Konstantinos Kaisarios Dapontes - Selected Works

Writers and scholars from the early nineteenth century to the present day never ceased to be intrigued by the life and work of Konstantinos Dapontes (1713-1784), a curious and captivating individual who left a lasting mark on the cultural landscape of the Greek-speaking world in the eighteenth century. One of the most prolific writers of his time, with over nineteen volumes to his name (and a number of neglected manuscripts in libraries and monasteries in Greece and elsewhere), Dapontes was also one of the few individuals who recorded his adventurous life in a systematic and surprisingly detailed fashion, and in doing so he bequeathed to his readers an abundance of autobiographical and confessional writings--a rather rare genre for this period of Greek culture.This book offers the English-speaking audience Dapontes's idiosyncratic poem "Canon of Hymns Comprising Many Exceptional Things," and selected passages from one of his most important works, Garden of Graces. The English translation is accompanied by notes and a detailed introduction to Dapontes's life and work, which provides the first systematic presentation of that significant Greek author to the broader English, scholarly as well as general, readership.