Guarding the Wild: Place, Tradition, Literature, and the Environment in the Work of a Cretan Folk Poet

Abstract

Abstract This article engages in a close reading of the mandinadha (rhyming couplets) of a Cretan folk poet. I argue that the poet’s texts negotiate the conventions of the mandinadha genre in order to promote an ethic of "the wild" and reinterpret Cretan masculine rebellious identity in the service of an environmentally minded place awareness. This reinterpretation involves a particular reading of Cretan tradition, Cretan folk literature, and the writings of Cretan-born novelist Nikos Kazantzakis.