The Collected Poems of Odysseus Elytis

by Odysseas Elytis

"Jeffrey Carson--a poet himself with a kindred sensibility to Elytis's--has admirably succeeded in bringing across the Greek poet's lyrical voice and the richness of his diction. This first translation of Elytis's complete works is accurate and elegant, a work of diligence and love that affords the English-speaking reader a picture of the evolution of the poet's work."--Dorothy M-T. Gregory, The Ionian University, Corfu In awarding Odysseus Elytis the 1979 Nobel Prize in literature, the Swedish Academy declared that he had been selected "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." Elytis was largely unknown outside his native Greece before winning literature's highest honor, and much of his work has not been widely available in English. The Collected Poems is the first collection in any language, including Greek, of Elytis's complete poetry, a body of work marked by a profound love of hope, freedom, beauty, and Greek tradition. Twenty years in preparation, this volume includes his early poems, influenced in equal parts by surrealism and the landscape and climate of Greece and the Aegean Sea; his long, epic poem connecting Greece's--and his own--Second World War experience to the myth of the eternal Greek hero, Song Heroic and Mourning for the Lost Second Lieutenant of the Albanian Campaign; his most ambitious work, The Axion Esti, which the Swedish Academy praised as "one of 20th-century literature's most concentrated and ritually faceted poems"; and his mature poetry, from Maria Nephele, a poem in two voices, to his last collection, West of Sorrow, written the summer before his death in 1996 at age 84. Throughout his long career as a poet, Elytis remained true to his vision of a poetry that addresses the power of language and links Greece's two thousand years of myth and history with the social and psychological demands of the modern age. Renowned for their astonishing lyricism and profound optimism, Elytis's poems employ surreal imagery and a remarkable variety of forms to capture the natural, sun-soaked beauty of Greece and to give voice to the contemporary Greek--and to a more universally human--consciousness. Praise for Odysseus "Perhaps the most pervasive presence throughout his work... is the physical experience of the sun's intense illumination, the seas strewn with jewel-like islands, the life of its proud people beneath the invasion of 20th-century culture and politics. From these Elytis crafts powerful and sparkling lyrics, sometimes bitter, often full of wonder and celebration." -- Christian Science Monitor "Elytis is a paragon of enthusiasm, of protean moods, multiple forms; his purpose, in the deification of the sun and the body of man." -- Hudson Review "A poet of large achievement... His work... has a kind of passionate optimism about the possibilities of his small Aegean world." -- New York Review of Books

Genres: Poetry, Greece, Nobel Prize, Classics, 20th Century, Fiction, Literature

640 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Greek poet Odysseas Alepoudellis Elytis received the Nobel Prize for literature.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odyssea...

Reviews

[Negar Khalili · Rating 4 out of 5]

کجا برود انسانی
که چیزی بجز انسان نیست
که با قطره های شبنم
دقایق سبزش را شماره می کند
با آبها
رویاهای شنوایی اش را
با بالها،‌ندامت هایش را...
.
.
و امید با همه ی دلفین هایش
بهره ی خورشید را در دل آدمی
به رخشیدن وا می دارد...
.
.
به کدام سمت دستهایمان را امتداد دهیم
اکنون که زمانه ما را به حساب نمی آورد؟
به کدام سمت دیدگانمان را رها کنیم
اکنون که خطوط دور در ابرها غرقه گشت هاند؟؟
.
.
من به رنگین کمان قول زمین بهتری داده ام...
.
.
و بخاری که از دره ها متصاعد می شود
بر این باورند که دود نیست
بل
غم غربتی ست که از شکاف های خواب دلاوران بر می آید...
.
.
لازم است که ما
اندیشناک هولناک ترین موهبتی باشیم
که تا به حال از سوی یک انسان
به انسان دیگری داده شده است:
عشق....
.
.
آن جا که مرگ چیزی برای گفتن ندارد،
شعر حرف آخر را می زند...
.
.

بیشتراشعار عالی و عمیق بودن...

ترجمه ی آقای فریاد خیلی لطیف...
شبیه کار ترجمه نبود. حس می کردم دارم یه کار فارسی میخونم...
بسیار لذت بردم

[Edita · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish nostalgia had a body for me to push out the window! To smash what cannot
be!

[Vera]

Ποίηση εφηβική, νεανική γεμάτη αιγαίο,θάλασσα, Έρωτα και συνειρμούς για το μεγάλο νομπελίστα ποιητή μας...

