The CHARIOTEER An Annual Review of Modern Greek Culture NUMBERS 24 AND 2' 1982 I 198~ SPECIAL ISSUE ODYSSEUS ELYTIS MARIA NEFELI Poem YANNIS TSAROUHIS Painter THE WOMAN OF ZAKYNTHOS by Dionysios Solomos REVIEW OF BOOKS Published by Parnassos, Greek Cultural Society of New York $10.00 THE CHARIOTEER AN ANNUAL REVIEW OF MODERN GREEK CULTURE Published by Parnassos, Greek Cultural Society of New York NUMBER'S 24 AND 25 1982/1983 EDITORIAL STAFF Executive Editors Andonis Decavalles Despoina Spanos Ikaris Managing Editor Katherine Hortis Editor in Greece Kimon Friar Book Review Editor George Thaniel Business Manager James W. Manousos THE CHARIOTEER is published by PARNASSOS, GREEK CULTURAL SOCIETY OF NEW YORK, a non-profit organization under the laws of the State of New York. Editorial and subscription address: c/o Pella Publishing Company, 337 West 36th Street, New York, NY 10018. Two-number subscription $8; three-number subscription $10. Copyright 1984 by Parnassos. All rights reserved. Printed in U.S.A. by Athens Printing Co., 337 West 36th Street, New York, NY 10018.-THE CHARIOTEER solicits essays on and English translations from works of modern Greek writers. Translations should be accompanied by a copy of the original Greek text. Manuscripts will not be returned unless accompanied by stamped self-addressed envelopes. No responsibility can be assumed for theft, loss or damage. ISBN 0·933824-18-1 ISSN 0577·5574 We are grateful to Houghton Mifflin Company for permtsston to reprint Messrs. Decavalles and Friar's translation of these poems from MARIA NEFELI. Copyright © 1981 by Odysseus Elytis. A complete translation of MARIA NEFEU, as translated by Athan Anagnostopoulos, was published in August, 1981, by Houghton Mifflin Company. The Staff of THE CHARIOTEER are members of Parnassos who donate their services. Support is earnestly requested from all who are interested in the aims of this publication. Your contribution is tax-deductible. TABLE OF CONTENTS ODYSSEUS ELYTIS Portrait 1980 5 by MoRALIS EDITORIAL Despoina Spanos Ikaris 6 MARIA NEFELI and the Changeful Sameness of Elytis Variations on a theme Essay by ANDONIS DECAVALLES 23 from MARIA NEFELI Poem 59 by ODYSSEUS EL YTIS translated by Kimon Friar and Andonis Decavalles ELYTIS AND THE GREEK TRADITION Essay 79 by EDMUND KEELEY from OPEN BOOK Essay 97 by ODYSSEUS ELYTIS Equivalencies Chez Picasso translated from the original French by Joyce Miller INTERVIEW WITH YIANNIS TSAROUHIS 101 by EDOUARD RoDITI PAINTINGS 105 THE WOMAN OF ZAKYNTHOS Narrative Poem 118 by DIONY'SIOS SoLoMos translated by Marianthe Colakis REVIEW OF BOOKS 137 EDITORIAL One of the wonders of the modern world is the multi­ national complexity of American culture. The legend of its hospitable embrace, however, hides a deep danger. Our nation is at risk of being Balkanized by undeclared, internecine war­ fare among heterogeneous citizen-organizations who serve, not the common, national good, but special, exclusive and often non­ American interests. The remedy for such disunion is what ,it has always been: Americans must learn to understand each other and subordinate divisive egoism so as to live by what is best in each for the betterment of the nation. For more than twenty years, the primary purpose of THE CHARIOTEER has been to foster such understanding by present­ ing the writers and artists of Modern Greece to our English­ speaking readers who are scattered around the world but are mostly in America. The task of THE CHARIOTEER has, fortunately, been not to span a chasm of hostilities but to open a new avenue along that broadest of thoroughfares which for more than :twenty centuries has been the busiest v~tal artery in the life of the Western world and helped establish the historic bond between America and Greece. Our founding fathers first acknowledged that bond when they considered the adoption of Greek as a national language and risked their lives to create on these shores a nation based on the ideals of ancient Greece-however cast into Roman models-of truth and justice and freedom. For the survival of her own people and of her Western allies, Modern Greece has, in turn, repeatedly reinforced that bond by fighting to uphold those ideals within her own ranks and against despotic invaders. (The what-have-you-done-£or-me-la!tely cynicism of world politics tends to ignore the fact that the bloodshed in Greece during World War II was, proportionately, more than in any other country.) The American dream of social justice, for instance, stems from a "tradition" which Rex Warner describes as "pecu­ liarly Greek" but, he adds, it "is also in a sense common to humanity. So far aJS human values are concerned no tradition 6 Despoina Spanos Ikaris: Editorial 7 in history is of comparable importance" [George Seferis, On The Greek Style; trans. R. Warner and Th. D. Frangopoulos (London, The Bodley Head, 1967) p v}. The ultimate aim of THE CHARIOTEER is to serve the hu­ manizing cause of World literature, by affirming through the civilization of Modern Greece :the testimony of that all-embrac­ ing humanity which first began to express itself in Ancient Greece; If the world we love is to survive, the dwellers of this fast-shrinking earth must learn to share the feelings of "an old [Syracusan in 413, B.C.) called Nicolaus, who ... lost his two sons in the war [and) comes forward and appeals for a policy of mercy [against the) proposal tha:t [the Athenian invaders) he put to death under torture, and ... thrown into the quarries; ... 