Odysseus Elytis - Biography
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Odysseus Elytis (1911-1996)
Greek poet and winner of the 1979 Nobel Prize for Literature.
Elytis's poems are written in rich language, full of images from history and myths. The lines are long and musical. Inspired by the 'sanctity of the perceiving senses' Elytis celebrated in his early poems the mystery of the Greek light, the sea, and the air. Later themes are grief, suffering, and search for a paradise.
Odysseus Elytis (Odysseas Alepoudhelis) was born in Iráklion, Crete, into a prosperous Cretan family. His parents and ancestors came from the island of Lesbos, home of the ancient Greek poet Sappho. Elytis studied law at Athens University from 1930 to 1935 without taking a degree. He worked periodically in the family's soap manufacturing business.
Inspired by French Surrealism and especially Paul Éluard, Elytis started to write verse. His first poems appeared in 1935 in magazine Ta Nea Grammata, which also published George Seferis's workshe won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1963. Orientations (1940), Elytis's first collection, combined themes of Eros and beauty with the timeless nature of the Aegean world.
During WW II when Nazis occupied Greece, Elytis joined the resistance movement and served as a second lieutenant in Albania in 1940-41. In 1943 appeared Asma iroiko ke penthimo ghia ton hameno anthipolochago tis Alvanias (Heroic and Elegiac Song for the Lost Second Lieutenant of the Albanian Campaign). In it Elytis's joyful visions of youth and the sun-drenched Aegean nature changed into acknowlegmenet of violence and sudden death. In the poem the youthful hero is killed on the battlefield and miraculously resurrected throught his youth and heroism. 
After the war Elytis wrote critics for the newspaper Kathimerini and worked for the National Broadcasting Institute in Athens in 1945-46 and again 1953-54. In 1948 he moved to Paris, where he studied literature at the Sorbonne. During this time he became acquainted with Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and other figures of the Parisian art scene. In 1953 Elytis returned to Greece and took an active role in cultural affairs. He served as member of the Greek critical and prize-awarding Group of the Twelve. He was president and governing-board member of Karolos Koun's Art Theater and of the Greek Ballet. His silence as a poet ended in 1959 with To Axion Esti, reminiscent of Walt Whitman's Song of Myself.