[Kostas 78 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Εκπληκτική έκδοση σε καλή τιμή, ιλλουστρασιόν χαρτί και διατηρούνται και όλοι οι ζωγραφικοί πίνακες των πρωτότυπων συλλογών.

[Eadweard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully sun-drenched
Pagan and Byzantine
Erotic and Religious


I will go to Greece some day...

[Pascal Bateman · Rating 5 out of 5]

“…you are beautiful like despair.”


His poems are spells, and they conjure up that eternal Greek world which has haunted and continues to haunt the European
consciousness with its hints of a perfection that remains always a possibility.
— Lawrence Durrell, appreciating Odysseus
Elytis

[Kyriakos Sorokkou]

Είχα σίγουρα 10 χρόνια αυτό το βιβλίο στην wish-list μου αλλά λόγω της τσιμπημένης του τιμής δεν το αγόρασα ποτέ.
Και τέλη Ιουλίου,παραμονή των γενεθλιων μου, βρήκα ότι επανεκδόθηκε και το πήρα και μια μικρή έκπτωση.
Και έτσι για να βγάλει τα λεφτά του αποφάσισα να το διαβάζω αργά.

Το ξεκίνησα 1η Αυγούστου διαβάζοντας ένα με δύο ποιήματα την ημέρα, και το τελείωσα 30 Οκτωβρίου.

Διαβάζοντας το ληξιάρχισα μετρώντας τα ποιήματα για να πω το εξής:
Μέσα σε λιγότερο από 600 σελίδες περιέχονται 17 ποιητικές συλλογές και καμιά διακοσαριά* ποιήματα. Μέσα σε μια έκδοση σχεδόν τσέπης (παλτού) χωράει όλο το ποιητικό έργο του Ελύτη από τη δεκαετία του 1930 ως την δεκαετία του 1990 ένα έργο που χάρισε στον Ελύτη το Νόμπελ Λογοτεχνίας.

Είχα πει και πιο παλιά ότι ένα βιβλίο ποίησης είναι σαν ένα πακέτο τσιγάρα, πιο υγιεινό όμως.
Το ανοίγεις όταν έχεις χαρμανιάσει για ένα τσιγάρο κι όχι για όλο το πακέτο.
Το ανοίγεις για να διαβάσεις ένα συγκεκριμένο ποίημα κι όχι όλο το βιβλίο.

Φυσικά με μένα συμβαίνει το εξής
Την πρώτη φορά διαβάζω από το εξώφυλλο ως το οπισθόφυλλο το βιβλίο και μετά είναι που θα το ανοίγω όποτε θέλω να διαβάσω ένα ποίημα.

Στο μέλλον ίσως πάρω τις αυτοτελείς συλλογές που μου άρεσαν περισσότερο (Άσμα Ηρωικό και Πένθιμο, Ο Μικρός Ναυτίλος, Άξιον Εστι, Μαρία Νεφέλη).

________
* δεν βρήκα να συμφωνούν οι πηγές κατά πόσο κάποια εκτενή έργα του Ελύτη (Μικρός Ναυτίλος, Άξιον Εστι, Μαρία Νεφέλη, Εκ του Πλησίον) είναι συλλογές ποίησης, ποιητικές συνθέσεις, ή απλώς εκτενή ποιήματα, εξού και το «καμιά διακοσαριά» αντί ένας ακριβής αριθμός.

[Λευτέρης Πετρής · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Λάμπει μέσα μου κείνο που αγνοώ. Μα ωστόσο λάμπει."

[Eulie Aeglie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Αυτό το βιβλίο θα μείνει πάντα στο currently reading. Το έχω αγοράσει ήδη μερικές φορές – κι όλο το χαρίζω κάπου, αφού το διαβάζω πρώτα. Το αντίτυπο που έχω τώρα στα χέρια μου θα το κρατήσω για μένα - οριστικά. Το έχω αρκετό καιρό κι έχει τα σημάδια μου φανερά στις σελίδες του. Η συνηθισμένη του θέση δεν είναι στη βιβλιοθήκη αλλά στο προσκεφάλι μου.

[Raquel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tão lindo... Profundo e feliz como corais luminosos. Mas também sombrio, triste. Também sensual. Sensualidade discreta. É mais do que um livro... é uma boa companhia para as últimas noites de verão. Prémio Nobel de 1979.

--

"...You have a taste of tempest on your lips
And a dress red as blood
Deep in the gold of summer
And the perfume of hyacinths—But where did you wander
Descending toward the shores, the pebbled bays?

