奥迪塞乌斯·埃里蒂斯
希腊诗人。生于克里特岛的伊拉克利翁镇,1914年迁居雅典。1930年在雅典大学研习法律,后到巴黎攻读文学。第二次世界大战爆发后,以中尉军官的身份开赴阿尔巴尼亚,战后游历欧洲各国。1948年担任《雅典日报》书评专栏作家;曾代表希腊出席在日内瓦举行的第二届现代画家世界大会。1967年移居巴黎。
埃里蒂斯的创作发动于超现实主义运动波及希腊之时,18岁时,他偶尔读到艾吕雅的一本诗集,发现这种超现实主义的新诗完全适应悠久、丰富的希腊文学传统,从此与之结下了不解之缘。1935年埃里蒂斯在革新派主办的《新文学》杂志上发表了他的处女作,自此便一发而不可收,几年后便被公认为青年诗人中的佼佼者。194O年他第一本诗集《方向》的出版,奠定了作者在诗坛上的地位,同时结束了以塞菲里斯的《转折点》为开端的“3O年代”,开启了希腊文学一个新的历史阶段。
继《方向》之后,埃里蒂斯先后出版了诗集《初升的太阳》(1943)、《英雄挽歌》(1945)、《理所当然》(1959)、《对天七叹》(1960)等。其中组诗《理所当然》被认为是他后期的代表作。其他诗作还有《爱情的流程》(197O)、《光明树和第十四个美人》(1971)、《花押宇》(1972)、《同胞》(1974)、《旗语通信手册》(1977)等。
埃里蒂斯的诗大多以希腊为背景,将矗立在蔚蓝色海面上的礁岩风物人格化,他歌颂创造,赞美生命。在艺术上,他的诗意境清新、奇特,语言纯洁、精炼。既不乏西方现代艺术的色彩,又融合了“希腊传统的元素”,它们同诗人所追求的蕴藏在这个美丽岛国中的神韵求得了一致。
1979年,因“他的诗以希腊为背景,用感觉的力量和理智的敏锐描写现代人为自由和创新而奋斗”,埃里蒂斯获得诺贝尔文学奖。
Odysseas Elytis (Greek: Οδυσσέας Ελύτης) (November 2, 1911—March 18, 1996) is a legendary Greek poet,regarded as one of the most important representatives of romantic modernism in Greece and the world. In 1979 the Nobel Prize in Literature was bestowed on him.
Biography
Descendant of the Alepoudhelis, an old industrial family from Lesbos, he was born in Heraklion (Candia) on the island of Crete, 2 November 1911. His family was later relocated to Athens permanently, where the poet completed his high school studies and later attended courses as an auditor at the Law School at Athens University. In 1935, Elytis published his first poem in the journal New Letters (Νέα Γράμματα) at the prompting of such friends as George Seferis. His entry with a distinctively earthy and original form assisted to inaugurate a new era in Greek poetry and its subsequent reform after the Second World War.Elytis chose exile in Paris for a greater part Greece's military dictatorship in 1967-1971.He fled to Paris in the late sixties and was romantically linked to the lyricist and musicologist who subsequently left an indelible historical mark on Greece's radio history with her original and popular children's broadcast "Here Lilliput" Mariannina Kriezi. Elytis was vehemently private and purposely solitary in pursuing his ideal of poetic truth and the poetic experience.
The war
In 1937 he served his military requirements. Being selected as an army cadet, he joined the National Military School in Corfu. During the war he was appointed Second Lieutenant, placed initially at the 1st Army Corps Headquarters to later be transferred at the 24th Regiment, on the first-line of the battlefields. Elytis was sporadically publishing poetry and essays after his initial foray into the literary world.
He was a member of the Association of Greek Art Critics, AICA-Hellas, International Association of Art Critics.[1]
Programme director for ERT
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 and in 1975 he was awarded the Doctor Honoris Causa in the Faculty of Philosophy at the Thessaloniki University and received the Honorary Citizenship of the Town of Mytilene.
Travels
During the years 1948-1952 and 1969-1972 he settled in Paris. There, he audited philology and literature seminars at the Sorbonne and was well received by the pioneers of the world's avant-garde (Reverdy, Breton, Tzara, Ungaretti, Matisse, Picasso, Chagall, Giacometti) as Tériade's most respected friend. Teriade was simultaneously in Paris publishing works with all the renowned artists and philosophers (Kostas Axelos, Jean Paul Sartre,Francoise Gilot, Rene Daumal...) of the time. Elytis and Teriade had formed a strong friendship that solidified in 1939 with the publication of Elytis first book of poetry entitled "Orientations". Both Elytis and Teriade hailed from Lesbos and had a mutual love of the Greek painter Theophilos. Starting from Paris he travelled and subsequently visited 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.
