Commentary

The Issue of Blindness Between Oedipus and Teiresias: A Dramatic Dialogue

Stratos E. Constantinidis

OEDIPUS: . . . This power, however, is not within you, because your ears, and mind, and eyes are blind.

TEIRESIAS: Shame on you for accusing me of these failings, of which you will soon be accused by everybody.

--Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannus

What follows is my response to Roderick Beaton's commentary, "W(h)ither the Neohellenic?" (1998). It is intended to show that Beaton's negative comments about me and my paper (Constantinidis 1997) are unwarranted. Beaton classified my paper with some other papers which, in his opinion, are plagued by "revealing blindness." It is proper that I should allow the other authors to protest their case as they deem fit, and that I should speak only for myself. In my case, Beaton misread and misrepresented my essay. In accusing me, he put himself in a role similar to that of Oedipus Tyrannus, who accuses Teiresias of blindness in Sophocles's tragedy.

BEATON: Every one of the contributors to the new debate, whose overall tone is markedly less intransigent this time, attributes the perceived "crisis" to external, unforeseeable factors. But why is there not the slightest recognition--not even a reflexive flicker of self-doubt--that the instigators of the last "paradigm shift" might themselves share part of the blame for the state of affairs they all now bewail?

CONSTANTINIDIS: Beaton's statements are false in my case for the following reasons: (1) I am not one of "the instigators of the last paradigm shift" which, according to Beaton, took place eight years ago in the study of modern Greek literature. I am an avid reader of Greek literature, and a specialist in Greek drama and film. Modern Greek drama and film have not been studied sufficiently yet to cause a paradigm shift (Constantinidis 1996:4). (2) Nowhere in my paper do I mention the word "crisis," or endorse "crisis" as a concept or metaphor, or assign it to "unforeseeable" factors. (3) I am not "bewailing" any state of affairs. I simply gathered some numbers which indicate that the dissemination of modern Greek drama in the English-speaking world in the form of published translations and published research was very limited from 1824 to 1996. Beaton is unfair in asking me to share part of the blame for the state of affairs in the study of modern Greek literature (dramatic or not) at any point during this period. (4) In my paper, I depart from the premise submitted to participants by Gregory Jusdanis, Vassilis Lambropoulos, and Artemis Leontis, [End Page 185] the conveners of the conference-workshop--namely, that interest in Greek culture has been waning since the mid-1970s. As I announced at the conference-workshop and later wrote in my paper, the data that I gathered falsified my two hypotheses and the premise of the conveners as far as the study of modern Greek drama is concerned. Anyone can see in my graphs and conclusion (Constantinidis 1997:181) that the study of modern Greek drama has improved (however modestly) during the second half of the twentieth century in terms of published research and translations.

BEATON: Another form of blindness is an understandable consequence of the North American (not to say "Ohioan") focus of the debate. But some contributors (notably Stratos Constantinidis ) explicitly, and others implicitly, refer more widely to the English-speaking world--as rightly they should, given that the MGSA has an international membership.

CONSTANTINIDIS: Beaton's statements about my paper are false for the following reasons: (1) The focus of my debate is neither "North American" nor "Ohioan." My focus is the appeal of modern Greek drama and its future in the English-speaking world. I caution my readers that, owing to the fact that not all aspects of Greek culture are controlled by the same kind or number of factors, I limited my focus to

one aspect of Greek culture, Greek drama; to one period, the modern period; and to one international language, English. For this reason, my contribution to this investigation will be restricted in the sense that my observations and conclusions about modern Greek drama may not be applicable to classical Greek drama, to other aspects of Greek culture, and/or to countries that are not part of the English-speaking world. (Constantinidis 1997:176)

(2) I did not "widen" the focus of my paper because, as Beaton claims, the Modern Greek Studies Association has "an international membership." In fact, I limited my focus by presenting data that I gathered only from programs in English-speaking countries. I excluded from this paper any information that I received from programs in non-English-speaking countries for strictly methodological reasons. I briefly mentioned the case of Romania and Chile to suggest to my readers that the big picture may change when data from programs in non-English speaking countries enter the picture. Since the publication of my paper, I have found additional studies on Greek drama and theater that were published in English. However, these additional studies do not change the big picture enough to warrant a new study at this point.

BEATON: I do not recall receiving Professor Constantinidis's questionnaire, and if I did, I fear it must have gone the way of many such things when they land on the desks of busy people.

CONSTANTINIDIS: Where did the questionnaire that I mailed to Beaton go when it landed on his desk? As I explained in my paper, I mailed copies of my questionnaire to a total of 77 programs of Modern Greek in universities in the U.S.A., Europe (outside Greece), Australia, Canada, the Balkans, and South America. I did not have a "personal" list of preferred programs. I obtained the addresses of these programs from the Ministry of Education, the Ministry for Greeks Abroad, the Bulletin of the Modern Greek Studies Association, The [End Page 186] Students' Guide to Graduate Studies in the UK 1994, and other such sources. Forty-six programs (i.e., 59.74% of the total programs on my mailing list) responded to my questionnaire. Does this mean that those faculty members who responded to my questionnaire (from as far south as the University of Sidney in Australia and as far north as Harvard University in the U.S.A.) were less "busy" than Beaton at King's College London? I was grateful to those who responded and, as I explained in my paper, I assumed that those who did not respond (i.e., 40.26% of the total) were not motivated to reply because they did not offer any courses on modern Greek drama. Statistically speaking, a turnout of 59% constitutes an adequate sample of evidence to make my conclusions credible.

