tr from Greek Olga Broumas & T Begley
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From Publishers Weekly
Part autobiography, part statement of artistic principles, the five essays collected here cover Elytis's journey to poetry, from discovering the works of Sappho at age 16 to winning the Nobel Prize in 1979. Born in Crete in 1911, at 18 Elytis heard "a secret voice" that led him to abandon everything for his art. As a student in the 1930s he was totally absorbed in the Surrealists with Eluard, Breton and Lorca offering new perspectives to a young man already influenced by Freud, Baudelaire and Novalis. He pays tribute to these and other writers in the essay "For Good Measure," which also honors Picasso for his insistence on turning upside down one's view of the natural world. In the most interesting section of the book, "Chronicle of a Decade," Elytis recounts the time spent seeking out writers and periodicals that would be sympathetic to newfound passion for a lyrical and mystical vision of life. Elytis's credo is set forth in the title of the last essay-"Art-Luck-Risk." If, through the decades, Elytis did take political and artistic risks, this clear articulation shows that his art was not guided by luck or risk alone but by a real belief in modernism.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Ostensibly, these five essays by the Greek poet Elytis, winner of the 1979 Nobel Prize in Literature, explore his development as a poet and his continuity with classical and modern Greek and European literature and myth. In a deeper sense, the selections represent autobiographical prose poems that reproduce the poetic process as Elytis meanders from an awareness of light and nature to passion and ecstasy, from the possibilities of metaphor in Greek to the influences of Rimbaud, Jouve, Lautreamont, Lorca, Ungaretti, and others. Joining the ranks of George Seferis and Yannis Ritsos, Elytis attempts to establish the contours of an authentic modern Greek poetry that is true to the Hellenic spirit. Of interest to students of modern poetry in general.
T.L. Cooksey, Armstrong State Coll., Savannah, Ga.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
T.L. Cooksey, Armstrong State Coll., Savannah, Ga.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Poetry filled with light,
By A Customer
This review is from: Open Papers - Selected Essays (Paperback)
This is the confession of the most luminous Greek poet of our age.Once you start reading it you don't want it to finish. The experience is like talking to a friend who is an extraordinary fairy-tales teller. Elytis presents his world, wich is a world of love, sun, blue and hope.
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