The Master Builder’s repairs

Abstract

NIKOS Kazantzakis’ The Master Builder (published 1910) is probably his most significant play not only in terms of the evolution of his dramaturgy but also as far as his further ideological formation is concerned. The present paper brings to light new archival material and attempts to examine the above tragedy as a product of an evolutionary process concerning the crucial transition from the youth works to the phase of maturity. In particular, research has spotted in Nikos Kazantzakis’ Museum a series of the author’s rich handwritten notes (removals, additions and interpretative comments) which refer to an incomplete draft of a “B' Version” of The Master Builder (1916). The essay proceeded to a comparison between the above findings and the manuscript of Sacrifice (1908) which is kept in the National Library and the text of The Master Builder which was published in 1910. It was found out that the shift of the centre of gravity from the sacrifice of the weak, the feminine and the material elements to the worship of the healthy, masculine and god bearing heroes functions parallel to the transition from the pain of a “drama” of Decline to the admiration of an authoritative neoclassical “tragedy”. The above transitions have confirmed the fact that the protofascist ideologist have since then intensely appealed to Kazantzakis.