Notes

18 januari 2006 Ce sera, aux yeux du public lisant, une curiosité de ce temps que de voir à quel point un écrivain très perspicace et direct, acquit une notoriété en contradiction (du tout au tout) avec ses qualités, pour avoir, simplement, exclus les clichés, trouvé un moule propre à chaque phrase et pratiqué le purisme.

Stéphane Mallarmé


As I am a painter by profession and, moreover, regard poetry as an entirely personal matter, I have never felt any desire whatsoever to see my poems in print. I was simply content to write them. Afterwards, of course, I had no objection at all to reading them to a friend, sometimes even to a small circle of listeners, two or three at most, who asked me to do so. Yet I would never have consented to have them printed before the middle of 1938. This was the year that I finished my apprenticeship in painting. I was studying under Konstantinos Parthenis, and I thought it improper in view of my dear, respected master for me to want to express myself on a personal level, and moreover in the mode of a different ‘school’, that of surrealism, at the same time that it was alongside him that I was being trained for my future artistic career. I don’t think it was against the wishes of the great Parthenis, however, to see his pupils following their own path, on completion of their studies, in keeping with their own particular temperament and inclination.

When, well into the summer of 1938, that charming poet, Apostolos Melachrinos, asked me for some poems to include in an issue of his magazine Kyklos, I was at last free to do so and I gave him quite a few from my output that year so that he could chose whichever he wanted. He liked them so much (“They’re to my liking” were his exact words) that not only did he publish many of them in the next issue of Kyklos but he also offered to publish, indeed insisted on publishing, all the poems I’d given him in book form, again as a Kyklos publication.

This kind man sat down with me to do the pagination together. He then saw to the typesetting. He even did the typesetting for a number of poems himself – I’ll never forget what an honour that was – as he had the Kyklos printing shop set up in one room of his house in Daidalou Street. That unforgettable man went to great pains over the printing: after the proofreading, he chose the best press that could be found in Athens at that time. He even insisted that two different-coloured inks be used for the cover and for the title page. And the book came out one or, at most, two months after the magazine.

We’d already had intimations of what was to come with the publication of the magazine. When the book appeared, however, the ‘scandal’ that was caused not only exceeded anything that had ever before been seen in Greek letters but went beyond the bounds of the wildest imagination. In no time at all, the whole business became so intense and acquired such proportions that even Melachrinos, my ‘mentor’, was completely taken aback. Though it could not be said of him that he lacked pluck, he never announced the publication, nor did he ever include it in the list of Kyklos publications that he regularly published on the back cover of the magazine.

I can’t say that the scandal that was created and the ensuing outcry against me did not deeply upset me. Such vehement abuse in response to a genuine offering is, if nothing else, cruelly unfair. Magazines, newspapers, le premier chien coiffé venu, parodied and derisively quoted my poems. In fact, one of the larger newspapers, I no longer recall which one, brazenly ignoring all idea of intellectual property, went so far as to re-publish the entire book in two instalments, each one accompanied by scornful and malicious, not to say superficial, comments!

I have never been concerned with fame or glory. My sole desire: to pass unnoticed, if unable to be likeable, among my fellow ‘wayfarers’. And yet I even had the following phrase hurled at me, I no longer remember in what paper, by some indignant ‘literary’ critic: “Engonopoulos, stop tormenting yourself and us too!”

If my life is devoted to painting and poetry, it’s because painting and poetry both comfort and amuse me. So then too, despite my disappointment, I relentlessly continued to paint and to ‘write’ poems (1). And when, in the middle of 1939, the late Tassos Vakalopoulos, native of Nauplion, offered to publish a collection of mine, I gave him the poems in The Clavicembalos of Silence, which duly came out at the end of that same year.

I ought to point out here that, even though it never cost me anything to have my poems published, I never received any material reward from them either.

My new collection met with the same, if not worse, reception by the ‘intellectual’ circles in Athens. A fact particularly worthy of note if one considers that the times were then somewhat difficult: in the West, the Second World War had already begun, and despairingly black clouds were already gathering on the Attic horizon, presaging the approach of impending misfortune.

Well, then, who were these people in the enraged crowd, condemning me? The same, old, familiar ones. Above all, the indifferent whose usual concerns are completely different and for whom culture, poetry and art is an open field into which they believe they have every right to enter as their mood dictates, to behave stupidly, to ‘have their fun’ as the saying goes. All the more so when there are busybodies to rouse them and make the first move . . . ! Because on their own, they wouldn’t ‘detect’ such reprehensible and ridiculous things: they wouldn’t be able, perhaps they wouldn’t even dare (2). Then again, these ‘namby-pambies’ (3), who most likely have some small interest in a minor aspect of art and who, in their ignorance and illiteracy, even their semi-literacy, think they have the right to attack and slander those with whom they disagree. Finally, there are those who are simply malicious, who in this way grant themselves the right to harm their fellows on any pretext. Indeed, those granting themselves such rights have very little worth: the truly cultivated man accepts and recognises only obligations for himself.

