Giorgos Seferis (1900–1971)

I am of the opinion that if authors did not want to publish certain pieces of writing during their lifetimes, we should not ignore their choice on the matter when they can no longer stop us from doing so. It's not a faultless rule, there are surely exceptions. Yet, in this case, George Seferis would likely regret to be associated with Six Nights on the Acropolis if he could.

A reader, such as this one, could find here quite a few interesting ideas and the ways they present themselves, a few show more glimpses of the author behind Stratis, a feeling of a culture at the crossroads between a tragedy of the recent past, the glory of the old days, and more tragedies to come. But most of what this reader found in the book was not worth looking for. And so the reader has to go back to George Seferis he knows and loves, even if he knows him barely and loves him only through a distorted mirror of translation. He, this reader, instead of rambling on, gives you, without the permission of the dead editor, or the dead author, or the dead translator, this

INTERVAL OF JOY

We were happy all that morning
O God how happy.
First the stones the leaves and the flowers shone
and then the sun
a huge sun all thorns but so very high in the heavens.
A nymph was gathering our cares and hanging them on the
trees
a forest of Judas trees.
Cupids and satyrs were singing and playing
and rosy limbs could be glimpsed amid black laurel
the flesh of young children.
We were happy all that morning;
the abyss was a closed well
on which the tender foot of a young faun stamped
do you remember its laughter: how happy we were!
And then clouds rain and the damp earth;
you stopped laughing when you reclined in the hut,
and opened your large eyes and gazed
on the archangel wielding a fiery sword

"I cannot explain it," you said, "I cannot explain it,"
I find people impossible to understand
however much they may play with colors
they are all black.

George Seferis, tr. by Kimon Friar, 'Modern European Poetry' ed. by Willis Barnstone 1966 show less

A slight volume really, but it works best when able to set the poetry into the context provided by Seferis' journal entries. The travels in Cyprus before Engomi: Scents of lentiskbegan to stir upon old hillsides of memorybosoms among foliage, moistened lips;and everything became dry at once in the flatness of the plainin the stone's despair the eroded powerin the empty land of sparse weed and thornswhere carefree on its way a snake glides byand where much time is taken up with dying

Jorgos Seferis vjen me një tjetër përmasë; atë të estetit. Janë 17 esetë në këtë përmbledhje: "Hyrje në poezinë e T.S. Eliot-it", "Mbi një fragment nga Pirandello", "Dialog mbi poezinë", "Monolog mbi poezinë", "Arti dhe epoka", "Fjalim në Stokholm", "Dy fjalë për traditën e re greke", "Në 700-vjetorin e Dantes", të sjella në shqip nga Romeo Çollaku

I don't know if it was the translation or the poems themselves but these appealed more to my intellect than my emotions. However, I liked them enough that I will try to read more by Seferis