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Yiannis Ritsos

January 01, 1970

Yiannis Ritsos (Greek: Γιάννης Ρίτσος; 1 May 1909 – 11 November 1990) was a Greek poet and communist and an active member of the Greek Resistance during World War II. While he disliked being regarded as a political poet, he has been called "the great poet of the Greek left".

Yiannis Ritsos
Born(1909-05-01)1 May 1909
Monemvasia, Greece
Died11 November 1990(1990-11-11) (aged 81)
Athens, Greece
OccupationPoet
NationalityGreek
Literary movementModernism
Generation of the '30s[1]
Notable awardsLenin Peace Prize
1975
Signature

Life edit

Born to a well-to-do landowning family in Monemvasia, Ritsos suffered great losses as a child. The early deaths of his mother and eldest brother from tuberculosis, his father's struggles with a mental disease, and the economic ruin of his family marked Ritsos and affected his poetry. Ritsos himself was confined in a sanatorium for tuberculosis from 1927–1931.[2]

Literary start edit

In 1934, Ritsos joined the Communist Party of Greece (KKE).[3] He maintained a working-class circle of friends and published Tractor in 1934. Kostis Palamas, the well known and respected poet, impressed by his talent, praised him publicly.

In 1935, he published Pyramids; these two works sought to achieve a fragile balance between faith in the future, founded on the Communist ideal, and personal despair. Tractors and Pyramids initially were not well-received by leftist critics, who found the language "too embellished" and Ritsos overly focused on form.[4]

He was inspired for his landmark poem Epitaphios by a photo of a dead protester during a massive tobacco-workers demonstration in Thessaloniki in May 1936. Published the same year, it broke with the shape of the Greek traditional popular poetry and expressed in clear and simple language a message of the unity of all people.[2]

Political upheaval and the poet edit

In August 1936, the right-wing dictatorship of Ioannis Metaxas came to power and Epitaphios was burned publicly at the foot of the Acropolis in Athens. Ritsos responded by taking his work in a different direction. He began to explore the conquests of surrealism through the domain of dreams, surprising associations, explosions of images and symbols, a lyricism illustrative of the anguish of the poet, and both tender and bitter souvenirs. During this period Ritsos published The Song of my Sister (1937) and Symphony of the Spring (1938).[2]

Axis occupation, Civil War and the Junta edit

During the Axis occupation of Greece (1941–1945) Ritsos 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 Aris Velouchiotis, written immediately upon the latter's death on 16 June 1945.[5] Ritsos also supported the Left in the subsequent Civil War (1946-1949); in 1948 he was arrested and spent four years in prison camps. In the 1950s Epitaphios, set to music by Mikis Theodorakis, became the anthem of the Greek Left.

In 1967 he was arrested by the Papadopoulos dictatorship and sent to a prison camp in Gyaros, later to Samos and finally Lemnos.

Legacy edit

 
Sculpture "Prisoner Stones 1" (1974) by Hans-Jürgen Breuste in Erlangen. Featuring a Yannis Ritsos poem.

Today, Ritsos is considered one of the great Greek poets of the twentieth century,[6][7][8] alongside Konstantinos Kavafis, Kostas Kariotakis, Angelos Sikelianos, Giorgos Seferis, and Odysseas Elytis.[4] The French poet Louis Aragon once said that Ritsos was "the greatest poet of our age." Pablo Neruda declared him to be more deserving of the Nobel Prize for Literature than himself.[4] Ritsos was unsuccessfully proposed nine times for it. When he won the Lenin Peace Prize in 1975, he declared "this prize is more important for me than the Nobel."[8]

His poetry was banned at times in Greece due to his left wing beliefs.

Notable works by Ritsos include Pyramids (1935), Epitaphios (1936; second edition, 1956), Vigil (1941–1953), Romiosini (1954) and 18 short songs of the bitter Motherland (18 λιανοτράγουδα της πικρής πατρίδας/18 Lianotragouda Tis Pikris Patridas) (1973).[9][10] Stratis Haviaras also praised two poems (the one about Jesus and the one about Karl Marx) in his first collection Tractor (1934).[9] Robert Shannan Peckham described him as "perhaps Greece's greatest contemporary poet." Epitaphios became an anthem of the Greek left in the 1950s,[11] and his best-known work.[12]

Ritsos won the first Greek state poetry award for Moonlight Sonata:[13]

I know that each one of us travels to love alone,
alone to faith and to death.
I know it. I've tried it. It doesn't help.
Let me come with you.