To give a clear picture of the whole situation, I quote from the article of a well-known critic concerning the period that I’m describing: “At that time when the terms and aspects of the new poetry were still aesthetically and critically unclear, Engonopoulos’ two collections made a decisive contribution to the ultimate crystallisation of the concept of Surrealism in the understanding of a great many people, as they caused an intellectual scandal without precedent in our literary history. From that time, Engonopoulos became a target for the vehement and, in effect, anti-intellectual persecution by columnists, reviewers, scholars, critics and poets, which soon generalised itself into a blind attack on our new poetry and literature. Yet whereas the work of others gradually came to gain acceptance ‘in small doses’ as original and new poetry, no pardon was granted to Engonopoulos, and his name was placed in the most inaccessible region of our literature as explicitly prohibited . . .”, etc. And this critic should be fully believed, as his information comes from a reliable source. Whereas, today, I am proud to be able to list him among my most amiable friends – personal friends and friends of my work – I have to confess that he was then numbered among my most merciless and implacable reproachers and censurers.

Following the publication of Domaine Grec, after 1947 that is, Mme. M. Kranaki described this ‘heroic era’ in Greece in the Paris magazine Critique: “ . . . la réaction du public fut beaucoup plus violente qu’ailleurs. Le seul titre assez peu provocant de Clavecins du Silence, recueil de vers d’Engonopoulos, souleva des vagues d’hystérie”(4).

It should be noted that the war had meanwhile caught up with us. I was enlisted and sent to the front line, to the ‘line of fire’, where they stubbornly kept me until the end of the operations and without any respite, if I exclude a rather tortuous ‘intermezzo’ in the ‘Piraeus Company’, more commonly known as the ‘disciplinary unit’. For everyone knows that, particularly during the period of the truly unforgettable ‘4th of August’, the term ‘intellectual’ was synonymous with the term ‘suspicious’. After a slaughterous battle on 13 April 1941, I was taken prisoner by the Germans and illegally held, together with my comrades, in prisoners’ ‘work camps’. I escaped, tramped over half of Greece on foot, and finally returned to more of the same. The hostility and the ‘rires jaunes’ remained unchanged, and remained so until the time of ‘Bolivar’. This poem was liked by the youth of the time and, very gradually, the situation began to soften. Eventually, in 1958, I was awarded the National Prize for Poetry by the Ministry of Education for the collection I’d published in the preceding year, but also “for my previous poetic output”. It is the only honour I have ever received from the State. I was doubly surprised because, first of all, I had not submitted any application, nor, as is my custom, had I taken any steps to this end, and also because most of the Committee members were hostile towards my work and many continue to be so even today.

I mentioned above that the vehemence of the attacks against me did not stop me in the slightest from painting and ‘writing’ poems. I cannot say, though, that these attacks did not cause me any problems in my life; just the opposite (5). As I am not ‘economically independent’ and as I have no talent whatsoever for what is called ‘diplomacy’, I worked hard and long as an employee, without ever once being absent, in order to secure my freedom, a little time, and the scanty means that allowed me to work as an artist. Only God knows how demanding and expensive the craft of painting is. I never encountered any wealthy patron. I was a good employee and I can say this by virtue of the various letters of recommendation from my, happily few, employers. It is not hard to imagine just how willing these various employers were to secure the livelihood of a subordinate with the reputation of being a ‘poet’, and even more, of a ‘scandalous poet’! One or two behaved incredibly harshly towards me. Today, my experience allows me to say, fully aware of my responsibility, that in Greece and particularly in our times, respect is manifested as ruthless persecution. I think that, in former times, modern Greek society treated the artist with complete indifference, but without hate.

However, the greatest pain in all my pre-war experiences came from elsewhere. The behaviour of the ‘cultivated’ and of the ‘colleagues’ round about me. The abuse and attacks against a genuine representative of poetry by those indifferent to poetry, or rather, those openly hostile to it. They took delight in reviling him, in trying to destroy him. Even those who could understand what I was trying to say and who could soften and lessen this unjust behaviour, did nothing, motivated either by self-interest or by plain jealousy. A huge range, horrid to the view, of human failings and cravenness. To my face, some feigned friendship, others tolerance, but behind my back they all joined their voices with the pack of hounds. They each in their own way had to avenge themselves on the one who did what they would like to have done but didn’t have the ability to do.

Even the gods are defeated when they pit themselves against foolishness (Dummheit), as the German poet says. How then would I escape ruin, I who am nothing more than a painter and poet with a mortal body? If I survived, I owe this to a few friends who stood by me. And, above all, to two major artists who benefited me in a variety of ways and to whom I must here express my debt of gratitude. I am referring to the great painter Konstantinos Parthenis and the great poet Andreas Embirikos.

Konstantinos Parthenis is a truly great painter. One of the greatest of our times and consequently of all time. I was fortunate in studying under him. Not only did I benefit from his admirable teaching: whatever I have learned about painting, I owe exclusively to this man. But, at the same time, I was able to come to know the man and be inspired, throughout my life, by a man who was high-minded, upright, unyielding and unswaying from the path of virtue, highly cultivated, of an incredible emotional wealth and stature, elegant, infinitely good (6), a true aristocrat of the intellect and of life.

