Odysseas Elytis Summary

In the excerpt below (an article especially liked by Elytis himself), Hilty explores Elytis's relationship to French surrealists and its impact on his use of traditional Greek themes and images... Read more

Keeley argues that Elytis's The Axion Esti follows in the tradition of earlier twentieth-century Greek poets such as Angelos Sikelianos, and examines the various voices present in the poem. ... Read more

In the following review, Economou explores the two narrative voices present in Maria Nephele and compares Elytis's Maria to Dante's Beatrice. That The Nobel Prize for Literature creat... Read more

In the excerpt below, Decavalles examines Three Poems under a Flag of Convenience, suggesting that the collection effectively captures Elýtis's transcendental vision and the transformati... Read more

In the following excerpt, Green traces Elytis's relationship to the tradition of Greek poetry. When the Swedish Academy announced its choice for the Nobel Prize in literature last year, the ... Read more

In the following review, Carson criticizes Olga Broumas's translation of Elytis's What I Love for its inaccuracy. Odysseas (or Odysseus) Elytis's great poetry is so rooted in t... Read more

In the following review, the critic states that Elytis's The Little Mariner is "more interesting for its experiments in form than for its lyrical content." Elytis, winner of th... Read more

In the following review, Picken calls Elytis's The Little Mariner his "most important work since he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature," but complains that Olga Broumas&#x... Read more

In the following review, Peckham discusses the themes of voyaging and seafaring found in Elytis's Idiotiki Odos. "The first thing God made", George Seferis once observed, �... Read more

In the following review, the critic discusses how Elytis's Open Papers tells of a career guided by luck, risk, and a belief in modernism. Part autobiography, part statement of artistic princ... Read more

In the following review, Cooksey praises Elytis's Open Papers. Ostensibly, these five essays by the Greek poet Elytis, winner of the 1979 Nobel Prize in Literature, explore his development a... Read more

In the following essay, Gussow presents an overview of Elytis's life and career. Odysseus Elytis, a Nobel Prize-winning Greek poet celebrated for his lyrical and passionate evocations of his... Read more

In the following essay, Malkoff compares and contrasts Elytis's To Axion Esti to T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets and asserts that both poets are seeking a unity of being in their work. In ... Read more

In the following review, Decavalles praises Elytis's O mikros naftilos stating that it "stands unquestionably on a level with Elytis's other major poems and also constitutes a com... Read more

In the following review, the critic complains that much has been lost in Olga Broumas's translation of Elytis's What I Love. Eternal freshness, clarity, the ability to convey the abst... Read more

Critical Essay by Hans Rudolf Hilty The broad perspective of an open mind and a vital, concrete bond with the archetypal gestures of life, magical surrealism and unbroken Hellenic substance merge in ... Read more

Critical Essay by Christopher Robinson The fascination that French poetry exerted on Elytis is a force in his creative development to which he himself has frequently referred, but only in general ter... Read more

Critical Essay by Edmund Keeley Odysseys Elytis … was the youngest of the group of pre-World War II poets, sometimes called the Generation of the 30's, who established the new voice and... Read more