In particular, the works represent a long period of Modern Greek literature that begins with the Modern Greek Enlightenment (end of 18th century – dawn of 19th century) and ends with present day.  The collection comprises the most important Greek authors and their major works, to show the historical development of Greek language and to present topics and concepts that characterize different trends and currents prevailing in Greek literature in the last two centuries.

At the same time, it comprises works of Greek literature written in the form of essays that present different views and concerns of intellectuals as regards the form of language that should be adopted in writing. The different points of view as regards the question of language that is the supporters of spoken language, demotic on one side, and the adherents of katharevousa (purist Greek), on the other side, as well as those that supported the adoption of a mixed language. Also, the thesaurus comprises representative educational works(literary criticism, essays, letters) from different periods that illustrate the intellectual climate of the times and the evolution of Greek written language.

Chapters Structure

In every chapter, there is a short introduction providing information for the period under examination and literature or other currents that influenced the writers; the reasons why the particular works have been selected are also explained. Every text in each chapter is further followed by a short comment regarding its form and its content, how it influenced its time, as well as the language in which it is written.

Selection Criteria

Writers were selected using chronological and literary criteria; that is when each writer was born and lived, how his/her times influenced him/her, in which current he/she is classified etc.  Therefore, we tried to select representativeworks for each trend, current or school, as well as representative works from women’s literature, which has made a dynamic appearance in recent years.  Anyway, the classification of works based on their chronology and genre was not entirely based on strict criteria, given that the life of many writers covers in terms of time several literary periods or schools; thus, some writers were classified under the periods that correspond best to their contribution to literature. Along with the works we also present the time the works were published and the collection they are taken from, if applicable.

Data Documentation

This collection of literary works (data) is accompanied by comprehensive documentation (metadata) comprising useful information for the reader to form a complete image about the writer, his/her work and his/her times. So, every text and writer is documented by photographic material, a biography, a list of his/her works, bibliography, literary criticism and reference to the currents and schools each text belongs to. The dates appearing at the side of the works are the dates of the 1st edition.