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| Nikos Kazantzakis |
By Dr. Constantine Cavarnos
Next we spoke briefly about Goethe, Kazantzakis and Venezis. I was interested in knowing his opinion regarding them. Goethe's name was mentioned as we were talking about Kazantzakis. It became clear that Kontoglou did not share the enthusiasm of many contemporary Greek intellectuals for the famous German writer. The philosopher-theologian Nikolaos Louvaris, for example, refers to Goethe repeatedly, and in fact more often than to any other writer, always approvingly, in his two-volume work Symposion Hosion (Symposium of Holy Men). Kontoglou, on the other hand, refers to him only once in his books, in the Preface of his first book, Pedro Cazas. For Kazantzakis, as I noted in an earlier chapter, he had no use. Photios remarked that both Goethe and Kazantzakis are writers with pompous expression, ostentatious, ever endeavoring to impress others with their assumed wisdom. The excessive admiration of Goethe was, according to Photios, another example of xenomania of contemporary Greeks.
