← The Axion Esti / Το Άξιον Εστί← Odysseas Elytis

Selected Poems 1940-1979

EditorEdmund Keeley, Philip Sherrard
Foreword / AfterwordEdmund Keeley, Philip Sherrard
FormatCollection / Anthology
LanguageEnglish
Year2005
PublisherAnvil
CountryCanada
Pages144
ISBN978-0856463556
Selected Poems 1940-1979

This representative selection from the work of one of modern Greece's most fascinating poets was made shortly after his award of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1979. It is drawn from all periods of his distinguished career and traces his development from early surrealism, in which he transforms French influence into a distinct personal voice and mythology, through the dramatic style of The Axion Esti with its blend of spirituality and earthiness, up to the later work in which he experiments with new modes for expressing his perennial themes. The poems are chosen, introduced and mainly translated by the leading translators of modern Greek poetry, Edmund Keeley and the late Philip Sherrard, whose collaborations also included translations of Seferis, Cavafy and Sikelianos. Other contributors to the book include George Savidis, Nanos Valaoritis and John Stathatos. Born in Crete in 1911, Odysseus Elytis began to publish his poetry in the 1930s. He took part in the campaign against the Italian fascists in Albania in 1940-41. He was one of the most prominent poets of the Greek resistance during the Nazi occupation. The Nobel Prize was awarded to him for his poetry which, against the background of Greek tradition, depicts with sensuous strength and intellectual clear-sightedness modern man's struggle for freedom and creativeness'. He died in Athens in 1996.

— Google Books
▶ Expand Table of Contents

Contents INTRODUCTION 9 PART I 1940-1945 From Orientations (1940) Aegean 19 Seven Nocturnals 21 Anniversary 24 Helen 26 Adolescence of Day 28 Ode to Santorini 29 Marina of the Rocks 31 The Age of Blue Memory 33 Aegean Melancholy 35 Form of Boeotia 37 The Mad Pomegranate Tree 39 From Sun the First (1943) "I no longer know the night" 43 Body of Summer 44 "Burnished day, conch of the voice" 45 "Drinking the sun of Corinth" 46 "I lived the beloved name" 47 "This wind that loiters" 48 "All day long we walked in the fields" 49 "With what stones, what blood, and what iron" 50 Heroic and Elegiac Song for the Lost Second Lieutenant of the Albanian Campaign (1945) 53 PART II 1959-1960 From The Axion Esti (1959) from The Genesis "In the beginning the light" 73 "But before hearing the wind" 75 from The Passion II: "Greek the language they gave me" 76 First Reading: The March Toward the Front 77 Second Reading: The Mule Drivers 80 d: "A solitary swallow" 82 e: "With the star's lamp" 83 k: "I will tonsure my head" 84 from The Gloria "Praised be the wooden table" 85 Six and One Pangs of Conscience for the Sky (1960) Beauty and the Illiterate 91 The Autopsy 93 The Sleep of the Brave 94 Laconic 96 The Origin of Landscape or The End of Mercy 97 The Other Noah 99 Seven Days for Eternity 101 PART III 1971-1979 Death and Resurrection of Constantine Palaiologos (1971) 107 From The Sovereign Sun (1971) The Mad Mad Boat 113 From The Monogram (1971) Section VII 117 From The Light Tree and the Fourteenth Beauty (1971) On the City 121 Little Green Sea 123 The Fresco 124 Archetype 125 from The Light Tree: IV 126 Palintrope 127 What Cannot Come About 128 As Long as the Star Lasted 129 Silver Gift Poem 130 From The Siblings (1977) Psalm and Mosaic for a Springtime in Athens 133 Small Analogue 137 The Leaf Diviner 138 from Villa Natacha: I 140 From Maria Nefeli (1979) The Cloud 144 The Cloudgatherer 145 Discourse on Beauty 146 The Drop of Water 147 The Trojan War 148 Helen 149 Hymn in Two Dimensions 150 Official Declaration 151 The Poets 152 That Which Convinces 153 ODYSSEUS ELYTIS 155 THE TRANSLATORS 157

Contains

The Axion EstiMaria NefeliThe Sovereign SunOrientationsSun The First Together With Variations on A SunbeamSix Plus One Remorses For The SkyThe Light Tree And The Fourteenth BeautyThe MonogramSignalbook
Buy on Amazon

Reviews

Sign in to leave a review.

No reviews yet. Be the first!