Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Preface
- Introduction: Homer and the modern Greek poets
- PART ONE HOMER IN THE NEW GREECE: THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER
- 1 Kalvos and Solomos
- 2 Archaism and kleftism
- 3 Palamas
- PART TWO SIKELIANOS
- PART THREE CAVAFY
- PART FOUR SEFERIS
- Reflections
- Further reading
- References
- Index
2 - Archaism and kleftism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 August 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Preface
- Introduction: Homer and the modern Greek poets
- PART ONE HOMER IN THE NEW GREECE: THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER
- 1 Kalvos and Solomos
- 2 Archaism and kleftism
- 3 Palamas
- PART TWO SIKELIANOS
- PART THREE CAVAFY
- PART FOUR SEFERIS
- Reflections
- Further reading
- References
- Index
Summary
Validating their claims as rightful heirs of Homer required more of the modern Greek poets than simply banishing the Turks and what Kalvos called their ‘blasphemous measures’. But the important examples of Kalvos and Solomos were largely ignored over the next half-century, in respect of Homeric allusion among other things. Kalvos had shown, intermittently, that drawing on Homeric language could have poetic as well as patriotic substance, provided that such borrowings were subordinated to a strong form; Solomos had reminded the reader, fragmentarily, that a mind familiar with the Homeric poems was a mind enriched. Kalvos, to put it epigrammatically, had shown the use of the Homeric letter, Solomos that of the Homeric spirit. Their Athenian contemporaries and juniors, however – at a time, admittedly, when the Greek state was subject to severe constitutional and cultural uncertainties – failed to incorporate Homer in their poetry except at the most superficial level. In any case, Solomos and, especially, Kalvos were not names to conjure with in Athens. Although they are now seen as the founders of modern Greek poetry, we can see from a well-known anthology of 1841, for example, that they were not only less prolific but also less esteemed than the poets of the Athenian School.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Shade of HomerA Study in Modern Greek Poetry, pp. 36 - 47Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1989