Why the Post-Symbolists Have No Symbols

The Greek post-symbolists—the "Generation of Karyotákis"—show a pre-occupation with the possibilities and limitations of poetic hnguage. One key to their poetry, therefore, may be found in the interaction between its syntactical and semantic structures. Recurring thematic areas in post-symbolism are (1) memory, nostalgia, desire, and escape, (2) love and death, and (3) the act of writing or singing. Recurring linguistic features are the interplay between dynamic and static structures and the relationship between syntactical structures of positive and negative semantic value. An examination of poems from each thematic category in terms of these two linguistic features indicates that the post-symbolists view their own poetry as a linguistic dead end and also that the very nature of post-symbolist poetry renders impossible such a forceful linguistic feature as symbols.