Americans and the Experience of Delphi

The scholarly studies in the present volume explore the symbiotic relationship between Delphi and these American philhellenes, who incorporated Delphic and ancient Greek ideals into their work, and thus changed the course of American literature. At the same time, a little piece of America has been fused into both the ancient site and the modern village of Delphi. At the beginning of the twentieth century, philhellenic American writers and artists were inspired and influenced by their love of Greece and especially Delphi, known in ancient times as the navel of the universe. Several of these writers and artists visited or moved to Greece, including Eva Palmer Sikelianos, who was celebrated for her role in the Delphic Festivals of 1927 and 1930; George Cram Cook, one of the founders of the famed Provincetown Players; writer Susan Glaspell; and poet H.D. (Hilda Doolittle); and writer Henry Miller.

Paul H. Lorenz is a professor of English and chair of the Department of English, Theatre and Mass Communication at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. David Roessel is the Peter and Stella Yiannos Professor of Greek Language and Literature at The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey and the author of In Byron's Shadow: Modern Greece in the English and American Imagination.