— Moonlight Sonata. Translation by Peter Green and Beverly Bardsley


Some offer more measured praise. In a review of Selected Poems: 1938-1988, James Erdman argued,[14]

To my ear, many of these selections are simply short prose works, lacking the concentration of the best poetry. The pieces of ancient history and mythology from Repetitions such as "The Graves of Our Ancestors," "Alcmene," "Philometa," and "Achilles After Death" seem among the better efforts. [...] he often uses dream imagery, which can be effective in small doses but soon grows monotonous: not all concepts can be expressed in images. [...] But Ritsos is also capable of writing with great power. His best poem is "Romiosini," a lengthy paean to the spirit of the Greek Resistance.

Ted Sampson stated that Louis Aragon's declaration about Ritsos was "hyperbolic", but wrote that the poet still "excelled in brief epigrammatic utterances as well as in extended lyrics, sequences, and verse dramas of astonishing imagistic and thematic originality—to say nothing of their latent emotional intensity".[15]

Ritsos is also a Golden Wreath Laureate of the Struga Poetry Evenings for 1985.

His daughter, Eri, was a candidate for the European Parliament with KKE in the elections of 25 May 2014.

Translations edit

  • Subterranean Horses, tr. Minas Savvas, illustrations by the author (1980)
  • Chronicle of Exile, tr. M. Savvas (1977) [select poems]
  • Eighteen Short Songs of the Bitter Motherland, tr. A. Mims, illus. Y. Ritsos (1974) [Greek and English]
  • Exile and Return, tr. E. Keeley (1985; repr. 1987, 1989) [select poems]
  • Gestures and other poems, 1968-1970, tr. N. Stangos, illus. by the poet (1971)
  • Repetitions, Testimonies, Parentheses, tr. E. Keeley (1990)
  • Selected Poems 1938-1988, tr. K. Friar, K. Myrsiades & others (1989)
  • Selected Poems, tr. N. Stangos (1974)
  • The Fourth Dimension, tr. P. Green, B. Bardsley (1993)
  • Late Into the Night: The Last Poems of Yannis Ritsos, trans. Martin McKinsey (Oberlin College Press, 1995). ISBN 0-932440-71-1
  • Diaries of Exile, Archipelago Books, ISBN 978-1-935744-58-0, (2012)
  • Petrified Time: Poems from Makrónissos, trans. Martin McKinsey and Scott King (Red Dragonfly Press, 2014). ISBN 978-1937693237.
  • Twelve Poems About Cavafy, tr. Paul Merchant (Tavern Books, 2010)
  • Monochords, tr. Paul Merchant (Tavern Books, 2017)

