On the occasion of Zisimos Lorentzatos’s birthday

Zisimos Lorentzatos, son of the philologist and professor Panagiotis Lorentzatos, was born on this day, 25 June 1915, in Athens. He was involved in critical study, translation and poetry. He was a man of a particularly low profile, whose personality left a profound intellectual mark on Greek literature, far surpassing his own era.To mark the centenary of his birth, N.D. Triantafyllopoulos has dedicated, as a token of affection, 16 texts to Zisimos Lorentzatos, previously published in the journals Akti (Nicosia), Anti, Nea Estia and Poiesis. This is the book *For Zissimos Lorentzatos. One Hundred Years Since His Birth*, published a few months ago by Ikaros Publications.A summary of his works published by Ikaros: Translations: (1st edition: 2014) This volume brings together the published poetic translations of Zisimos Lorentzatos. These are translations of works by: Ezra Pound, W. Blake, Friedrich Hölderlin, W.B. Yeats, Eugenio Montale, Wisława Szymborska and W.H. Auden – poets whom Lorentzatos admired for their personality, originality and the depth of their spirituality. In addition to the poems, the book includes introductory notes by Zisimos Lorentzatos and an appendix presenting Edgar Allan Poe’s essays ‘The Philosophy of Composition’, The Poetic Principle and Eureka, as well as a prose translation of Gerard Manley Hopkins’s poem, Felix Randal, which is an excerpt from Z. Lorentzatos’s study A Tribute to E.A. Blair (George Orwell).The translator’s personal copies were used in the preparation of this edition.A quatrain by Hölderlin (1st edition: 2006) The book’s wonderful, short text was read as a speech at the Macedonian Artistic Society ‘The Art’ in Thessaloniki in 1967. It was published by Ikaros in 2006 with a handwritten postscript by the author. The quatrain to which the text refers is called ‘The Unforgivable’ and reads as follows:To forget friends, to mock the craftsman, And to dismiss the deepest mind as small and insignificant, God forgives it – just do not disturb The peace of your loved ones. Lorenzatos writes characteristically of the poem: ‘I have the preliminary impression that we must lift quite a few veils before we reach the inner sanctum; the place to which this tiny poem ultimately seeks to lead us by the hand. I have always had the same impression. Over the years, I have come to realise that Hölderlin’s ‘The Unforgiven’ is an unexpected poem, like all true poems...”.Poems (1st edition: 2006) Poems is the collected edition of the poems of Zisimos Lorentzatos. The book includes the collections: Small Syrtis, Alphabet and Collection. A Detailed Study of Cavafy (1st edition: 1977) Texts by Zisimos Lorentzatos on C.P. Cavafy. As he himself has said, regarding his essays on the Alexandrian poet and also on D. Solomos: ‘those who set out on the adventure of art must know that “the history of beauty has been completed”, it does not wait for those who will rescue it—and what its devotees always do is nothing but a struggle to rediscover what was lost, rediscovered, and lost again under favourable or adverse circumstances, a struggle that is difficult and unceasing”. Greek Critical Thought (1st edition: 1976)An anthology by Z. Lorentzatos which marked a significant milestone for its time. Among other things, it brings together texts on Solomos, Palamas, Dragoumis and Seferis.Two Texts (1st edition: 1972) The book includes the texts: Paul Valéry and the Limits of Logic, and Wittgenstein’s ‘Tractatus’ and ‘He who does not know the oracle...’, with a foreword by the author.