Greek literature in English- Poetry

With two Nobel laureates in recent years—George Seferis in 1963 and Odysseus ι lytis in 1978—modern Greece dynamically carries on a poetic tradition established in antiquity. Many excellent bilingual text collections of the best modern Greek poets, most of them translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard, are available from ι ‘iincoton University Press. British co-publisher is cited when known. I lytls, Odysseus. AxionEsti. Pittsburgh: Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, 1974 and London: Anvil, 1980. English version by E. Keeley & G. Savidis.

Selected Poems. London and New York: Viking Penguin, 1981. English renderings only, by E. Keeley and P. Sherrard. — . Sovereign Sun. Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press, 1974. English translations by Kimon Friar.

Knvnly (Cavafy), Constantine. Selected Poems. Princeton: PUP (1972) and the more complete Collected Poems London: Chatto, 1978; Princeton: PUP, 1975. Paperback editions have English text only. I ‘nvlopoulos, George. The Cellar. London: Anvil Press, 1977. The work of a lesser-

known poet from Peloponnesian Pyrgos, translated by Peter Levi, initios, loannis. Ritsos in Parentheses. Princeton: PUP, 1979. Representative glean­ing of Europe’s foremost leftist poet. Both cloth and paper editions have bilingual text.

Snturls, George. Collected Poems, 1924-1955. Princeton: PUP, 1981. 3rd edition. London: Anvil Press, 1982. Both hardback and paperback editions have bilingual text. Virtually the complete works of the Nobel laureate. Mkulianos, Angelos. Selected Poems. Princeton: PUP, 1979; London: Allen & Unwin, 1980. A small collection by a poet often termed “the Greek Dylan Thomas.” Unfortunately, he suffers in translation more than the poets listed above, but readers of Greek can enjoy a bilingual paperback edition.

 

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