Wednesday, March 27, 2019

From a Greek Nobelist . . .

     Poet Odysseus Elytis (1911-1996) won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1979.  At some time I purchased a copy of The Collected Poems of Odysseus Elytis (translated by Jeffrey Carson and Nicos Sarris, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998) and recently, during a reorganization of my bookshelves, have picked it up again.  His poetry is not easy for me to read but I have been drawn to explore the collection, Marie Nephele, which Carson's introduction tells us was more than fifteen years in the writing.  It is "arranged in three sections of twice seven poems with an introductory and closing poem and two intermediary songs ... ."  Half of the poems are in the voice of a youthful Maria and half in the voice of the poet, "the Antiphonist."  
     Throughout his verse, Elytis is not shy about using mathematical terminology.  Some samples: 

From "The Song of Maria Nepele":

       SUPERSTITION BROUGHT TO A MATHEMATICAL CLARITY WOULD HELP US PERCEIVE THE DEEPER STRUCTURE OF THE WORLD.

     Now I love you in two dimensions . . . you advance dodecaphonic . . .

From "The Marble Table" (found in To Anoint the Repast)

. . . What remains counts.  The same as can never be found in the sum
      The Meridian can be drawn with straight lines but
      The truth always with crooked lines
      The second and third hypostasis inside is
      Is less of mind and more of soil

And, here in an earlier posting, a complete Elytis poem, "They Came."

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