The Shade of Homer: A Study in Modern Greek PoetryCambridge University Press, 1989 M11 30 - 192 pages In exploring the significance of Homer for the poetry of modern Greece - benign shade or looming shadow? - Dr Ricks is tackling a theme that has implications for the study of poetic influence in general. In this 1989 book, he takes the work of Sikelianos, Cavafy and Seferis and subjects a selection of poems to a careful scrutiny. These poems are not imitations of Homer but fresh engagements with Homeric themes, and comparison of the modern versions with the original is found to be illuminating for the poets' methods of composition. Dr Ricks does not lose sight of the larger significance of his subject, and modern poets from outside Greece - Eliot and Pound, in particular - find their way into the discussion. All Greek is translated and the reader has no need to be a specialist in modern or in ancient Greek to find this study absorbing and instructive. |
Contents
Homer and the modern Greek poets | 1 |
Archaism and kleftism | 36 |
Palamas | 54 |
Greek romanticism comes of | 65 |
Beyond Homer | 75 |
PART THREE CAVAFY | 85 |
36 | 95 |
193 | 102 |
65 | 111 |
Scholia | 119 |
UlyssesDisséas | 125 |
Homer and the poetic vocation | 135 |
Beyond the folk tradition | 147 |
Spirit and letter in The King of Asine | 158 |
Further reading | 173 |
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Common terms and phrases
Achelous Achilles ancient appears Asia Minor Disaster Athens Caesarion Cavafy Cavafy's Cavafy's poem Companions context contrast dead divine echo Eliot Elpenor epic epigraph episode famous Foreign Verse Foscolo Funeral of Sarpedon G. P. Savidis gods Greece Greek language Hades Hellenic hero hero's Homeric allusion Homeric poems Homeric world honour human Iliad important inspiration Ionian Ionian Islands island Ithaca Kalvos Kariotakis Kazantzakis King of Asine klefts language later lines Linos Politis literary London look Lycia Maronitis modern Greek poet myth Mythistorema Nekyia Nikolareïzis Odysseus Palamas passage Patroclus perhaps Phemius phrase poem's poet's poetic Polilas Pound Pylos reader references to Homer relation to Homer river Sacred Wood Sarpedon Secret Iliad Seferis sense Sikelianos Sleep and Death Solomos song soul spirit stanza T. S. Eliot Telemachy thing tradition translation Trojans words Yannis Keats Zeus καὶ οἱ Ποιήματα τὰ τῆς τὸ τοῦ