Odysseas Elytis was a Greek poet, man of letters, essayist and translator, regarded as the definitive exponent of romantic modernism in Greece and the world. He is one of the most praised poets of the second half of the twentieth century, with his Axion Esti "regarded as a monument of contemporary poetry". In 1979, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Giorgos or George Seferis, the pen name of Georgios Seferiadis, was a Greek poet and diplomat. He was one of the most important Greek poets of the 20th century, and a Nobel laureate.
Konstantinos Petrou Kavafis, known, especially in English, as Constantine P. Cavafy and often published as C. P. Cavafy, was a Greek poet, journalist, and civil servant from Alexandria. A major figure of Modern Greek literature, he is sometimes considered the most distinguished Greek poet of the 20th century. His works and consciously individual style earned him a place among the most important contributors not only to Greek poetry, but to Western poetry as a whole.
Kathleen Jessie Raine was a British poet, critic and scholar, writing in particular on William Blake, W. B. Yeats and Thomas Taylor. Known for her interest in various forms of spirituality, most prominently Platonism and Neoplatonism, she was a founding member of the Temenos Academy.
Alexandros Papadiamantis was an influential Greek novelist, short-story writer and poet.
Angelos Sikelianos was a Greek lyric poet and playwright. His themes include Greek history, religious symbolism as well as universal harmony in poems such as The Moonstruck, Prologue to Life, Mother of God, and Delphic Utterance. His plays include Sibylla, Daedalus in Crete, Christ in Rome, The Death of Digenis, The Dithyramb of the Rose and Asklepius. Although occasionally his grandiloquence blunts the poetic effect of his work, some of Sikelianos finer lyrics are among the best in Western literature. Every year from 1946 to 1951, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Yiannis Ritsos was a Greek poet and communist and an active member of the Greek Resistance during World War II. While he disliked being regarded as a political poet, he has been called "the great poet of the Greek left".
Ioannis (Nanos) Valaoritis was a Greek writer, widely published as a poet, novelist and playwright since 1939; his correspondence with George Seferis was a bestseller. The quality, the international appeal, and the influence of his work led Valaoritis to be described as the most important poet of the Hellenic diaspora since Constantine Cavafy.
Nikos Gatsos was a Greek poet, translator and lyricist.
Denial is a poem by Giorgos Seferis (1900–1971) published in his collection Turning Point in 1931. After the coup that overthrew the Greek government in 1967, Seferis went into voluntary seclusion and many of his poems were banned, including the musical versions which Mikis Theodorakis had written and arranged. Denial came to be the anthem of resistance to the regime and was sung by the enormous crowds lining the streets at Seferis' funeral.
Rachel Hadas is an American poet, teacher, essayist, and translator. Her most recent essay collection is Piece by Piece: Selected Prose, and her most recent poetry collection is Love and Dread. Her honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, Ingram Merrill Foundation Grants, the O.B. Hardison Award from the Folger Shakespeare Library, and an Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
Gerald Eustace Howell Palmer was a United Kingdom author, book translator, and Conservative Party politician. Palmer's work in translating the Philokalia, an Eastern Orthodox spiritual text, is still recognised in modern times with the popularity of that book.
Edmund Leroy "Mike" Keeley was an American novelist, translator, and essayist, a poet, and Charles Barnwell Straut Professor of English at Princeton University. He was a noted expert on the Greek poets C. P. Cavafy, George Seferis, Odysseus Elytis, and Yannis Ritsos, and on post-Second World War Greek history.
The City is a famous Greek philosophical poem by Constantine Cavafy. It was written in August 1894, originally entitled “Once More in the Same City.” It was then published in April 1910.
Éntekhno is orchestral music with elements from Greek folk rhythm and melody. Its lyrical themes are often based on the work of famous Greek poets. Éntekhno arose in the late 1950s, drawing on rebetiko's westernization by Vassilis Tsitsanis and Manolis Chiotis. Mikis Theodorakis and Manos Hatzidakis were the most popular early composers of éntekhno song cycles.
"Ithaca" is a 1911 poem by Greek poet Constantine P. Cavafy that is commonly considered his most popular work. It was first published in 1911 in the journal Grammata of Alexandria. Based on the homeward journey of Odysseus in Homer's Odyssey, the poem is titled after its namesake island of Ithaca. It is classified as a didactic-philosophical poem, stressing the importance of the journey over the destination. An early version of the poem was written in 1894 titled "A Second Odyssey". Ithaca gained a global audience upon its 1994 reading at the funeral of former first lady of the United States Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
"Waiting for the Barbarians" is a Greek poem by Constantine P. Cavafy. It was written in November 1898 and printed around December 1904, as a private pamphlet. This poem falls under the umbrella of historical poems Cavafy created in his anthology.
Dimitrios Antoniou, better known by his pen name D. I. Antoniou was a Greek poet.
The Protaton, also known as the Dormition of the Theotokos Church, is the main church of Karyes, Mount Athos. It also serves as the ecclesiastical seat of the Protos, or the primate of the monastic community of Mount Athos. It was founded in the early 10th century AD, prior to the completion of the Great Lavra in 963.
