The First Death

Last updated

The First Death
THE FIRST DEATH, Second Edition, Revised.jpg
Cover of Dimitris Lyacos' The First Death, Second Edition, 2017
Author Dimitris Lyacos
Original titleΟ πρώτος θάνατος
TranslatorShorsha Sullivan
Cover artistFritz Unegg
Language English
SeriesPoena Damni
Genre Poetry
World Literature, Expressionism, Postmodernism
Publisher Shoestring Press
Publication date
26 October 2017 (Second Revised Edition)
Publication place United Kingdom
Media typePrint (Paperback & Paperback)
Pages37 pages (first edition), 58 pages (second edition)
ISBN 978-1-899549-42-9
OCLC 45991303
Preceded by With the people from the bridge (2014) 

The First Death is a book by Dimitris Lyacos. It is the third part of the Poena Damni trilogy. The book is a fictional rendering of a poem that is translated by an inmate with the use of a dictionary he finds available in the library of the prison he is detained. [1] The translated poem tells the story of a marooned man on a desert island in a sequence of fourteen sections, recounting his relentless struggle for survival as well as his physical and mental disintegration. The work alludes simultaneously to a modern Philoctetes, an inverted version of Crusoe as well as the myth of the dismemberment of Dionysus. The dense and nightmarish imagery of the poem, replete with sensations of hallucination, delirium, synesthesia, and putrefaction has drawn comparisons to Lautreamont, Trakl and Beckett. [2] [3] Despite being first in the publication history of the Poena Damni trilogy, The First Death is chronologically last in the narrative sequence. [4]

Contents

Title

The title of the book refers to the gradual disintegration of the character's body as it falls prey to the surrounding inimical natural elements. The contradistinction between first and second death in the Apocalypse of St. John the Divine, [5] is used to allude to the gradual decomposition of the body as a state of a reduction of its life-force and in view of its ensuing annihilation. [6] [7] [8] [9] Insofar as the first death does not bring about a complete mental disintegration it is not considered as "real death",. [10] In a spiritual sense, the protagonist of the book subsists in a "hellish" kind of existence, presumably awaiting the occurrence of future redemption or definitive extinction. The title also refers to the occurrence of the first death in the context of the biblical history of the human race, namely the murder of Abel by his brother Cain. [11]

Synopsis

The First Death recounts the ordeal of an unnamed male protagonist stranded on a desert-like island. [12] The book starts with a description of his mutilated body which grinds against the rocks. The poem expands on the theme of his continuing degradation, [13] physical and mental, as even the mechanisms of memory are dislocated. [14] Yet, the bond between person and body ensures life still persists, and, "at that point without substance/ where the world collides and takes off", [15] : 32  the mechanical instincts of the cosmos rumble into action and sling this irreducible substance again into space - prompting, perhaps, a future regeneration.

Themes

Ὅτι ἕκαστον φύλλον μόνον ἅπαξ πίπτει, οὕτως εἶπεν αὐτοῖς. Ἀεί μὲν τὰ φύλλα ἄλλη ἄλλυδις πίπτει, ἀλλ᾿ ἕκαστον ἅπαξ. Καὶ ἀπέθανεν ἕκαστον ἅπαξ ὅτι ἤδη ἀφῆκεν τὸ ἴδιον ξύλον, ἀλλ᾿ ὅπου πίπτει, ζήσεται πάλιν ὁμοῦ μετὰ τῶν ὑποκάτωθεν ζῴων. Καὶ οἱ ἐρχόμενοι καὶ ὁρῶντες αὐτὰ πεσόντα καὶ γινώσκοντες ὅτι ὁ νόμος τοῦ ξύλου ἐξέβαλε αὐτά, ὄψονται πῶς ὁ σκώληξ ἐσθίει αὐτὰ. Καὶ πῶς ζωήν τῷ σκώληκι ἐνδίδωσιν ἕκαστον ἵνα μήποτε αυτόν τελευτήσειν καὶ ὁ πυρετός ἐν τῆ κοιλίη αὐτοῦ μή σβήσεται εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα. Και ἡ διαίρεσις αὔτη τοῦ ξύλου ὁ πρῶτος ᾠνόμασται θάνατος, δι’ ὅν ἠρωτήκατε.

That each leaf falls only once, thus he said to them. The leaves always fall, one here and one there, but each only falls once. And each has only died once because it has already left its own wood, but wherever it falls, it will live again together with the creatures below. And those coming and seeing them fallen and knowing that the law of the wood has cast them, will see how the worm eats them. And how it gives life to the worm so that it will never perish, and the fever in its belly will not be extinguished forever. And this parting is called the first death of the tree, about which you have asked.

