Description
Οδυσσέας Ελύτης
Το Άξιον Εστί – To Axion Esti
Odysseas Elytis
It is Worthy
One of Elytis’s masterpieces
Signed and Dedicated by Odysseas Elytis!
Printed by Ikaros in Athens in 1970
8vo, Pages 92
In original soft binding
Front piece and Cover by Yiannis Moralis
Text: Greek
6th Edition
Good+ Condition
Odysseas Elytis pen name of Odysseas Alepoudellis, Greek: Οδυσσέας Αλεπουδέλλης; 1911 – 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. Source: Wikipedia
Elytis on his war experiences
As a reserve officer, the poet Odysseas Elytis was called up immediately after the Italian invasion and served on the Albanian front with the rank of second lieutenant in the First Army Corps. The translator Kimon Friar says of Eltyis’ war experiences that the poet ‘saw in the heroic resistance of the Greek people against superior odds, throughout their long history, a recklessness of spirit, a divine madness. In the spontaneous reaction of the Greek people to Mussolini’s invasion, he saw the victory of a beautiful rashness over self-calculation, an instinct that could distinguish between good and evil in a time of danger’.