| The Cretan tragedy Zeno is based on the Latin drama of the same name by the English Jesuit Joseph Simons, published in Rome in 1648. It was composed in Crete, in the period between the publication of the Latin text and the fall of Chandax. The plots of the two works are compared in detail, to examine the way in which the unknown Cretan poet used his Latin original. The author comes to the conclusion that Zeno follows Simons’ drama as regards both the whole theatrical economy and the sequence of events; it is adapted, however, to the intellectual demands and receptive powers of its new audience. The language contains distinctive elements of both the eastern and the western Cretan dialect. The poem is written in fifteen-syllable rhyming verse. |