«Hassis (1790) is the last station of an itinerary that followed multiple courses: “ethnographic” and satiric, the young Gouzelis follows the traces of Italian comic tradition with its stereotypical characters. Although he himself claims that Theodoros Katapodis really existed, he follows closely the literary specifications of a bravado (his boasting does not at all differ from the analogous of the Cretan comedy). In this transitory space in between commedia dell’ arte and a comedy of characters Gouzelis corresponds approximately to early Goldoni. Certainly, dramatic form has totally been disrupted. Here onwards, the heroes and techniques of Moliere shall dominate the comic theater, while Gouzelis shall take the way of patriotic poetry in katharevousa. Somehow, Hassis has the position and function of Janus in the history of Modern Greek comedy: he is a precursor of satiric ethnography and at the same time he turns backwards, to the last section of Greek comic tradition, that started with Κατζούρμπο some more than 200 years ago, in 1581, and is fed by the Italian comic tradition, the renaissance commedia erudita until the late commedia dell’ arte by Gozzi and early Goldoni (it should not be considered accidental that during that decade more than ten comedies of the Italian reformer of comedy are translated into Greek). His career in theater, with manuscripts, adaptations and publications, make him something of a “father of Greek comedy”, though this regards superficial perception and not deep influence.”