klepht

(redirected from klephtic)

klepht

(klɛft)
n
(Historical Terms) any of the Greeks who fled to the mountains after the 15th-century Turkish conquest of Greece and whose descendants survived as brigands into the 19th century
[C19: from Modern Greek klephtēs, from Greek kleptēs thief]
ˈklephtic adj
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Similarly, in the original text of 1830 Quinet asserts that Attic literature failed to represent the wild nature of the Morea, the portrayal of which could be found only 'dans le genie sauvage des mythologies primitives, et, a un autre temps, dans les chants modernes, populaires, qui leur ressemblent au moins par la rudesse'.(32) The last phrase is a clear reference to the type of poem contained in Fauriel's Chants populaires de la Grece moderne, more particularly the klephtic songs, one of which Quinet himself transcribed and included in an earlier chapter.
Klephtic ballad Any of the songs and poems extolling the adventures of the Klephts, Greek nationalists living as outlaws in the mountains during the period of Turkish domination over Greece from 1453 to 1828.