George Seferis

Manolis Aligizakis

From Seferis' speech at the Swedish Academy I belong to a small country. A rocky promontory in the Mediterranean, it has nothing to distinguish it but the efforts of its people, the sea, and the light of the sun. It is a small country, but its tradition is immense and has been handed down through the centuries without interruption. The Greek language has never ceased to be spoken. It has undergone the changes that all living things experience, but there has never been a gap. This tradition is characterized by love of the human; justice is its norm. In the tightly organized classical tragedies the man who exceeds his measure is punished by the Erinyes. And this norm of justice holds even in the realm of nature. "Helios will not overstep his measure"; says Heraclitus, "otherwise the Erinyes, the ministers of Justice, will find him out". A modern scientist might profit by pondering this aphorism of the Ionian philosopher......In our gradually shrinking world everyone is in need of all the others. We must look for man wherever we can find him. When on his way to Thebes Oedipus encountered the Sphinx, his answer to its riddle was: "man". That simple word destroyed the monster. We have many monsters to destroy. Let us think of the answer of Oedipus.

Collected Poems

Yannis Ritsos

When Yannis Ritsos's 'Moonlight Sonata' was published in France in 1961 the famous surrealist poet Louis Aragon called Ritsos the best poet in the world. Having read and studied the works of innumerable poets over the years, I have concluded that Aragon was right. I would also add that not only was Ritsos the greatest poet of his own time, he truly is the greatest poet ever. Not only for his colossal volume of work but for his expressiveness, his crystal-clear images, and the unique way he sees through his personal lens. His keen eye presents the reader with anything and everything pertaining to human life in such excruciating detail, with such amazing clarity, and in such beautiful poetics as no other poet has ever accomplished. Only a poet with these gifts could capture such an image as the following: The sea, the sun, the trees. And again, the trees, the sun, the sea.Pay attention: in this reversed repetition, the sun is stillthe center like lust is the center of the bodyManolis Aligizakis, Cretan, author, poet, translat

Manolis Aligizakis

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