Article
Revealing the face and soul of Greece: the poetry of Yiannis Ritsos
January 18, 2006
Last but not least, I will talk about the delight that Ritsos’ poetry brings to my senses. I am not referring to his poems that deal with current affairs, which – although I do not shun them en bloc – I believe they are the products of engaged thought processes; I am speaking rather of all the other poems that revealed to us the face and soul of Greece. The poet’s breath raised a wind in which wafted and swirled flakes from the crust of our land, seeds of its vegetation and sparks of its sky. Without Ritsos’ eloquence, Greeks would have forgotten how to name a major part of all those things that are there before their eyes. […] Sometimes like an all-seeing sun, sometimes like a lantern-bearing thief in the night, but never devout, never a naturalist, Ritsos verily surveyed Greek space and delved deep in many of its folds.
Nor did he omit to rake up and describe the creative and destructive forces of our times – suffering the inevitable blows in the process. Like the child of his century that he was, he stared the three worldviews that define our lives and thoughts in the face: Christianity, Marxism, and existentialism.
I endeavoured to approach this creative man, who became so wise through experience, with impartiality, and also to convey my impressions with sincerity without leaving love aside, “for a brave and kindly-natured comrade is as dear to a man as his own brother.” (Odyssey, Book IX, 585-86).
Ekali, August 25th 1980
Excerpts from The Poet Yiannis Ritsos. A Comprehensive View of his Work, by Pantelis Prevelakis.
“Ritsos’ restoration to the totality of his work [-] is an imperative duty to the Greek nation itself, which deserves to regain its unity after nearly forty years of strife,” argues Pantelis Prevelakis in these excerpts from his book on the poet.
I would like to clarify my stance on Ritsos and his work. What attracted me is his entelecheia. Behold a physis, a fate, have I often caught myself exclaiming, unconsciously comparing him to those who use learning to make up for their paucity, or to others, the ‘bourgeois’, by origin or mentality, who have never opened themselves to the risks of total sensuousness. Another thing that drew me to Ritsos was a feeling of long-standing debt to a creator who has been sedulous to a level of self-sacrifice, someone entrenched in politics by both the Right and the Left: a poet who pondered on the fore- and afterlife like a veritable metaphysicist! Ritsos’ restoration to the totality of his work – no matter how manifold and contradictory it may be – is an imperative duty to the Greek nation itself, which deserves to regain its unity after nearly forty years of strife. Whatever helps the development of our intellectual culture belongs to all Greeks, in the present and in the future, for it is a precondition for our humanity and a guarantee of our continuance. Last but not least, I will talk about the delight that Ritsos’ poetry brings to my senses. I am not referring to his poems that deal with current affairs, which – although I do not shun them en bloc – I believe they are the products of engaged thought processes; I am speaking rather of all the other poems that revealed to us the face and soul of Greece. The poet’s breath raised a wind in which wafted and swirled flakes from the crust of our land, seeds of its vegetation and sparks of its sky. Without Ritsos’ eloquence, Greeks would have forgotten how to name a major part of all those things that are there before their eyes. […] Sometimes like an all-seeing sun, sometimes like a lantern-bearing thief in the night, but never devout, never a naturalist, Ritsos verily surveyed Greek space and delved deep in many of its folds.
Nor did he omit to rake up and describe the creative and destructive forces of our times – suffering the inevitable blows in the process. Like the child of his century that he was, he stared the three worldviews that define our lives and thoughts in the face: Christianity, Marxism, and existentialism.
I endeavoured to approach this creative man, who became so wise through experience, with impartiality, and also to convey my impressions with sincerity without leaving love aside, “for a brave and kindly-natured comrade is as dear to a man as his own brother.” (Odyssey, Book IX, 585-86).
Ekali, August 25th 1980
Excerpts from The Poet Yiannis Ritsos. A Comprehensive View of his Work, by Pantelis Prevelakis.
© Pantelis Prevelakis
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