Le Mur dans le miroir et autres poèmes

by Yiannis Ritsos

Le Mur dans le miroir se compose de deux grandes suites de poèmes. La première contient quarante-cinq textes écrits entre le 3 novembre 1967 et le 27 janvier 1968 à Léros, où Ritsos était déporté, la seconde série a été composée entre le 21 mars et le 9 septembre à Athènes, Delphes, Corinthe et Samos. On y trouve le journal d'un prisonnier, mais surtout une suite de natures mortes, de tableaux qui témoignent du monde tumultueux et souffrant, des attentes, des espoirs et des dégoûts de la vie quotidienne. Ismène est un poème dramatique, commencé en 1966, achevé en 1971. Ismène, vieillissante, debout devant le miroir de la guerre civile, tente un ultime plaidoyer en faveur de l'existence et s'élève contre la rigidité d'Antigone.

168 pages, Paperback

First published April 5, 1973

About the author

Yiannis Ritsos (Greek: Γιάννης Ρίτσος) is considered to be one of the five great Greek poets of the twentieth century, together with Konstantinos Kavafis, Kostas Kariotakis, Giorgos Seferis, and Odysseus Elytis. The French poet Louis Aragon once said that Ritsos was "the greatest poet of our age."

Yannis Ritsos was born in Monemvassia (Greece), on May 1st, 1909 as cadet of a noble family of landowners. Born to a well-to-do landowning family in Monemvasia, Ritsos suffered great losses as a child. The early deaths of his mother and his eldest brother from tuberculosis, the commitment of his father who suffered with mental disease and the economic ruin of losing his family marked Ritsos and affected his poetry. Ritsos, himself, was confined in a sanatorium for tuberculosis from 1927–1931.

These tragic events mark him and obsess his œuvre. In 1931, Ritsos joined the Communist Party of Greece (KKE). During the Axis occupation of Greece (1941–1945) he became a member of the EAM (National Liberation Front), and authored several poems for the Greek Resistance. These include a booklet of poems dedicated to the resistance leader Ares Velouchiotis, written immediately upon the latter's death on 16 June 1945. Ritsos also supported the left in the subsequent Civil War (1946-1949); in 1948 he was arrested and spent four years in prison camps.

Reviews

[Bruitsparoles · Rating 2 out of 5]

Je n'aime de Ritsos que ses poèmes longs.