Odysseas Elytis (Greek: Οδυσσέας Ελύτης) (November 2, 1911—March 18, 1996) was a Greek poet regarded as a major exponent of romantic modernism in Greece and the world. In 1979, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Descendant of the Alepoudhelis, an old industrial family from Lesbos, he was born in Heraklion (Candia) on the island of Crete, 2 November, 1911. His family later moved to Athens, where the poet graduated from high school and l...
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Odysseas Elytis (Greek: Οδυσσέας Ελύτης) (November 2, 1911—March 18, 1996) was a Greek poet regarded as a major exponent of romantic modernism in Greece and the world. In 1979, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Descendant of the Alepoudhelis, an old industrial family from Lesbos, he was born in Heraklion (Candia) on the island of Crete, 2 November, 1911. His family later moved to Athens, where the poet graduated from high school and later attended courses as an auditor at the Law School at University of Athens. In 1935, Elytis published his first poem in the journal New Letters (Νέα Γράμματα) at the prompting of such friends as George Seferis. His entry with a distinctively earthy and original form assisted to inaugurate a new era in Greek poetry and its subsequent reform after the Second World War.
From 1969-1972, under the Greek military junta of 1967–1974, Elytis exiled himself to Paris. Elytis was romantically linked to the lyricist, musicologist and Mariannina Kriezi,...
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