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Odysseas Elytis
Odysseas Elytis (/ɛˈliːtɪs/; Greek: Οδυσσέας Ελύτης [oðiˈseas eˈlitis], pen name of Odysseas Alepoudelis, Greek: Οδυσσέας Αλεπουδέλης; 2 November 1911 – 18 March 1996) was a Greek poet, man of letters, essayist and translator, regarded as the definitive exponent of romantic modernism in Greece and the world. He is one of the most praised poets of the second half of the twentieth century, with his Axion Esti "regarded as a monument of contemporary poetry". In 1979, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Panayiotis Alepoudelis and his younger brother Thrasyboulos were both born in the village Kalamiaris of Panagiouthas of Lesbos. Their family had become well-established in the industries of soap manufacturing and olive oil production in Heraklion, Crete in 1895. In 1897 Panagyiotis married Maria E. Vrana (1880–1960) from the village Papados of Gera, Lesbos. From this union and as the last of six siblings, Odysseas was born in the early hours of 2 November 1911.
In 1914, the Alepoudelis family moved to Athens (at Solonos 98B), where his father re-situated the soap factory in Piraeus. In 1918, his older sister and firstborn, Myrsine (1898–1918), died of the Spanish influenza. While on summer holidays from their Athens home as guests on the island of Spetses in the Haramis home in the St Nikolaos neighbourhood, his own father also died in the summer of 1925 from pneumonia. His father, Panayiotis, may have been the inspiration for Elytis to write. Apparently, his father wrote poetry and it remained unpublished. In 1927, worn out with overtiredness, Odysseas was diagnosed with tuberculosis. While in bed recuperating, he voraciously read all the Greek poetry he could and in this year discovered Cavafy. In 1928, he graduated from high school and successfully passed the competitive entrance exams for the Law School at the University of Athens.
He read in the newspapers about the suicide of the poet Kostas Karyotakis. In 1929, Elytis took a sabbatical between high school and university and decided secretly that he must only become a poet. In 1930, he and his family moved to Moschonision 14B. Elytis had initial aspirations to become a lawyer, but did not sit for his final examinations and did not get his legal qualification. He also had expressed aspirations to become a painter in the manner of the surrealists, but his family quickly thwarted this idea.
In 1935, Elytis published his first poem in the journal New Letters (Νέα Γράμματα) at the prompting of such friends as George Seferis. In the same year, he also became a lifelong friend of writer and psychoanalyst Andreas Embirikos, who allowed him to have access to his vast library of books. In 1977, two years after the death of his friend, Elytis wrote a tribute book to Embirikos from within the commonalities that founded their ideas, aptly titled "Reference to Andreas Embirikos" and originally published by Tram publishers in Thessaloniki. His entry to the magazine New Letters in 1935 was in November, which was the 11th issue, and with his pseudonym Elytis established himself therein. With a distinctively earthy and original form in his expression, Elytis assisted in inaugurating a new era in Greek poetry and its subsequent reform after the Second World War. In 1960, his older brother Constantine (1905–1960) died, followed by his mother, Maria Vrana Alepoudelis. Elytis was simultaneously awarded the First National Prize for poetry for his work "Axion Esti".
In 1967, Elytis travelled to Egypt, visiting Alexandria, Cairo, Luxor, and Aswan. Returning to Greece in March, he finished piecing together the fragments of Sappho's verses translated into modern Greek and brought them together with his own diaphanous iconography. These were finally published in 1984 without the drawings, which are deposited separately in the archives of the American School of Classical Studies along with the original manuscripts of the initial translations of Sappho. With the 21th of April Regime (a military junta) in force, Elytis disappeared from public view. At the time of the dictatorship, he lived at Skoufa 26, and upon his return from Paris in 1972, he moved to Skoufa 23 to a fifth floor apartment, his final residence in Athens before he died.
From 1969 to 1972, under the Greek military junta, Elytis exiled himself to Paris after he refused money from the junta and established a modest residence there. In Paris, he lived with Marianina Kriezi (1947–2022), who subsequently produced and hosted the legendary children's radio broadcast Here Lilliput Land. Kriezi was extraordinary, having published a book of poems at the age of fourteen. The title of the book was Rhythms and Beats and she sent a first edition copy to George Seferis along with a handwritten letter asking him to write a page of his poetry in longhand in a fountain pen and gift it to her. Apparently, she was going to put it across from her bed and see it every morning when she awoke for the rest of her life, treasuring the words of poetry. The irony is that she met up with Elytis, who was, in contrast to the cerebral Seferis, unmarried and a poet of the senses. When Elytis died, he was buried wearing the silver wedding band that had the name "Marianina" engraved inside it.
In 1937, he served his military requirements. As an army cadet, he joined the National Military School in Corfu. He assisted Frederica of Hanover off the train and onto Greek soil personally when she arrived from Germany to marry hereditary Prince Paul. During the war, he was appointed Second Lieutenant, placed initially at the 1st Army Corps Headquarters, then transferred to the 24th Regiment, on the first line of the battlefields. In 1941, he contracted an acute case of typhus abdominalis and was transferred to the Ioanina Hospital to the pathology unit for officers. Elytis came very close to his death here and was given the options between staying at the hospital and being a prisoner when the Germans fully invaded and occupied Greece, or being transferred with the risk of intestinal perforation and hemorrhage. On the eve of the invasion of the German armies, he decided to be transferred to Agrinio and from there eventually back to Athens, where he made a slow but steady recovery during the German occupation. He began to outline poetry for his eventual work "Sun The First"; in Alexandria, Seferis delivered a lecture on Elytis and Antoniou. Elytis was sporadically publishing poetry and essays after his initial foray into the literary world.