I could say exactly the same about Andreas Embirikos. I was also fortunate in being closely acquainted with this major poet. I was always attracted, charmed and comforted in my life (there you have poetry’s mission!) by his wonderful works. His poems, together with all his writings, are the products of a marvellous imagination, of an extremely rich intellectual and emotional world, of an impeccable and profound knowledge of the good and the fine. His works and his life place Andreas Embirikos on the same level as the likes of Solomos, Baudelaire, Lautréamont and Dante. As to the man, just like Parthenis: admirable. The same must be said of him as of the great painter: an aristocrat of the intellect and of life.

I’m grateful to Embirikos for something else too: he was the first who, when the scandal broke, bravely raised his voice and protested against my unjust persecution. And he imposed silence. For he would never consent to falsehood and injustice. He was always ready to defend what he considered to be correct and just, and to condemn whatever he saw as being unjust, or simply wrong. Amazingly unselfish, he never stooped to petty self-interest and petty politics, as is often the case both in Greece and elsewhere. Just like Parthenis, he works in pure joy, and it is their work, their work alone, the work of both of them, that will set them, securely and effortlessly, in the place where each of them rightfully belongs in both the Greek and the international firmament: at the top.

This note, which has to be as brief as possible, does not allow me to expand on my poetic ‘creed’. In any case, this is to be found in the verses of the poems in my collections. My interested readers, if they so wish, might refer to the articles, lectures and chapters by Andreas Embirikos, Robert Levesque, René Etiemble, Andreas Karandonis and Georgios Themelis, who have honoured my poetic work in their writings. There, they explain my intentions and my achievements.

I will confine myself to just a few lines about the language I use, and which has often been characterised, in the form of a reproach, as being ‘mixed’. I have to say that, very simply, this is the language I speak. And besides, is not the prime importance to be understood by those who really do wish to understand? The legitimate language, for us, is the Greek language. Those fanatic views concerning a ‘mixed’, ‘purist’ or ‘popular’ language have absolutely no meaning whatsoever. They should be met with total indifference or, if we consider it worthwhile, with the only form of fanaticism permissible: the one that opposes all forms of fanaticism.

I consider that my knowledge of the Greek language was fostered by the infinite love I have for ancient, Byzantine and post-Byzantine texts. My books containing ancient and Byzantine texts were, for the most part, in ‘European’ editions, with explanations and commentary written in French or Latin. Many Byzantine, and almost all the post-Byzantine, texts were in Greek editions. The purist (and sometimes over-purist) language of Sathas, Lambros, Xanthoudides, even of some contemporaries (7), in the notes and studies accompanying the texts, not only did not irritate me, like the ones in French and Latin that I have mentioned, but, on the contrary, made me see how it was linked and, eventually, how it merged with the language of the text under examination. This is how I came to realise that there is only one Greek language. And that it is more a lack of prudence that leads one stubbornly to become devoted to one single form of it, to scorn that unimaginable wealth, that horde of treasure at one’s disposal, instead of drawing on it freely, with respect and care of course, so as to adorn one’s verse and reinforce one’s meaning. Just as we are taught by the ageless writings of Papadiamandis and Cavafy. Just as I too do in my painting, in which I do not exclude any colour from finding its proper place or from making its contribution to the overall harmony of the painting. Just as, again in my painting, to the teachings of the Polytechnic School, I add and include the teachings of the Byzantine, the Ancient and the ‘naïve’ painters, such as Theophilos and others.

It would be an unforgivable omission on my part if I did not refer here to the few years – alas – that I spent in the company of Menelaos Philidas. Though he was old then, I was extremely fortunate in being able to hear the wise and invaluable words of this brilliant linguist.


Notes written by the poet to accompany the re-publication in 1966 of his first two collections Do Not Distract the Driver (1938) and The Clavicembalos of Silence (1939).


Footnotes:

(1) You live poems, you don’t ‘write’ them.
(2) In any case, for such people every single thing that is not directly useful is, in principle, unquestionably ‘ridiculous’.
(3) I use this word rather than the word ‘amateurs’ because, what possible connection can such people have with this wonderful word which contains the notion of love!
(4) I note with satisfaction that this talent for provoking ‘des vagues d’hystérie’ has not yet been exhausted. Some time ago, I was given a text (dated 9 February 1962!) in which an aged newspaper columnist expresses the indignation he felt, after a total of twenty-four years, at reading my book. After commenting on my verses with vulgar ‘civility’, quite openly enraged, he ends by expressing his sorrow (how subtle!) that he has nothing to shut me up with, no ‘old sock’. He even enlists his ignorance against me: ignorant of the words I use, he reproaches me for using them!
(5) I have to admit though that I never knew that ‘horrible misère’. Despite what is written in a biographical note accompanying one of my French poems in the “Cahiers du Sud” (no. 303, 1950) by a rather ‘fantaisiste’ commentator and one completely unknown to me! On the contrary, I lived in relative comfort . . .
(6) According to Tolstoy, goodness is the first rung of true aristocracy.
(7) With the exception of the wise professor, Nikos Veis. I never understood how this leading scholar could use that odd and affected language: a language that would even surprise Psycharis himself, were he to read it.