhat along the lines of the Platonic forebear (Kazantzakis translated Plato), the modern symposium ("drinking party") brings together Arpagos, seeker after God and liberation, and three of his comrades -- the political revolutionary man of action, the poet, and the athlete -- and contrasts their "philosophies." The tension between the contemplative life and action is a major theme of both this and later books . Arpagos' story of his spiritual exploration takes the form of a highly rhetorical confession about his wanderings among the monasteries of Mt. Athos