There was cold salty seaweed there
But deeper a human feeling that bled
And you opened your arms in astonishment naming it
Climbing lightly to the clearness of the depths
Where your own starfish shone.

Listen. Speech is the prudence of the aged
And time is a passionate sculptor of men
And the sun stands over it, a beast of hope
And you, closer to it, embrace a love
With a bitter taste of tempest on your lips.

It is not for you, blue to the bone, to think of another summer,
For the rivers to change their bed
And take you back to their mother
For you to kiss other cherry trees
Or ride on the northwest wind.

Propped on the rocks, without yesterday or tomorrow,
Facing the dangers of the rocks with a hurricane hairstyle
You will say farewell to the riddle that is yours."

[Vladimir Bošković · Rating 4 out of 5]

While Elytis' poetry stands at the very top of literary achievements in twentieth-century Europe, this particular translation sadly removes much of its aesthetic and philosophical value through a number of blatant material errors and often misleading commentary. Translations by David Connolly (who in my opinion is one of the most perceptive Elytis scholars so far), and also older ones by Keeley/Savvidis, Kimon Friar, Athan Anagnostopoulos, and Olga Broumas, do much more justice to Elytis' poetry.

[Nnikkoss · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ολο το σπουδαίο ποιητικό έργο του μεγάλου μας νομπελίστα σε μια κομψή καλαίσθητη έκδοση εγχειρίδιο... Ο,τι κι αν πούμε για τον Οδυσσέα Ελύτη είναι πολύ λίγο... Μια σπουδαία έκδοση που δεν πρέπει να λείπει από καμία Ελληνική βιβλιοθήκη!!! Αναζητείστε επίσης τα πεζά και ό,τι άλλο ακόμη έχει αφήσει ως παρακαταθήκη ο ποιητής (κολάζ, κα).

[Joanna Eleftheriou · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's really exciting to have all of Elytis in one volume. Now I can quote him in English without translating him myself every time.

[Veroniki · Rating 5 out of 5]

All poems by Elytis in a compact, easy-to-carry edition. Permanently in a prominent position on my desk!

[Constantine Alexander · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Poet Without Borders.

Odysseus Elytis (1911 -1996) was a very gifted Greek poet who dedicated his life to a love of hope, beauty, freedom and Greek tradition conveyed in words and imagery that leave the reader thirsting for more. It is this insatiable thirst for droplets of human comfort during life's anguished moments and visionary beauty which together give rise to rainbows of hope that is shared by people of all cultures that has made Elytis a "poete sans frontiers", or a poet without borders. This poem recounts the world of Eros, including his battle against the darkness created by misunderstanding and hatred, his victory, and the ultimate justification and praise.

Elytis possessed an historical as well as a moral awareness that became a pivotal part of his poems and served as a counterweight to his deep and abiding love of the Aegean with all of its spectacular beauty. Elytis faced the prospect of his own human mortality as well as the manifestation of tragic human evil when he served with distinction at the Albanian front during the Second World War when the Greeks defeated the Mussolini's army in the first allied forces victory against the Axis. The horrors of that military campaign, followed by his brutal experiences with the Nazi occupation of Greece, a civil war and a military dictatorship, provided a significant catalyst for this gifted poet to continue to carry the literary torch in the tradition of Greece's best poetry which identified ideal beauty with moral good and truth.

The art, literature, philosophy and religion of pre-Classical Greece also greatly influenced the lifetime work of Elytis. In many of his poems, Elytis wrote about heroism in the context of the ancient hero upon whom risks, danger and even terror are thrust by Fate, after which the hero bravely confronts the challenge and is transformed by the experience. The hero, to whom the reader can relate from his own life's experiences, is given this opportunity for growth and development through the inevitable wounds, wisdom and willfulness that result from his encounter with Fate's challenge ... wounds that will heal and sculpt scars of remembrance; wisdom that is born of reflection, generosity of spirit and adherence to life's values; and willfulness of the inner strength of our spirit. A reader of his poetry cannot help seeing himself in many of these poems that at the same time serve to inspire and throw down the gauntlet.