BEATON: But I can assure him (and readers of JMGS) that the situation in the UK is very different from the general picture he describes. BA (major) programs in Modern Greek Studies exist at four UK universities (Birmingham, Cambridge, King's College London, and Oxford). When graduate students (at both masters and doctoral levels) of these universities are added in, the total student population comes to something over 100. Together, these universities award several doctorates in Modern Greek Studies (mainly literature and history) each year. In addition to the faculty of these institutions, there are several historians, anthropologists, social scientists, and linguists working in discipline-based departments in other universities, all of whom are active in publishing in the field and most of whom supervise doctoral students.

CONSTANTINIDIS: Beaton's assurance is of no use to the purview of my paper for the following reasons: (1) Beaton's comment does not inform me whether or not King's College London has offered any courses on modern Greek drama, and how many of the unpublished dissertations at King's deal in their entirety or in part (one or two chapters) with modern Greek drama or theater. My graphs show that the number of published studies on modern Greek drama have been rising since 1955. How, then, is the situation in the UK "very different from the general picture" that I described in my paper? (2) I did not calculate undergraduate and graduate student enrollment and faculty/student ratio in my paper because nearly half of the respondents did not answer these two questions. Some of the answers of those who did were incomplete for a number of years and, usually, were based on the respondent's overall impression rather than on a thorough investigation of the program's enrollment records. No more than a dozen of the programs that responded to my questionnaire had the faculty and the curriculum to offer a B.A. degree or its equivalent in Modern Greek. (3) I was interested in the strength of programs of Modern Greek as autonomous units. Therefore, in my purview of programs and departments of Modern Greek I did not include any affiliate graduate faculty when I wrote that "a handful of programs have the required numbers of graduate faculty to offer a Ph. D. degree in Modern Greek" (Constantinidis 1997:180). For example, I wrote that the program of Modern Greek at The Ohio State University has had a Ph. D. granting capability "since 1996" (to be recognized officially in 1998). I would have written "since 1991" if I had wanted to include the affiliated graduate faculty members in other departments or colleges, and the one-of-a-kind Ph. D. program possible at The Ohio State University. (4) I mentioned all of these programs and departments of Modern Greek in the context of modern Greek [End Page 187] drama that was dictated by the focus of my paper. This explains why I also wrote that "learning modern Greek as a second language is not enough. Language training must be followed by training in the comparative approach to dramatic literature. The immediate future [for the comparative approach to dramatic literature in programs and departments of Modern Greek] is not promising because almost all of the programs responding to my questionnaire had no immediate plans to hire a regular, full-time graduate faculty member who is a specialist in modern Greek drama. Beaton's commentary does not inform me whether or not to hire a specialist in modern Greek drama in the near future.

BEATON: So, even if some of the underlying anxieties identified in the debate are recognizable in Great Britain as well, the particular crisis of confidence to which they have given rise in these pages is not.

CONSTANTINIDIS: My "particular crisis of confidence" is in wide-ranging commentaries, not in the appeal of modern Greek drama that has risen since 1955. This reminds me of another sweeping comment that Beaton made about modern Greek drama in his Introduction to Modern Greek Literature (1994:4-6). I recognize his prerogative to exclude modern Greek drama and theater from his literary history as a "separate subject," but I take exception to this when the exclusion is justified on grounds such as Greek theater's failure of to live up to its promising start in the 1830s. I do not share his concept of decline in my description of modern Greek drama and theater in Greece or abroad.

BEATON: This leads to the most serious blind spot of all, which is the increasing isolation of some North American scholars (especially historians and literary historians) within the international field of Modern Greek Studies.

CONSTANTINIDIS: I am not a literary historian (or just a historian). I do not know if the alleged "isolation" of the North American scholars to whom he alludes is a blind spot on their part because Beaton does not define what criteria he employed to determine their "isolation." In my case, however, he left me in the dark when, for whatever reason, he did not respond to my questionnaire. These things can happen, and I do not blame him or anyone else who did not answer. Nor do I shun responsibility for various typos. It has been my experience that some typos are not caught by the author until after the publication of his or her book or article. This is owing to oversight rather than blindness.

The Ohio State University

References Cited

Beaton, Roderick
1994 An Introduction to Modern Greek Literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
1998 "W(h)ither the Neohellenic?" Journal of Modern Greek Studies 16:171-176.

Constantinidis, Stratos E.
1996 "Modern Greek Drama and Multiculturalism. Is It Drama? Is It Modern? Is It Greek? A Prolonged Prologue." Journal of Modern Greek Studies 14:1-30.
1997 "The Appeal of Modern Greek Drama and Its Future in the English Speaking World." Journal of Modern Greek Studies 15:175-186.