References edit

  1. ^ Antonis Liakos, "Hellenism and the Making of Modern Greece" in: Hellenisms: Culture, Identity, and Ethnicity from Antiquity to Modernity, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2008, p. 216.
  2. ^ a b c Wagner, Guy (2003). . Archived from the original on 2008-10-14. Retrieved 2009-01-24.
  3. ^ Glanville, Jo. Beyond Bars. SAGE Publications Ltd. ISBN 9781446241479.
  4. ^ a b c Capri-Karka, C. (1987–88). "Editorial" (PDF). The Charioteer. No. 29/30. pp. 7–18. ISBN 0-933824-20-3. ISSN 0577-5574. "An Issue of The CHARIOTEER dedicated to Y annis Ritsos is long overdue. Out of the hundreds of worthy poets that flourished in modem Greece, Ritsos is one of the outstanding few, on a level with Cavafy, Seferis and Elytis. The poet of Romiosini, Epitaphios and Lianotragouda is well-known by every Greek, especially since his unique poetry was set to music by Mikis Theodorakis."
  5. ^ The poems are dated July 1945. Το Υστερόγραφο της δόξας ('Postscript to glory'), 10th ed., Athens: Kedros, 1991.
  6. ^ Brahic, Beverley Bie (2013-02-22). "In Secret: Versions of Yannis Ritsos translated by David Harsent – review". The Guardian. Retrieved 2021-04-02. "Yannis Ritsos (1909-1990) is one of Greece's preeminent 20th-century poets."
  7. ^ Papadopoulos, Stephanos (2013-05-10). "Hurt Into Poetry: On Poetry and Greece". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 2021-04-02. "Yiannis Ritsos (1909-1990), one of Greece's greatest, and perhaps still underrated, poets, [...]"
  8. ^ a b Chrysopoulos, Philip (2018-11-11). "November 11, 1990: World of Poetry Mourns Passing of Yiannis Ritsos". Greek Reporter. Retrieved 2021-04-02. "When Yiannis Ritsos passed away on November 11, 1990, the world of poetry lost one of the greatest poets of the 20th century. [...] Epitaphios, Romiosini and Moonlight Sonata are three of his best-known works. [...] he wrote 'My Sister's Song', some of the most beautiful lyrics in modern Greek writing."
  9. ^ a b Haviaras, Stratis (1991). "Review of Selected Poems, 1938-1988". Harvard Book Review (19/20): 18. ISSN 1080-6067. JSTOR 27545560. "works such as Epitaphios (1936, and second, definitive edition 1956), Romiosyne (1947), Moonlight Sonata (1956), Testimonies I (1963) and II (1965), are generally considered to be his best"
  10. ^ Nilan, Vivienne (2002-03-14). "Two books highlight work of Ritsos | eKathimerini.com". Kathimerini. Retrieved 2021-04-02. "Greece was still under the colonels' junta and the 18 poems poignantly reflected the sufferings and resilience of the Greeks."
  11. ^ "Yannis Ritsos -- Britannica Academic". academic-eb-com.eres.qnl.qa. Retrieved 2021-04-02.
  12. ^ Peckham, Robert Shannan (1992). "Yannis Ritsos (1909-1990)". Mediterraneans. 2–3: 327–331.
  13. ^ "Yannis Ritsos, 81; Prolific Greek Poet". Los Angeles Times. 1990-11-13. Retrieved 2021-04-02.
  14. ^ Erdman, James (1990). "Review of Selected Poems: 1938-1988". Harvard Book Review (17/18): 37–38. ISSN 1080-6067. JSTOR 27500167.
  15. ^ Sampson, Ted (1990). "Review of Selected Poems, 1938-1988". World Literature Today. 64 (3): 507–508. doi:10.2307/40146791. ISSN 0196-3570. JSTOR 40146791.

External links edit

  • translated into English
  • Moonlight Sonata 2019-03-28 at the Wayback Machine (in Greek and English)
  • Ritsos on poetryfoundation biography and poems translated into English