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Odysseas Elytis
Odysseas Elytis (/ɛˈliːtɪs/; Greek: Οδυσσέας Ελύτης [oðiˈseas eˈlitis], pen name of Odysseas Alepoudelis, Greek: Οδυσσέας Αλεπουδέλης; 2 November 1911 – 18 March 1996) was a Greek poet, man of letters, essayist and translator, regarded as the definitive exponent of romantic modernism in Greece and the world. He is one of the most praised poets of the second half of the twentieth century, with his Axion Esti "regarded as a monument of contemporary poetry". In 1979, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Panayiotis Alepoudelis and his younger brother Thrasyboulos were both born in the village Kalamiaris of Panagiouthas of Lesbos. Their family had become well-established in the industries of soap manufacturing and olive oil production in Heraklion, Crete in 1895. In 1897 Panagyiotis married Maria E. Vrana (1880–1960) from the village Papados of Gera, Lesbos. From this union and as the last of six siblings, Odysseas was born in the early hours of 2 November 1911.
In 1914, the Alepoudelis family moved to Athens (at Solonos 98B), where his father re-situated the soap factory in Piraeus. In 1918, his older sister and firstborn, Myrsine (1898–1918), died of the Spanish influenza. While on summer holidays from their Athens home as guests on the island of Spetses in the Haramis home in the St Nikolaos neighbourhood, his own father also died in the summer of 1925 from pneumonia. His father, Panayiotis, may have been the inspiration for Elytis to write. Apparently, his father wrote poetry and it remained unpublished. In 1927, worn out with overtiredness, Odysseas was diagnosed with tuberculosis. While in bed recuperating, he voraciously read all the Greek poetry he could and in this year discovered Cavafy. In 1928, he graduated from high school and successfully passed the competitive entrance exams for the Law School at the University of Athens.
He read in the newspapers about the suicide of the poet Kostas Karyotakis. In 1929, Elytis took a sabbatical between high school and university and decided secretly that he must only become a poet. In 1930, he and his family moved to Moschonision 14B. Elytis had initial aspirations to become a lawyer, but did not sit for his final examinations and did not get his legal qualification. He also had expressed aspirations to become a painter in the manner of the surrealists, but his family quickly thwarted this idea.
In 1935, Elytis published his first poem in the journal New Letters (Νέα Γράμματα) at the prompting of such friends as George Seferis. In the same year, he also became a lifelong friend of writer and psychoanalyst Andreas Embirikos, who allowed him to have access to his vast library of books. In 1977, two years after the death of his friend, Elytis wrote a tribute book to Embirikos from within the commonalities that founded their ideas, aptly titled "Reference to Andreas Embirikos" and originally published by Tram publishers in Thessaloniki. His entry to the magazine New Letters in 1935 was in November, which was the 11th issue, and with his pseudonym Elytis established himself therein. With a distinctively earthy and original form in his expression, Elytis assisted in inaugurating a new era in Greek poetry and its subsequent reform after the Second World War. In 1960, his older brother Constantine (1905–1960) died, followed by his mother, Maria Vrana Alepoudelis. Elytis was simultaneously awarded the First National Prize for poetry for his work "Axion Esti".
In 1967, Elytis travelled to Egypt, visiting Alexandria, Cairo, Luxor, and Aswan. Returning to Greece in March, he finished piecing together the fragments of Sappho's verses translated into modern Greek and brought them together with his own diaphanous iconography. These were finally published in 1984 without the drawings, which are deposited separately in the archives of the American School of Classical Studies along with the original manuscripts of the initial translations of Sappho. With the 21th of April Regime (a military junta) in force, Elytis disappeared from public view. At the time of the dictatorship, he lived at Skoufa 26, and upon his return from Paris in 1972, he moved to Skoufa 23 to a fifth floor apartment, his final residence in Athens before he died.
From 1969 to 1972, under the Greek military junta, Elytis exiled himself to Paris after he refused money from the junta and established a modest residence there. In Paris, he lived with Marianina Kriezi (1947–2022), who subsequently produced and hosted the legendary children's radio broadcast Here Lilliput Land. Kriezi was extraordinary, having published a book of poems at the age of fourteen. The title of the book was Rhythms and Beats and she sent a first edition copy to George Seferis along with a handwritten letter asking him to write a page of his poetry in longhand in a fountain pen and gift it to her. Apparently, she was going to put it across from her bed and see it every morning when she awoke for the rest of her life, treasuring the words of poetry. The irony is that she met up with Elytis, who was, in contrast to the cerebral Seferis, unmarried and a poet of the senses. When Elytis died, he was buried wearing the silver wedding band that had the name "Marianina" engraved inside it.
In 1937, he served his military requirements. As an army cadet, he joined the National Military School in Corfu. He assisted Frederica of Hanover off the train and onto Greek soil personally when she arrived from Germany to marry hereditary Prince Paul. During the war, he was appointed Second Lieutenant, placed initially at the 1st Army Corps Headquarters, then transferred to the 24th Regiment, on the first line of the battlefields. In 1941, he contracted an acute case of typhus abdominalis and was transferred to the Ioanina Hospital to the pathology unit for officers. Elytis came very close to his death here and was given the options between staying at the hospital and being a prisoner when the Germans fully invaded and occupied Greece, or being transferred with the risk of intestinal perforation and hemorrhage. On the eve of the invasion of the German armies, he decided to be transferred to Agrinio and from there eventually back to Athens, where he made a slow but steady recovery during the German occupation. He began to outline poetry for his eventual work "Sun The First"; in Alexandria, Seferis delivered a lecture on Elytis and Antoniou. Elytis was sporadically publishing poetry and essays after his initial foray into the literary world.
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