The Nobel laureate's prizewinning poem tells of a young female radical of our age and comments on history, politics, and culture to create a portrait of the modern situation

Maria Nephele: A Poem in Two Voices

ELYTIS, Odysseus

Houghton, Mifflin Co.

Odysseus Elytis: 2

Viking Adult

In awarding Odysseus Elytis the 1979 Nobel Prize in literature, the Swedish Academy praised him "for his poetry, which, against the background of Greek tradition, depicts with sensuous strength and intellectual clearsightedness modern man's struggle for freedom and creativeness." Throughout his long career as a poet, Elytis (1911–1996) remained true to his vision of a poetry that addresses the power of language and connects the history and mythology of Greece to the physical world and to the realities of the modern age. Renowned for their astonishing lyricism and profound optimism, Elytis's poems capture the natural wonders of Greece and give voice to the contemporary Greek―and to a more universally human―consciousness.
Originally published in 1997, The Collected Poems of Odysseus Elytis, translated into English by Jeffrey Carson and Nikos Sarris, was the first complete collection of Elytis's poems in any language. Included in this landmark volume were Elytis's early poems, influenced in equal parts by surrealism and the natural world; Song Heroic and Mourning for the Lost Second Lieutenant of the Albanian Campaign, his epic poem connecting Greece's―and his own―Second World War experience to the myth of the eternal Greek hero; his most ambitious work, The Axion Esti; and his mature poetry, from Maria Nephele to West of Sorrow.
For this expanded new edition, Carson and Sarris have added sixty free verse and prose poems first published in Greek in the posthumous 1998 volume From Close By, as well as a set of song lyrics, The Rhos of Eros, and a cantata, The Sovereign Sun, previously omitted. All have been translated with the same care and elegance as the rest of Elytis's oeuvre, brilliantly rendering into English the Greek poet's lyrical voice and the richness of his diction.

The Collected Poems of Odysseus Elytis

Literature & Fiction

United States

Johns Hopkins University Press

The Axion Esti is probably the most widely read volume of verse to have appeared in Greece since World War II and remains a classic today. Those who follow the music of Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis have been especially drawn to Odysseus Elytis's work, his prose is widely considered a mirror to the revolutionary music of Theodorakis. The "autobiographical" elements are constantly colored by allusion to the history of Greece, thus, the poems express a contemporary consciousness fully resonant with those echoes of the past that have served most to shape the modern Greek experience.

The Axion Esti (Pitt Poetry Series)

Poetry

University of Pittsburgh Press

When Odysseus Elytis was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, the Swedish Academy's citation singled out "The Axion Esti", first published in 1959, as 'one of twentieth-century literature's most concentrated and richly faceted poems.' It can be seen both as a secular oratorio, reflecting the Greek heritage and the country's revolutionary spirit, and also as a kind of autobiography, in which the spiritual roots of the poet's very individual sensibility are set in the wider philosophical context of the Greek tradition. In his evocation of eternal Greece, his vision of the war and its aftermath, and his concluding celebration of human life, Elytis is a true voice of our age A- a deeply personal lyric poet who speaks for humanity at large.

The Axion Esti

Elytes, Odysseas

Anvil Press Poetry

The poetry of Odysseus Elytis has long been known and admired in English-speaking countries, largely through earlier short selections by the present editors. The international recognition which came to Elytis with the award of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1979 makes this major representative selection, drawn from all periods of his distinguished career, especially valuable. The book traces his development from early surrealism, in which he transforms the French influence into a distinct personal voice and mythology, through the new and dramatic style of `The Axion Esti' with its blend of spirituality and earthiness, up to his most recent work published during the 1970s in which he continues to experiment with new modes for expressing his perennial themes. The poems are chosen and introduced by the leading translators of modern Greek poetry, Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Many new translations have been made specially for this book by the editors and by John Stathatos and Nanos Valaoritis.

Odysseus Elytis: Selected Poems

The Description for this book, Angelos Sikelianos: Selected Poems, will be forthcoming.

NY: VIKING. 1981

Anvil Press

Sovereign Sun: Selected Poems

Temple University Press

1979 Nobel Laureate. Translated with an introduction and notes by Kimon Friar.

The Sovereign Sun: Selected Poems

Temple Univ Pr

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Books by ELYTIS, Odysseus

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by ELYTIS, Odysseus. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Maria Nephele: A Poem in Two Voices

Odysseus Elytis: 2

The Collected Poems of Odysseus Elytis

The Axion Esti (Pitt Poetry Series)

The Axion Esti

Odysseus Elytis: Selected Poems

Odysseus Elytis: Selected Poems

The Axion Esti

Sovereign Sun: Selected Poems

The Sovereign Sun: Selected Poems