January 01, 1970
yiannis, ritsos, help, expand, this, article, with, text, translated, from, corresponding, article, greek, march, 2015, click, show, important, translation, instructions, view, machine, translated, version, greek, article, machine, translation, like, deepl, go. You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Greek March 2015 Click show for important translation instructions View a machine translated version of the Greek article Machine translation like DeepL or Google Translate is a useful starting point for translations but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate rather than simply copy pasting machine translated text into the English Wikipedia Consider adding a topic to this template there are already 355 articles in the main category and specifying topic will aid in categorization Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low quality If possible verify the text with references provided in the foreign language article You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Greek Wikipedia article at el Giannhs Ritsos see its history for attribution You may also add the template Translated el Giannhs Ritsos to the talk page For more guidance see Wikipedia Translation Yiannis Ritsos Greek Giannhs Ritsos 1 May 1909 11 November 1990 was a Greek poet and communist and an active member of the Greek Resistance during World War II While he disliked being regarded as a political poet he has been called the great poet of the Greek left Yiannis RitsosBorn 1909 05 01 1 May 1909Monemvasia GreeceDied11 November 1990 1990 11 11 aged 81 Athens GreeceOccupationPoetNationalityGreekLiterary movementModernismGeneration of the 30s 1 Notable awardsLenin Peace Prize 1975Signature Contents 1 Life 2 Literary start 3 Political upheaval and the poet 4 Axis occupation Civil War and the Junta 5 Legacy 6 Translations 7 References 8 External linksLife editBorn to a well to do landowning family in Monemvasia Ritsos suffered great losses as a child The early deaths of his mother and eldest brother from tuberculosis his father s struggles with a mental disease and the economic ruin of his family marked Ritsos and affected his poetry Ritsos himself was confined in a sanatorium for tuberculosis from 1927 1931 2 Literary start editIn 1934 Ritsos joined the Communist Party of Greece KKE 3 He maintained a working class circle of friends and published Tractor in 1934 Kostis Palamas the well known and respected poet impressed by his talent praised him publicly In 1935 he published Pyramids these two works sought to achieve a fragile balance between faith in the future founded on the Communist ideal and personal despair Tractors and Pyramids initially were not well received by leftist critics who found the language too embellished and Ritsos overly focused on form 4 He was inspired for his landmark poem Epitaphios by a photo of a dead protester during a massive tobacco workers demonstration in Thessaloniki in May 1936 Published the same year it broke with the shape of the Greek traditional popular poetry and expressed in clear and simple language a message of the unity of all people 2 Political upheaval and the poet editIn August 1936 the right wing dictatorship of Ioannis Metaxas came to power and Epitaphios was burned publicly at the foot of the Acropolis in Athens Ritsos responded by taking his work in a different direction He began to explore the conquests of surrealism through the domain of dreams surprising associations explosions of images and symbols a lyricism illustrative of the anguish of the poet and both tender and bitter souvenirs During this period Ritsos published The Song of my Sister 1937 and Symphony of the Spring 1938 2 Axis occupation Civil War and the Junta editDuring the Axis occupation of Greece 1941 1945 Ritsos 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 Aris Velouchiotis written immediately upon the latter s death on 16 June 1945 5 Ritsos also supported the Left in the subsequent Civil War 1946 1949 in 1948 he was arrested and spent four years in prison camps In the 1950s Epitaphios set to music by Mikis Theodorakis became the anthem of the Greek Left In 1967 he was arrested by the Papadopoulos dictatorship and sent to a prison camp in Gyaros later to Samos and finally Lemnos Legacy edit nbsp Sculpture Prisoner Stones 1 1974 by Hans Jurgen Breuste in Erlangen Featuring a Yannis Ritsos poem Today Ritsos is considered one of the great Greek poets of the twentieth century 6 7 8 alongside Konstantinos Kavafis Kostas Kariotakis Angelos Sikelianos Giorgos Seferis and Odysseas Elytis 4 The French poet Louis Aragon once said that Ritsos was the greatest poet of our age Pablo Neruda declared him to be more deserving of the Nobel Prize for Literature than himself 4 Ritsos was unsuccessfully proposed nine times for it When he won the Lenin Peace Prize in 1975 he declared this prize is more important for me than the Nobel 8 His poetry was banned at times in Greece due to his left wing beliefs Notable works by Ritsos include Pyramids 1935 Epitaphios 1936 second edition 1956 Vigil 1941 1953 Romiosini 1954 and 18 short songs of the bitter Motherland 18 lianotragoyda ths pikrhs patridas 18 Lianotragouda Tis Pikris Patridas 1973 9 10 Stratis Haviaras also praised two poems the one about Jesus and the one about Karl Marx in his first collection Tractor 1934 9 Robert Shannan Peckham described him as perhaps Greece s greatest contemporary poet Epitaphios became an anthem of the Greek left in the 1950s 11 and his best known work 12 