Vitsentzos Kornaros in the context of "Sitia"

Modern Greek literature is literature written in Modern Greek, starting in the late Byzantine era in the 11th century AD. It includes work not only from within the borders of the modern Greek state, but also from other areas where Greek was widely spoken, including Istanbul, Asia Minor, and Alexandria.

The first period of modern Greek literature includes texts concerned with philosophy and the allegory of daily life, as well as epic songs celebrating the akritai (Acritic songs), the most famous of which is Digenes Akritas. In the late 16th and early 17th century, Crete flourished under Venetian rule and produced two of the most important Greek texts; Erofili (ca. 1595) by Georgios Chortatzis and Erotokritos (ca. 1600) by Vitsentzos Kornaros. European Enlightenment had a profound effect on Greek scholars, most notably Rigas Feraios and Adamantios Korais, who paved the way for the Greek War of Independence in 1821.

Georgios Chortatzis or Chortatsis (Greek: Γεώργιος Χορτάτζης/Χορτάτσης; c. 1545 – c. 1610) was a Greek dramatist in Cretan verse. He was, along with Vitsentzos Kornaros, one of the main representatives of a school of literature in the vernacular Cretan dialect that flourished in the late 16th and early 17th centuries under Venetian rule. His best-known work is Erofili (or Erophile), a tragedy set in Egypt.