I will always remember Elytis as the Poet of the Aegean Sea. He was born in 1911 and began writing poetry in 1929 in the Aegean islands. He later established himself as one of the leading voices of a generation of literary giants, including his fellow Nobel Laureate George Seferis and Yannis Ritsos. Unlike Seferis who spent a lifetime struggling against melancholy, Elytis is widely appreciated by his readers because he finds hope even in tragedy. His poetry clearly reflects his relentless search for the paradise that lives deeply within all of us and his conviction that the discovery of paradise is within our capability as well as our grasp. Elytis' poems celebrate the vitality and vibrancy of the Aegean landscape, the energies of man and his soul and the spirit of nature. He uses the power of language to link myth with history and to confront good and evil. His poetry clearly reflects his love of hope, freedom and the beauty that is in all.

This first collection of all the works of the great master is a must for anyone who endeavors to explore the Modern Greek culture and discover its representation of the universal human experience. This book has become a source of constant inspiration and discovery in our home.

[Nevena Kotarac · Rating 4 out of 5]

"...A ako tvoja ruka nije u našoj ruci / I ako nema naše krvi u venama tvojih snova / Ni svetlosti na neoskrnavljenom nebu / Ni nevidljive muzike u nama o! tužna / Prolaznice kroza sve ono što nas još uvek drži na svetu / Onda je to vlažni vetar čas jeseni rastanak / Gorko naslanjanje lakta na sećanje / Koje se javlja kada noć hoće da nas rastavi sa svetlošću / Iza četvrtastog prozora koji gleda na tugu / Koji ne vidi ništa / Jer je već postala nevidljiva muzika plamen na ognjištu /otkucaj velikog zidnog sata / Jer je već postala / Pesma stih uz drugi stih sazvučje kiše suza i reči / Reči ne kao druge već onih kojima si samo Ti bila jedini cilj!..." Eliti je jedan od najvećih grčkih pjesnika. Njegove pjesme snažne su kao poljupci, kao more i hridine, sunce i njegovi odrazi, mit i istorija... Čega sve tu nema! Tajanstvena ljepota erotskog. Neponovljiva nježnost poljupca. Neobjašnjiva radost ljubavi. Povjerenje jednog zagrljaja. Čovečno u mitskom. "Svetost čula". Priroda... Evo kako Eliti pjeva u jednoj od divnih zbirki, u "Monogramima": "U raju sam odobravao ostrvo / Sasvim kao ti sa kućom na moru // Sa velikom posteljom i sa malim vratima
/ Odjek sam bacio u vode bez dna / Da sebe gledam ujutru kad se probudim // Pola tebe da gledam dok prelaziš u vodu / A pola da te u raju oplakujem." Priroda, darežljiva i blago hirovita, obasjava ove pjesme. Svijet se rasipa i mrvi od sopstvene ljepote i u svemu skrivene svjetlosti. Živimo. I zahvalni smo zbog toga.

[Dustyn Hessie · Rating 5 out of 5]

An immersion of rhythm and song guides this (unfortunately, not too well known) poetry into a waning abyss of poetic semi-complexity, of Greece, and finalizes itself in the abstruse (mis)fortune of existence...

Or, in old folk's slang: "They don't make'em like this anymore."

What Elytis brings to the fore of poetry is what one should always look for in enduring artworks: The Unique! Finally, a poetry that isn't armored in politics, deflowered in mundaneness, or sundered in it's qualitative dimensions due to the mounting pressure of career interests and group capitulations.

I see in Elytis the elastic shimmering of an atemporality personified in visions, epics, new forms of poetic meaning mastered within well-determined self-made arithmetics of form.

Elytis has an obscure poet's-logic very much geared towards the grammatical denseness of something that the reading world may not be prepared to grasp in all it's cosmic glory. I think it's fair to say that I sometimes trammeled through his work in a sort of conspicuous-befuddlement, all the more encapsulated in the language of such a well-sung, marginalized poet, despite a fair number of inadvertent declinations of meaning.

I've read thousands of poems. This is the second best poetry book I've ever encountered.

[Scott Cox · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of poems by Cretan poet Odysseus Elytis, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1979, is an excellent representation of the varied talent of this writer. My personal favorite is the three-parted “Axion Esti” which includes “The Genesis,” “The Passion,” and “The Gloria.” With regards to “The Genesis,” each of the seven free-verse hymns describe a new stage of the Creation. The refrains: “And he who I truly was He many aeons ago He still green in the fire He uncut from the sky (He not created by Hand, He uncut from the sky)” and “This the world the small the great!” The ending: “THIS then am I and the world the small the great!