'The spirits of civilized men', Nicolaus declares, 'are overcome above all by compassion, because of the fellow-feeling which nature has implanted in us'" [H. C. Baldry, The Unity of Mankind in Greek Thought (Cambridge University Press, 1965) pp 71-72). The focus of THE CHARIOTEER is, for the most part, literary. It offers the common, English-speaking reader a timeless collec­ tion of Modern Greek writing which reflects ·the history of Modern Greek literature and can be used as a text by students of comparative literature who are Greek-less. While THE CHARIOTEER has presented the best writers of Modern Greece, it has occasionally published works which-though not, perhaps, unquestionably first-rate-deserve to be known chiefly because they illustrate a phase in her history and culture. THE CHARIOTEER seeks to overcome ·the barrier of language which-except for isolated instances-has delayed the arrival of Modern Greek literature upon the international scene. A more serious hindrance, we believe, has been the absence of a keen, learned, objective Modern Greek criticism to guide or cauterize, goad or inspire her talents. If Greece today had such an indigenous body of criticism, her writers would have a greater voice among those who are determining the consciousness of the modern world. To speed the day when that voice may enjoy its righttful resonance abroad, we have often discussed Modern Greek writing accord­ ing to theory and practice of art set forth or illustrated by significant writers, artists and critics, especially in America. 8 THE CHARIOTEER Parallels in the development of each culture-the one struggling to revive almost a hundred years after the birth of .the other­ show how a democratic people~through ·~ts writers, artists, and critics-develops the consciousness that makes it a nation. This double issue of THE CHARIOTEER is, as we promised, devoted to the poet Odysseus Elytis. His works, we are honored to declare, help our publication fulfill its every purpose. Above and beyond their intrinsic genius, they reflect a career through which can be traced a major phase in the development of Modern Greek consciousness. If his achievement were not embodied in slender volumes rwhose weight is spiritual rather than corporeal, it might be seen as a kind of colossus, extraordinary in itself, straddEng the last half century and bearing high a light which cuts a glittering path through a cultural miasma that has plagued Modern Greece and infects the rworld at large. Amply translated, the works of Elytis hold the attention of serious critics and devoted readers in many lands. He gained a permanent place in World literature when he received the Nobel Prize for Lit­ erature in 1979, and again the poetry of Greece claimed ·the niche Seferis made for it in 1963. In his remarkable volume of essays-Open Book [ Anihta Hartia (Athens, Ikaros, 1982); except where otherwise indicalted numbers in brackets refer to pages of this text}-Elytis presents at great length his aesthetic credo. He discusses some signal points of his career and analyzes important figures and move­ ments which have contributed, positively or negatively, to the development of contemporary Western culture. He refers often to •the French among whom he lived for many years and who first unveiled the poetic horizons which ·altered the course of his life. He moves with learned ease across a universal range of ideas, ·ancient and modern, in philosophy, religion, history and psychology, as in art :lind poetry, which relate to the intel­ lectual climate of our time. Throughout 1this collection, scintillates an indefatigable, imaginative, passionately partisan, creative and critical spirit of inquiry which is surprisingly-how shaH we say ?-American. In its ana1ytical judgments and philosophic approach to questions of life and art, interspersed with autobiographical sequences (recalling, to .the very moment, a flash of mind, at a particular Despoina Spanos Ikaris: Editorial 9 place and the flood of sensations there-the musty bookshop, for instance, when Elouard's poetry suddenly shifted the tropism of his being-) Open Book resembles precisely such essays by Henry James. Whatever differences occur between the tem­ peraments of ·the 19th-century American novelist (1843-1916) and the 20th-century Greek poet (1911- ), their quality of mind is strikingly similar.