‘The Small, the Great World!’ by Odysseas Elytis, with music by Giorgos Kouroupos
Published to mark the 20th anniversary of the death of Odysseas Elytis. A special anthology of the poet’s poetry and prose in five languages (Greek, English, French, Spanish, Italian).
"The Small, the Great World!" by Odysseas Elytis, with music by Giorgos Kouroupos, is an anthology in which the lyricism, boldness and expressive power of Elytis’s writing are combined with the colour of his visual works and the original musical settings of his poems by Giorgos Kouroupos.
Poems from all periods of Elytis’s writing, along with excerpts from his prose – on the significance of art and the development of his poetics – are presented alongside his photographs and visual artworks (drawings, tempera paintings, collages, manuscripts).
The publication includes 2 CDs featuring all the texts from the book, some recited and others set to music, composed by Giorgos Kouroupos. In its audio form, the book offers a unique journey of discovery and appreciation of Elytis’s work. A journey guided by the sensitive and bold music of Giorgos Kouroupos. Singers: Tasis Christoyannopoulos, Theodora Baka. Reciters: Dimitris Kataleifos, Ioulita Iliopoulou.
The book was published with the kind sponsorship of Alpha Bank.
- Pages: 320
- ISBN: 978-960-572-129-9
- Publication: 2016
- Dimensions: 16 x 24
- Categories: Literature, Books, Essays & Thought, Poetry, Δοκίμιο
Radio interview with Ioulita Iliopoulou on the occasion of the book’s publication on ERT’s First Channel cultural programme, ‘Blue Like an Orange’.
– ERT Channel 1"...The anthology exudes the respect that Elytis’s work deserves, no matter how many years pass. It is a small moment of creation, which introduces us to the vast world of Odysseas Elytis’s poetry and prose. After all, nothing more is needed to honour someone’s memory than to show love and care for their work.”
– Rania Papadopoulou, alfavita.gr"...This journey through the world’s most important languages—the most familiar, the most famous and the most beloved— for us Greeks, is a different sense of freedom, which takes on new dimensions and broadens the sonic image of the verse that has been imprinted in our memory and hearts by the Greek version, and you find yourself wanting to repeat that: ‘Ah! To save that sound’."
– Anthoula Daniel, Diastixo.gr"...The significance of art, the definition of a personal poetic identity and the recording of Odysseas Elytis’s sensibility through different forms of expression emphasise, once again, the stature of the poet and, at the same time, provide an opportunity for the reader to draw closer to his poetic thought, to approach the clearing of his ideas and to behold there, once again, Odysseas Elytis’s choice to ‘speak in the name of light and transparency…’
– Tessy Baila, culturenow.gr"...even a simple leafing through of the lavish volume, with the melodies of Giorgos Kouroupos and the artists’ voices providing the musical backdrop, is enough for Elytis’s universe to ‘unlock’, to transform from words into moving images, whether they spring from the imagination or from experience – Elytis had, in any case, the gift of transforming even surrealistic screeches into a realistic sound."
– Dimitris Athinakis, KathimeriniOdysseas Elytis
Odysseas Elytis was born in Heraklion, Crete, on 2 November 1911. He lived in Athens, where his family settled in 1914. His origins in Lesbos, his birth in Crete, and the summers of his childhood spent in Spetses and the Cyclades shaped a profoundly insular consciousness, which later, when it intersected with surrealism, gave rise to an original poetry, brimming with a multitude of lyrical images, yet also imbued with revolutionary forces. A poetry centred on light that sought to decipher the mystery of existence. After finishing secondary school in Athens, he studied law, whilst serving as a second lieutenant in the Albanian War. He lived in Paris on two occasions (1948–1951 and 1969–1971), where he studied literature at the Sorbonne and came into contact with the leading poets and painters of the twentieth century. In 1979, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He lived until the end of his life (18 March 1996) devoted to poetry. WORKS: Orientations (1940),The First Sun (1943), Heroic and Lamenting Song for the Lost Second Lieutenant of Albania (1945), Axion Esti (1959), Six and One Remorse for the Sky (1960),The Tree of Light and the Fourteenth Beauty (1971), The Sun, the Sun-bearer (1971), The Monogram (1971), The Rows of Love (1972), The Painter Theophilos (1973),Open Cards (1974), The Half-Siblings (1974), Second Writing (1976), The Magic of Papadiamantis (1976), Sematologion (1977), Maria Nefeli (1978),A Tribute to Andreas Embeirikos (1978), Three Poems with a Flag of Convenience (1982), Diary of an Unseen April (1984), Sappho (1984), The Revelation of John (1985),The Little Nautilus (1985), Krinagoras (1987), The Public and the Private (1990), Private Road (1990), The Elegies of Oxopetra (1991), In White (1992),West of Sorrow (1995), The Garden of Delusions (1995), 2 x 7 e (1996), From Up Close (1998), Self-Portrait in Spoken Word (2000), Poetry (2002).