Ritsos won the first Greek state poetry award for Moonlight Sonata 13 I know that each one of us travels to love alone alone to faith and to death I know it I ve tried it It doesn t help Let me come with you Moonlight Sonata Translation by Peter Green and Beverly Bardsley Some offer more measured praise In a review of Selected Poems 1938 1988 James Erdman argued 14 To my ear many of these selections are simply short prose works lacking the concentration of the best poetry The pieces of ancient history and mythology from Repetitions such as The Graves of Our Ancestors Alcmene Philometa and Achilles After Death seem among the better efforts he often uses dream imagery which can be effective in small doses but soon grows monotonous not all concepts can be expressed in images But Ritsos is also capable of writing with great power His best poem is Romiosini a lengthy paean to the spirit of the Greek Resistance Ted Sampson stated that Louis Aragon s declaration about Ritsos was hyperbolic but wrote that the poet still excelled in brief epigrammatic utterances as well as in extended lyrics sequences and verse dramas of astonishing imagistic and thematic originality to say nothing of their latent emotional intensity 15 Ritsos is also a Golden Wreath Laureate of the Struga Poetry Evenings for 1985 His daughter Eri was a candidate for the European Parliament with KKE in the elections of 25 May 2014 Translations editSubterranean Horses tr Minas Savvas illustrations by the author 1980 Chronicle of Exile tr M Savvas 1977 select poems Eighteen Short Songs of the Bitter Motherland tr A Mims illus Y Ritsos 1974 Greek and English Exile and Return tr E Keeley 1985 repr 1987 1989 select poems Gestures and other poems 1968 1970 tr N Stangos illus by the poet 1971 Repetitions Testimonies Parentheses tr E Keeley 1990 Selected Poems 1938 1988 tr K Friar K Myrsiades amp others 1989 Selected Poems tr N Stangos 1974 The Fourth Dimension tr P Green B Bardsley 1993 Late Into the Night The Last Poems of Yannis Ritsos trans Martin McKinsey Oberlin College Press 1995 ISBN 0 932440 71 1 Diaries of Exile Archipelago Books ISBN 978 1 935744 58 0 2012 Petrified Time Poems from Makronissos trans Martin McKinsey and Scott King Red Dragonfly Press 2014 ISBN 978 1937693237 Twelve Poems About Cavafy tr Paul Merchant Tavern Books 2010 Monochords tr Paul Merchant Tavern Books 2017 References edit Antonis Liakos Hellenism and the Making of Modern Greece in Hellenisms Culture Identity and Ethnicity from Antiquity to Modernity Ashgate Publishing Ltd 2008 p 216 a b c Wagner Guy 2003 Ritsos Archived from the original on 2008 10 14 Retrieved 2009 01 24 Glanville Jo Beyond Bars SAGE Publications Ltd ISBN 9781446241479 a b c Capri Karka C 1987 88 Editorial PDF The Charioteer No 29 30 pp 7 18 ISBN 0 933824 20 3 ISSN 0577 5574 An Issue of The CHARIOTEER dedicated to Y annis Ritsos is long overdue Out of the hundreds of worthy poets that flourished in modem Greece Ritsos is one of the outstanding few on a level with Cavafy Seferis and Elytis The poet of Romiosini Epitaphios and Lianotragouda is well known by every Greek especially since his unique poetry was set to music by Mikis Theodorakis The poems are dated July 1945 To Ysterografo ths do3as Postscript to glory 10th ed Athens Kedros 1991 Brahic Beverley Bie 2013 02 22 In Secret Versions of Yannis Ritsos translated by David Harsent review The Guardian Retrieved 2021 04 02 Yannis Ritsos 1909 1990 is one of Greece s preeminent 20th century poets Papadopoulos Stephanos 2013 05 10 Hurt Into Poetry On Poetry and Greece Los Angeles Review of Books Retrieved 2021 04 02 Yiannis Ritsos 1909 1990 one of Greece s greatest and perhaps still underrated poets a b Chrysopoulos Philip 2018 11 11 November 11 1990 World of Poetry Mourns Passing of Yiannis Ritsos Greek Reporter Retrieved 2021 04 02 When Yiannis Ritsos passed away on November 11 1990 the world of poetry lost one of the greatest poets of the 20th century Epitaphios Romiosini and Moonlight Sonata are three of his best known works he wrote My Sister s Song some of the most beautiful lyrics in modern Greek writing a b Haviaras Stratis 1991 Review of Selected Poems 1938 1988 Harvard Book Review 19 20 18 ISSN 1080 6067 JSTOR 27545560 works such as Epitaphios 1936 and second definitive edition 1956 Romiosyne 1947 Moonlight Sonata 1956 Testimonies I 1963 and II 1965 are generally considered to be his best Nilan Vivienne 2002 03 14 Two books highlight work of Ritsos eKathimerini com Kathimerini Retrieved 2021 04 02 Greece was still under the colonels junta and the 18 poems poignantly reflected the sufferings and resilience of the Greeks Yannis Ritsos Britannica Academic academic eb com eres qnl qa Retrieved 2021 04 02 Peckham Robert Shannan 1992 Yannis Ritsos 1909 1990 Mediterraneans 2 3 327 331 Yannis Ritsos 81 Prolific Greek Poet Los Angeles Times 1990 11 13 Retrieved 2021 04 02 Erdman James 1990 Review of Selected Poems 1938 1988 Harvard Book Review 17 18 37 38 ISSN 1080 6067 JSTOR 27500167 Sampson Ted 1990 Review of Selected Poems 1938 1988 World Literature Today 64 3 507 508 doi 10 2307 40146791 ISSN 0196 3570 JSTOR 40146791 External links editPoetry translated into English Moonlight Sonata Archived 2019 03 28 at the Wayback Machine in Greek and English Ritsos on poetryfoundation biography and poems translated into English Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Yiannis Ritsos amp oldid 1221622013, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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