Odysseas Elytis

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Odysseas Elytis (Greek: Οδυσσέας Ελύτης) (November 21 1911 - March 18 1996) was a Greek poet, considered as one of the most important modern poets of Greece. 'Elytis' was a pen name, while his family name was 'Alepoudelis'. In 1979 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Biography

Descendant of an old family of Lesbos, he was born in Heraklion (Candia) on the island of Crete, November 2, 1911. Some time later his family settled permanently in Athens where the poet finished his secondary school studies and later visited the Law School of the Athens University. His first appearance as a poet in 1935 through the magazine Nea Grammata (New Culture") was saluted as an important event and the new style he introduced - though giving rise to a great many reactions - succeeded in prevailing and effectively contributing to the poetical reform commencing in the Second World War's eve and going on up to our days.

In 1937 he joined the army to do his national service. He was selected as a cadet reserve officer and sent to the Reserve Officer's Cadet School in Corfu. Upon the outbreak of the war he served in the rank of Second Lieutenant, first at the Headquarters of the 1st Army Corps and then at the 24th Regiment, on the advanced fire line. During the German occupation and later, after Greece was liberated, he has been unabatedly active, publishing successive collections of poetry and writing essays concerning contemporary poetry and art problems.

He has twice been Programme Director of the Greek National Radio Foundation (1945-46 and 1953-54), Member of the Greek National Theatre's Administrative Council, President of the Administrative Council of the Greek Radio and Television as well as Member of the Consultative Committee of the Greek National Tourist's Organisation on the Athens Festival. In 1960 he was awarded the First State Poetry Prize, in 1965 the Order of the Phoenix Brigade and in 1975 he was proclaimed Doctor Honoris Causa of the Philosophical School of the Thessaloniki University and Honorary Citizen of the Town of Mytilene.

During the years 1948-1952 and 1969-1972 he settled in Paris. There, he listened to philology and literature lessons in the Sorbonne and got acquainted with the pioneers of the world's avant-garde (Reverdy, Breton, Tzara, Ungaretti, Matisse, Picasso, Chagall, Giacometti). Starting from Paris he travelled and visited subsequently Switzerland, England, Italy and Spain. In 1948 he was the representative of Greece at the International Meetings of Geneva, in 1949 at the Founding Congress of the International Art Critics Union in Paris and in 1962 at the Incontro Romano della Cultura in Rome.

In 1961, upon an invitation of the State Department, he traveled through the U.S.A.; and - upon similar invitations - through the Soviet Union in 1963 and Bulgaria in 1965.

Elytis' poetry has marked, through an active presence of over forty years, a broad spectrum. Unlike others, he did not turn back to Ancient Greece or Byzantium but devoted himself exclusively to today's Hellenism, of which he attempted - in a certain way based on psychical and sentimental aspects - to build up the mythology and the institutions. His main endeavour has been to rid his people's conscience from remorses unjustifiable, to complement natural elements through ethical powers, to achieve the highest possible transparency in expression and to finally succeed in approaching the mystery of light, the metaphysic of the sun - according to his own definition. A parallel way concerning technique resulted in introducing the inner architecture, which is clearly perceptible in a great many works of his; mainly in the Axion Esti (It Is Worthy). This work - thanks to its setting to music by Mikis Theodorakis - was to be widely spread among all Greeks and grew to be a kind of the people's new gospel. Elytis' theoretical ideas have been expressed in a series of essays under the title Ανοιχτά Χαρτιά ((Offering) My Cards To Sight. Besides he applied himself to translating poetry and theatre as well as creating a series of collage pictures. Translations of his poetry have been published as autonomous books, in anthologies or in periodicals in eleven languages.

Odysseas Elytis died on March 18, 1996.

Literature

• Orientations (1940)
• Sun - The First (1943)
• An Heroic And Funeral Chant For The Lieutenant Lost In Albania (1946)
• To Axion Esti - It Is Worthy (1959)
• Six Plus One Remorses For The Sky (1960)
• The Light Tree And The Fourteenth Beauty (1972)
• The Sovereign Sun (1972)
• The Trills Of Love (1973)
• The Monogram (1973)
• Step-Poems (1974)
• (Offering) My Cards To Sight (1974)
• The Painter Theophilos (1973)
• Second Writing (1976)
• The Magic Of Papadiamantis (1976)
• Signalbook (1977)
• Maria Nefeli (1978)
• Selected poems Ed. E. Keeley and Ph. Sherrard (1981)
• Three Poems under a Flag of Convenience (1982)
• Diary of an Invisible April (1984)
• The Little Mariner (1988)
• What I Love. Selected Poems (1986)
• Krinagoras (1987)
• The Elegies of Oxopetras (1991)

Reference works

• Mario Vitti: Odysseus Elytis. Literature 1935-1971 (Icaros 1977)
• Tasos Lignadis: Elytis' Axion Esti (1972)
• Lili Zografos: Elytis - The Sun Drinker (1972); as well as the special issue of the American magazine Books Abroad dedicated to the work of Elytis (Autumn 1975. Norman, Oklahoma, U.S.A.)
• Odysseas Elytis: Anthologies of Light. Ed. I. Ivask (1981)
• A. Decavalles: Maria Nefeli and the Changeful Sameness of Elytis' Variations on a theme (1982)
• E. Keeley: Elytis and the Greek Tradition (1983)
• Ph. Sherrard: Odysseus Elytis and the Discovery of Greece, in Journal of Modern Greek Studies, 1(2), 1983
• K. Malkoff: Eliot and Elytis: Poet of Time, Poet of Space, in Comparative Literature, 36(3), 1984
• A. Decavalles: Odysseus Elytis in the 1980s, in World Literature Today, 62(l), 1988

Translations

• Poesie. Procedute dal Canto eroico e funebre per il sottotenente caduto in Albania. Trad. Mario Vitti (Roma. Il Presente. 1952)
• 21 Poesie. Trad. Vicenzo Rotolo (Palermo. Istituto Siciliano di Studi Bizantini e Neoellenici. 1968)
• Poèmes. Trad. Robert Levesque (1945)
• Six plus un remords pourle ciel. Trad. F. B. Mache (Fata Morgana. Montpellier 1977)
• Korper des Sommers. Übers. Barbara Schlörb (St. Gallen 1960)
• Sieben nächtliche Siebenzeiler. Übers. Günter Dietz (Darmstadt 1966)
• To Axion Esti - Gepriesen sei. Übers. Güinter Dietz (Hamburg 1969)
• The Axion Esti. Trans. Edmund Keeley and G. Savidis (Pittsburgh, U.S.A. 1974)
• The Sovereign Sun. Trans. Kinom Friar (Philadelphia, U.S.A. 1974)

From Nobel Lectures, Literature 1968-1980, Editor-in-Charge Tore Frängsmyr, Editor Sture Allén, World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, 1993

 

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