Zakynthos dionysios solomos biography facts
This move would bring him to the centre of a circle of poets and admirers, intellectuals, and ambassadors of liberal and progressive ideas. During this time, the poet turned his attention to German philosophy and literature. It was in Corfu that he entered his mature poetic phase, which would produce, among others, his famous works The Cretan and Porfyras His most important encounter, as far as Greek history is concerned, was with the great Corfiot musician Nikolaos Mantzaros.
Mantzaros learned of Solomos through his poems; in fact, he had set Farmakomeni to music, and, because of this, when Solomos wanted to learn more about music, it was Mantzaros he turned to. The process took from In , he was awarded the Medal of the Order of the Redeemer. Two years later, he began to fall into ill health. He died in He began to systematically study traditional songs and Cretan literature that were the best representations of the demotic dialect of Modern Greek literature.
Zakynthos dionysios solomos biography death: Dionysios Solomos - the Greek National Poet born in Zakynthos: Dionysios Solomos () was born on the island of Zakynthos. He is considered the Greek national poet as stanzas of his poem Hymn to Liberty have been declared as the National Anthem of Greece.
The Greek Revolution of and the Exodus of Mesolonghi were great inspirations for Solomos to write one of his best poems, the Hymn to Liberty. This poem was the flag-bearer of the entire literary output of Solomos and established him as a master of his native idiom. A financial dispute with his relatives forced Solomos to move to Corfu, where he found an atmosphere congenial to his poetic and lonesome nature.
There he became a center of attraction for his admirers and noblemen.
During his final years, Solomos started writing poetry in Italian again. He also became estranged from some of his friends and started drinking too much. The first important turning point in the Greek works of Solomos was the Hymn to Liberty that was completed in May a poem inspired by the Greek revolution The poem was at first published in in occupied Mesolongi and afterwards in Paris in translated into French and later on in other languages too.
This resulted in the poet's fame proliferation outside the Greek borders. Thanks to this poem, Solomos was revered until his death, since the rest of his work was only known to his small circle of admirers and his "students". The Hymn to Liberty inaugurated a new phase in the poet's literary work: this is the time when the poet has finally managed to master the language and is experimenting himself with more complex forms, opening up to new kinds of inspirations and easily leaving aside improvisation.
Zakynthos dionysios solomos biography wikipedia
It is alleged that Solomos could hear the cannon firing from Zakynthos during the Greek War of Independence, which inspired him to write his most famous works. After frictions and economic disputes with his brother Dimitrios concerning legacy matters, Solomos move to Corfu , the most important intellectual center of the Ionian islands in those years.
However, Dionysios did not leave Zakynthos solely because of his family problems; Solomos had been planning to visit the island since Corfu would offer him not only a more stimulating environment but also the vital isolation for his solitary and bizarre character. Corfu was the perfect place for contemplation and writing poetry, in line with Solomos' noble ideas about Art.
That explains the fact that his happiest years were the first years he spent on Corfu. It was during this period of time that he took up studying German romantic philosophy and poetry Hegel, Schlegel, Schiller, Goethe. Since he did not know German, he read Italian translations by his friend Nikolaos Lountzis. In the meantime, he continued to work on The Woman of Zakynthos and Lambros that he had started in The Woman of Zakynthos was said to be inspired by the infidelities of his sister-in-law Elena Arvanitachi , the daughter of Dr Demetrio Arvanitachi , the Senator of Zante.
Between and , having restored the relations with his brother, Solomos' life was perturbed by a series of trials where his half-brother from his mother's side Ioannis Leontarakis was claiming part of their father's legacy, arguing that he was also the legal child of count Nikolaos Solomos, since his mother was pregnant before the father's death.
Even though the outcome of the trial was favorable to both the poet and his brother, the dispute led to Solomos' alienation from his mother his feelings were badly hurt because of his adoration towards his mother and his withdrawal from publicity.
Zakynthos dionysios solomos biography pdf
Even though the trial influenced the poet to such a point, it was not able to seize his poetical work. In the meantime, he was planning other works that either remained at the preparation stage or remained as fragments, such as Nikoforos Vryennios , Eis to thanato Aimilias Rodostamo — To the death of Emilia Rodostamo , To Francisca Fraser and Carmen Seculare.
On Corfu , Solomos soon found himself at the admirers' and poets' center of attention, a group of well educated intellectuals with liberal and progressive ideas, a deep knowledge of art and with austere artistic pretensions. After , Solomos started writing in Italian once more. Most works from this period are half-finished poems and prose drafts that maybe the poet was planning to translate into Greek.
Serious health problems made their appearance in and Solomos' character became even more temperamental. He alienated himself from friends such as Polylas they came on terms with each other in and after his third stroke the poet did not leave his house. Solomos died in February from apoplexy. His fame had reached such heights so when the news about his death became known, everyone mourned.
