Abstract:

This essay explores the ways in which certain British writers reimagined Greece in the period 1914-66. It is especially concerned with the ways in which Greece represents a ‘pagan’ space in which characters encounter modes of living and belief far removed from those they are used to. With particular reference to John Buchan, Sarban, and Robert Aickman, the essay argues that the disparity between ‘real’ and ‘imagined’ Greece led writers into the deliberate fictionalisation of Mediterranean islands in search of a ‘paganism’ that may or may not actually exist.

Author: Nick Freeman