A Century of Greek Poetry 1900-2000 (review)

In the last few years three anthologies of Greek literature in English translation have been published of which this is the latest. The first, published in England and edited by David Ricks ( Modern Greek Writing: An Anthology in English Translation, London: Peter Owen 2003), includes both poetry and fiction, and covers Greek writing since Independence. The other two, published in the U.S.A., concentrate on poetry in the twentieth century. The first of them ( An Anthology of Modern Greek Poetry,edited by Nanos Valaoritis and Thanasis Maskaleris, New Jersey: Talisman House 2003), includes translations of poets arranged in thematic categories (Symbolist Forerunners, Traditional Neo-Symbolists, Mainstream Modernists, The Surrealists, Modernist Existentialists, Left-Wing Poets, The Avant-Garde, Neo-Modernists, Neo-Surrealists) and provides brief introductions by Nanos Valaoritis to each of the poets included.

A Century of Greek Poetry 1900–2000includes a total of 109 poets and 445 of their poems. This is the longest of all three anthologies and the most wide-ranging collection of twentieth-century Greek poetry. The poets are arranged in chronological order, starting with C. P. Cavafy (born 1863) and ending with Ioulita Iliopoulou (born 1965). Paradoxically, Kostis Palamas who, though born four years earlier than Cavafy, oulived him by ten, is not included in the volume. The fact that the editors could "not find enough contemporary translations of quality to do his work justice" is surely not an acceptable reason to omit such an important poet from a project of this magnitude. Some other omissions from the anthology include poets such as Tellos Agras, Aris Alexandrou, Melpo Axioti, Nikos Alexis Aslanoglou, Yannis Dallas, Ioannis Gryparis, Kleitos Kyrou, Hektor Kaknavatos, Dionysis Kapsalis, Yorgos Koropoulis, Vyron Leontaris, Kostas Montis, D. P. Papaditsas, Kostas Stergiopoulos, Yannis Varveris. Instead poets such as Vassilis Dimitrakos, Ignatis Houvardas, Liana Sakelliou-Schultz, Constance Tagopoulos, Christos Tsiamis, Billie Vemi, Ioanna Zervou are included while Takis Papatsonis is represented by two poems and Kostas Karyotakis is represented by the same number of poems (all from his satires, plus Preveza) as Christos Laskaris. Poets of the 1970s and 1980s get more than their fair share in this anthology while women poets are generously represented in the volume. Though each anthology reflects the tastes of its editors or translators and disagreements over inclusions or exclusions will never cease, it has to be said that this is the most comprehensive anthology of twentieth-century Greek poetry in English and the best mirror of the translating talent available in English for Greek poetry.

Poets are represented by between one (e.g. Alexander Baras, Pandelis Prevelakis) and twenty poems (Cavafy), but poets are given no introduction nor are the dates of publication given for each translated poem. Had this been done, it would have been easier to follow the development of poets such as Kostas Varnalis, who is represented in the anthology mostly by his early poems like his sonnet "Orestes," published in 1914 when the poet was under the influence of Parnassianism and before his adoption of Marxist ideas. Without such guidance the reader might find comparing his early rather idealistic, antiquarian and lyrical poems ("Orestes," "Aphrodite," "The Chosen One," "Alcibiades") all published before 1920 with his later satirical, political and even angry poems such as "Jungle" (1951) and "Catechism" (c.1965) a confusing experience. This confusion is likely to be compounded by the fact that his poems are not always printed in chronological order with "Magdalene" from The Burning Light(1922) appearing before earlier poems. Some sort of explanatory gloss in an introductory note would have helped elucidate the transformation of his poetry after the second decade of the twentieth century.

The aims of the anthology are not always spelled out clearly. Karen Van Dyck's claim in her introductory note that the aim of the anthology is to make "available to an English-speaking audience that which is most Greek and most different from English" seems to be contradicted by...