Corfu 's theater closed down, the Ionian Parliament 's sessions were suspended and mourning was declared.
Dionysios solomos poems
His remains were transferred to Zakynthos in Solomos' first poems written on Zakynthos were influenced by Italian poetry of that era, in line with the Academy of Arcadia movement e. O thanatos tou voskou - The shepherd's death , Evrikomi and by early romanticism I trelli mana - The mad mother. Generally speaking, Solomos was heavily influenced by European romanticism , including Byron and Leopardi.
The decade — determined the poet's progress. It was during that time he tried to give up improvisation and abandoned the new classicism style of poems such as Hymn to Liberty and Ode to the death of Lord Byron. Solomos was exposed to the cultural and political ferment of the Enlightenment and the ideas of the French Revolution , and he identified with Italian national sentiments for unification and liberation from the Habsburgs.
In , the poet writes the epic Hymn to Liberty , the first two stanzas of which became the Greek national anthem. This work salutes the War of Greek Independence , started in , by invoking the personified image of Liberty, reborn and renewed out of "the sacred bones of the Greeks. Solomos' own Ionian islands, under British rule at the time, are described as being "artfully chained" and having "'False Freedom' written on their foreheads.
In the Hymn to Liberty Solomos rejoices in the sight of "lily-fingered virgins" whose "breasts are preparing the sweet-suckled milk of bravery and freedom. In , Solomos composed The Dialogue , dealing with the language issue. The work involves three people: the poet, his friend the first draft mentions Sp.
Trikoupis and the savant.
However, it is mainly the poet and the savant who speak. The poet is trying to prove that katharevousa is an artificial language, of no use to either the people nor to literature. The poet supports a literary language based on the language spoken by the people, that should be elaborated on by the poet. In order to support his argument, the following phrase is used: " firstly succumb to the language of the people and then, if you are worthy, conquer it ".
His arguments are based on the French Age of Enlightenment on the subject of the use of national languages and on examples of Italian poetry, by which he tries to prove that no word is vulgar in itself but gets its meaning by the poem's context. At the end of the work, the poet abandons the rational reasoning and supports his arguments with passion.
Between and , the poet started working on the poem Lampros , a poem that remained unfinished. Lampros is an extreme romantic hero : he entered into a relationship with a young girl named Maria and they had four children without being married.
Zakynthos dionysios solomos biography
Lampros sen t their children to an orphanage. While he was fighting against Ali Pasha , he met a girl, unaware of the fact that she was his daughter, and had a love affair with her. When he finally became aware of the incest , after recognizing the daughter's birthmarks, he told his daughter the truth that resulted in the daughter's suicide.
On his way home, Lampros was forced to tell Maria about his crime and he fled to a church in order to appeace his soul. Divine Justice however sent the three boys' ghosts that chased him to the end of a cliff from which he fell of. Maria had already lost her reason and fell into a lake, hoping that she would at last find peace.
Between and , Solomos worked on the prose-like poem I Gynaika tis Zakynthos , a work of a satirical character, that mainly analyses the Evil. It is said that this composition was about one of Solomos' relatives and that is the reason why the poet's brother never let Polylas publish the poem. In , Solomos wrote his first important work during his maturity, O Kritikos The Cretan , in iambic fifteen-syllable verse, as a result of the Cretan's literature influence.
The work describes the story of a Cretan who left from Crete after the revolution was lost in , the shipwreck and his efforts to save his beloved from the tempest. A central point in the work is the apparition of an oracle, the Feggarontymeni meaning the one dressed by the moon. The narrator of the story is the Cretan himself: he starts telling his story many years later, when he is living alone as a beggar, doing flashbacks from his life on Crete and the shipwreck and talking about the future the resurrection of the dead and his encounter with his beloved one in Paradise.
O Kritikos is aesthetically the most complete poem. Zakynthos, at the time, was renowned for its literature and culture, and Solomos found a kindred spirit in a group of intellectuals and literary figures. In , Solomos wrote his first major work in Greek, "Hymn to Liberty," which would later become the national anthem of Greece.
A year prior, he had published a collection of his Italian poems, "Rime Improvisate," in his homeland. Remarkably, writing in his native Greek proved to be a challenge for the young poet, who had to relearn the culture, epic poetry, and folksongs of his homeland. As a result, his style was simple and accessible, influenced by the vernacular and the desire to make his work relatable to all people.
Solomos was an advocate for the use of vernacular Greek, or dimotiki. After a bitter inheritance dispute with his half-brother, Solomos moved to Corfu, then a cultural center in the Ionian Islands. There, he flourished, writing a substantial body of poetry and other literary works. He found himself amidst an intellectually stimulating group of writers and progressive thinkers, including Nikolaos Mantzaros, Andreas Laskaratos, and Gerasimos Markoras.