[William Lozano-Rivas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Es sin duda, "una de las voces más puras de la poesía neohelénica". En sus versos se manifiesta de manera evidente el apego amoroso por su país. De otro lado, el simbolismo mitológico, la admiración por la naturaleza y la idea de una realidad más madura y luminosa que la que apenas se percibe, son elementos que se mantienen constantes a lo largo de su obra. Elitys es un Nóbel poco conocido que merece la pena admirarse y disfrutarse.

[Robert Spinelli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb, in the best tradition of Paul Eluard, Louis Aragon, Kostis Palamas.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading Odysseas Elytis feels like stepping into light that thinks. His poetry is radiant, Aegean, and elemental—but beneath the sun-drenched surfaces lies a rigorous metaphysical vision. Elytis is often mistaken for a poet of beauty alone.

That’s a misread. Beauty, for Elytis, is resistance.

Emerging from Greece’s turbulent twentieth century—occupation, war, civil strife—Elytis turns to landscape not as escape, but as grounding. Sea, stone, wind, and light become ethical forces.

His Greece is not nationalistic; it is ontological. Identity is not imposed—it arises from attention.

Unlike darker Nobel poets such as Montale or Miłosz, Elytis refuses despair. This refusal is not naïveté; it is discipline.

His poems insist that clarity is possible without simplification, joy without ignorance. Light here is not decorative—it is hard-won.

Formally, Elytis blends surrealism with classical restraint. Images leap, but they are anchored. The result is poetry that feels both ancient and startlingly modern. He reclaims myth not as nostalgia, but as living grammar.

Elytis’s most radical claim is that the world is still intelligible—not through systems, but through perception.

Attention itself becomes moral action. In a century addicted to abstraction and ideology, Elytis insists on the real: the taste of salt, the angle of sunlight, the exact blue of the sea.

Awarding him the Nobel was a recognition that poetry can affirm without lying.

Elytis does not deny suffering. He simply refuses to let it have the final word.

Most recommended.

[Laura L. Van Dam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quería leer una selección de poemas del premio Nobel Odysseas Elytis, pero no la conseguí; como conseguí las obras completas la selección la hice yo misma.
Leí los poemas más famosos como por ejemplo el Axion Estí. Me parecieron muy bellos y conmovedores, especialmente en las partes que narra su experiencia en la Guerra. Hay muchas repeticiones de símbolos, el olivo, la montaña, el mar descrito de todas las formas posibles. Estos poemas destilan helenidad.
Coincidentemente mientras los leía, se cumplieron 20 años de mi estadía en Grecia. Cada imagen descripta en estos poemas me trajo un recuerdo de alguna persona, de una cara, de un lugar, de un momento... fue como dar por cerrada la etapa de mi vida que comenzó con ese viaje (y una relación fallida).
Al cerrar el libro siento que doy vuelta la página en todos los sentidos.

[J. Tayler Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of poems - the author won the Nobel Prize in literature, which was the main reason I attempted to read his works.

There were moments where I enjoyed Elytis’s work - he strings sentences together in a way where you can truly appreciate the beauty of how words and images fit together, as opposed to appreciating the content of the words themselves. However, I have found that I am not necessarily into modern poetry - for that very reason.

Elytis’s work is very surreal - and it is already not easy to follow poetry written in Greek that is translated into English. While I did appreciate the essence of his work, I ultimately lost interest. I do get the sense that I would appreciate Elytis’s poetry more if I already appreciated modern poetry.

[Dolf van der Haven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nobel Prize in Literature 1979.
Greek poetry, so it's very thalassic, steeped in classical Greek literature and scorched by the sun. It is interesting to see the whole development of Elytis's poetry, ranging from the more regular verses to poems that literally disintegrate or merely consist of lists.
Likely, the translations lost some of the flow of the original Greek, but this is not a bilingual edition, so I cannot check.

[Kyriaki K.K · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ο Ελύτης μιλά στη ψυχή μου.

[Οδυσσέας Σταυράκης · Rating 5 out of 5]

Τhe HOLY GRAIL οf Modern Poetry.

[Josh Maher]

Greece

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many of the poems were an inspiration for Mikis Theodorakis who set some of Elytis' texts to music.

[Lisajean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Odysseas Elytis won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1979 "for his poetry, which, against the background of Greek tradition, depicts with sensuous strength and intellectual clear-sightedness modern man's struggle for freedom and creativeness."

Elytis is #61/121 on my Nobel laureate challenge. I enjoyed his poems very much and was impressed by the effectiveness of the translation.

[Katarina · Rating 5 out of 5]

pesnistvo? to je da kazete ono sto imate da kazete, na najlepsi moguci nacin