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Odysseus Elytis: Selected Poems
Lyrical, vigorous, deeply inventive, the poetry of Greece’s Odysseus Elytis’ has
been known to American readers largely through short and scattered selections by
the present translators. The worldwide recognition that only recently came to Elytis with the award of the 1979 Nobel Prize for Literature makes this collection—drawn from all periods of his long and distinguished career—an especially welcome event.
Selected Poems traces the development of Elytis’s oeuvre, from the early surrealism of Orientations (1940), a celebration of the sacred aspects of visible things, through the new dramatic style of The Axion Esti (1959), a spiritual autobiography and meditation on modern Greece, through his most recent work, including Maria Nefeli (1979), in which he continues to experiment with new forms for expressing perennial themes.
With their distinctive blend of classical metaphor and personal mythology, these
poems are splendid evidence —as the Nobel citation read—of “the sensuous
strength and intellectual clearsightedness” with which Odysseus Elytis “‘depicts
modern man’s struggle for freedom and creativeness.”’
been known to American readers largely through short and scattered selections by
the present translators. The worldwide recognition that only recently came to Elytis with the award of the 1979 Nobel Prize for Literature makes this collection—drawn from all periods of his long and distinguished career—an especially welcome event.
Selected Poems traces the development of Elytis’s oeuvre, from the early surrealism of Orientations (1940), a celebration of the sacred aspects of visible things, through the new dramatic style of The Axion Esti (1959), a spiritual autobiography and meditation on modern Greece, through his most recent work, including Maria Nefeli (1979), in which he continues to experiment with new forms for expressing perennial themes.
With their distinctive blend of classical metaphor and personal mythology, these
poems are splendid evidence —as the Nobel citation read—of “the sensuous
strength and intellectual clearsightedness” with which Odysseus Elytis “‘depicts
modern man’s struggle for freedom and creativeness.”’
114 pages, Hardcover
First published December 2, 1981
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