|
|
Article: Odysseus Elytis: in memory of a modern Greek poet.
- Article from:
- Contemporary Review
- Article date:
- January 1, 1997
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1997 Contemporary Review Company Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
The death, in 1996, of the distinguished Modem Greek poet, Odysseus Elytis - who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1979 - seems to deserve rather more than fervent national commemoration, within his native Crete. He must continue to embody, in his life and his work, the essential humanism of the Greek tradition in literature - its distinctive affinity with the elemental things, such as sea and sky, earth and heaven, birth and death, which ever since Homer has given to Greece and the Greeks a unique and vital role in the making of the literature of Europe, as a whole. Even in their English translations, the best of his Poetry - such as The Mad Pomegranate Tree, ...