Death
Odysseas Elytis had been completing plans to travel overseas when he died in Athens on the 18th of March,1996,at the age of 84. He was survived by his niece Myrsene and his older brother Evangelos, who was bestowed the writ of condolence from the mayor of Athens on behalf of the nation at the funeral at the First National Cemetery.
The Poetry of Elytis
Elytis' poetry has marked, through an active presence of over forty years, a broad spectrum of subject matter and stylistic touch with an emphasis on the expression of that which is rarified and passionate. He did derive certain elements from Ancient Greece and Byzantium but devoted himself exclusively to today's Hellenism, of which he attempted —in a certain way based on psychical and sentimental aspects— to reconstruct a modernist mythology for the institutions. His main endeavour was to rid people's conscience from unjustifiable remorses and to complement natural elements through ethical powers, to achieve the highest possible transparency in expression and finally, to succeed in approaching the mystery of light, the metaphysics of the sun of which he was a "worshiper" -idolater by his own definition. A parallel manner concerning technique resulted in introducing the inner architecture, which is evident in a great many poems of his; mainly in the phenomenal landmark work Worthy It Is (Το Άξιον Εστί). This work due to its setting to music by Mikis Theodorakis as an oratorio, is a revered anthem whose verse is sung by all Greeks for all injustice, resistance and for its sheer beauty and musicality of form. Elytis' theoretical and philosophical ideas have been expressed in a series of essays under the title The Open Papers (Ανοιχτά Χαρτιά). Besides creating poetry 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.
Works
Poetry
Orientations (Προσανατολισμοί, 1939)
Sun The First Together With Variations on A Sunbeam (Ηλιος ο πρώτος, παραλλαγές πάνω σε μιαν αχτίδα, 1943)
An Heroic And Funeral Chant For The Lieutenant Lost In Albania (Άσμα ηρωικό και πένθιμο για τον χαμένο ανθυπολοχαγό της Αλβανίας, 1946)
To Axion Esti—It Is Worthy (Το Άξιον Εστί, 1959)
Six Plus One Remorses For The Sky (Έξη και μια τύψεις για τον ουρανό, 1960)
The Light Tree And The Fourteenth Beauty (Το φωτόδεντρο και η δέκατη τέταρτη ομορφιά, 1972)
The Sovereign Sun (Ο ήλιος ο ηλιάτορας, 1971)
The Trills Of Love (Τα Ρω του Έρωτα, 1973)
The Monogram (Το Μονόγραμμα, 1972)
Step-Poems (Τα Ετεροθαλή, 1974)
Signalbook (Σηματολόγιον, 1977)
Maria Nefeli (Μαρία Νεφέλη, 1978)
Three Poems under a Flag of Convenience (Τρία ποιήματα με σημαία ευκαιρίας 1982)
Diary of an Invisible April (Ημερολόγιο ενός αθέατου Απριλίου, 1984)
Krinagoras (Κριναγόρας, 1987)
The Little Mariner (Ο Μικρός Ναυτίλος, 1988)
The Elegies of Oxopetra (Τα Ελεγεία της Οξώπετρας, 1991)
West of Sadness (Δυτικά της λύπης, 1995)
Prose, essays
The True Face and Lyrical Bravery of Andreas Kalvos (Η Αληθινή φυσιογνωμία και η λυρική τόλμη του Ανδρέα Κάλβου, 1942)
2x7 e (collection of small essays) (2χ7 ε (συλλογή μικρών δοκιμίων))
(Offering) My Cards To Sight (Ανοιχτά χαρτιά (συλλογή κειμένων), 1973)
The Painter Theophilos (Ο ζωγράφος Θεόφιλος, 1973)
The Magic Of Papadiamantis (Η μαγεία του Παπαδιαμάντη, 1975)
Reference to Andreas Empeirikos (Αναφορά στον Ανδρέα Εμπειρίκο, 1977)
The Public ones and the Private ones (Τα Δημόσια και τα Ιδιωτικά, 1990)
Private Way (Ιδιωτική Οδός, 1990)
«Εν λευκώ» (συλλογή κειμένων), (1992)
The Garden with the Illusions (Ο κήπος με τις αυταπάτες, 1995)
Translations
Second Writing (Δεύτερη γραφή, 1976)
Sappho (Σαπφώ)
The Apocalypse (by John) (Η αποκάλυψη, 1985)
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 of Elytis' work
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. Kimon Friar (Philadelphia, U.S.A. 1974)
Selected poems. Ed. E. Keeley and Ph. Sherrard (1981)
References
^ Association of Greek Art Critics, International Association of Art Critics. AICA-HELLAS History. |