Klephtic ballad

Greek literature

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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 Ottoman rule over Greece, which reached from 1453 until 1832, when Greece formally became independent. Containing some of the most beautiful and vivid verse in Modern Greek, the songs, mainly from the 18th century, are an entirely spontaneous poetry, composed in popular language and in 15-syllable verse, rhymed and unrhymed. They are pervaded with the spirit of the forests and the mountains and, like much Greek popular poetry, personify trees, rocks, and rivers. Even the mountains praise the prowess of the Klephts, bewail their deaths, and comfort the disconsolate wives and mothers. Klephtic ballads have been a source of inspiration and rejuvenation to Modern Greek poetry and to Greek nationalism.

This article was most recently revised and updated by J.E. Luebering.