Bergsonian influence on Kazantzakis' worldvision

Abstract

After ending his law studies in Athens, Kazantzakis travelled to Paris to attend Bergson's courses at the College de France. His intellectual interests were manifested in his essays The disease of the century and Is science bankrupt?, which coincided with the interest, during the first decades of the 20th century, of the philosophies of life and the vitalist values they supported. The contact with Bergson and his teachings was a stimulus in Kazantzakis' intellectual and humanist adventure, because with the impulse of the French master's philosophy, the young Greek man tries to keep the essence of life in the 'good word'. Bergsonism confirmed his sense of a fight for freedom. The vitalist side of Kazantzakis thought is linked to what he received from Bergson. Kazantzakis wanted to make the philosopher known in his country, and he wrote an essay, Henry Bergson (1913), and translated Laughter (1916).