(Book epigraph by author in Koine Greek. English translation by Andrew Barrett)

From "THE FIRST DEATH", English Edition, Shoestring Press/Kindle 2024

The First Death, recounts the result of its protagonist's voyaging towards annihilation. His body and mind are on the verge of dissolution while fighting for continuance and survival. Portrayed as a victim of nature and presumably expelled by society, he is represented both as a castaway and an abortion, dying before he has ever achieved birth. [3] The work describes his purgatorial-like torture, mapping a desert and rocky island as the locus of his suffering. His exclusion and solitude allude to Greek Tragedy, most importantly Philoctetes, while images of mutilation and dismemberment relate to ancient Greek sacrifices and rituals. The myth of the dismemberment of Dionysus by the Titans is also hinted at as the text resorts to the concept of sparagmos (Ancient Greek : σπαραγμός, [15] : Section XII, line 7  from σπαράσσω sparasso, "tear, rend, pull to pieces"), an act of rending, tearing apart, or mangling, [16] : 186  Other oblique classical references are equally embedded in the text, such as the presence of Orpheus, also suggested by images of dismemberment. [2] In its role as the epilogue of the Poena Damni trilogy the poem also witnesses the aftermath of the impending violence of the first volume, Z213: Exit. [12]

Style

The First Death
TheFirstDeath.jpg
Cover of Dimitris Lyacos' The First Death, First English Edition, 2000
Cover artistFritz Unegg
Publication date
23 March 2000
ISBN 978-1-899549-42-9
OCLC 45991303

The original Greek employs an unconventional modern idiom, accommodating a variety of ancient Greek words [13] and integrating them into the flow of the text. Contrary to the previous book of the trilogy, With the People from the Bridge, which makes use of predominantly bare, simple sentences in a theatrical context, The First Death is written in a dense, highly tropical style. Each poem section unravels a multi-layered concatenation of images in order to illustrate the unremitting torment of the book's protagonist. Often, the weightiness of surreal abstraction [17] lends a metaphysical atmosphere to the work, thus investing the ordeal undergone by the protagonist with a sublime-like quality [18] as, he, in spite of the world, continues his struggle to the limits of his powers. Images of spoiled, rotten, maimed nature, artifacts, architecture and especially bodies are described in such rich detail they take on an eerie, atrocious, paradoxical glory. [19] The book brings to bear aspects of the Homeric clarity of description which are in their turn coupled with fierce and expressionistic depictions of a nightmarish setting. [20] In its aligning disparate literary traditions in order to intensely depict the clash of the human subject in the midst of a hostile world, The First Death, is considered as one of the most violent works of Greek literature in modern times. [21] [22]

Critical reception and publication history

Being the first to have been published among the three installments of the Poena Damni trilogy The First Death has received a number of reviews that span over two decades. Some critics underline the work's close connection with Ancient Greek Literature due to its hybrid linguistic character and its allusions to Tragedy" [21] while others see a strong connection with current events. Critic Toti O'Brien notes: "As I read The First Death, I imagine the carpet of corpses lining the Mediterranean. Strata and strata of limbs—now bones—piled up during recent decades, all belonging to shiploads of migrants seeking escape through Europe. I can’t help connecting the poetry under my eyes with this precise scenery. The most powerful, the most disturbing imagery Lyacos paints makes sense in this context where it naturally embeds itself." [19]

The book was originally published in Greek in 1996 and has been translated in English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, French and Italian. The first English edition appeared in 2000 and went out of print in 2005. A second revised English edition was launched as an e-book in the spring of 2017 and subsequently appeared in print in the autumn of the same year. The new edition contains extended Translator's Notes explaining the Ancient Greek references to the original Greek text. [15]

Further reading

Related Research Articles

<i>The Persians</i> Classical Greek tragedy by Aeschylus

The Persians is an ancient Greek tragedy written during the Classical period of Ancient Greece by the Greek tragedian Aeschylus. It is the second and only surviving part of a now otherwise lost trilogy that won the first prize at the dramatic competitions in Athens' City Dionysia festival in 472 BC, with Pericles serving as choregos.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Acharnae</span> Deme of ancient Athens, Greece

Acharnae or Acharnai was a deme of ancient Athens. It was part of the phyle Oineis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Theodoros Kolokotronis</span> Greek revolutionary leader (1770–1843)

Theodoros Kolokotronis was a Greek general and the pre-eminent leader of the Greek War of Independence (1821–1829) against the Ottoman Empire.

A vrykolakas, is a harmful undead creature in Greek folklore. Similar terms such as vourkolakas (βουρκόλακας), vourvoulakas (βουρβούλακας), vorvolakas (βορβόλακας), vourvolakas (βουρβόλακας), vourdoulakas (βουρδούλακας) were also used for the creature.

Hexis is a relatively stable arrangement or disposition, for example a person's health or knowledge or character. It is an Ancient Greek word, important in the philosophy of Aristotle, and because of this it has become a traditional word of philosophy. It stems from a verb related to possession or "having", and Jacob Klein, for example, translates it as "possession". It is more typically translated in modern texts occasionally as "state", but more often as "disposition".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diomidis Komninos</span> Greek activist

Diomidis Komninos, a Cypriot Greek high school student, was the first casualty of the Athens Polytechnic uprising. He was shot opposite the main gate of the Polytechnic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dimitris Lyacos</span> Greek writer and playwright (born 1966)

Dimitris Lyacos is a contemporary Greek writer. He is the author of the Poena Damni trilogy. Lyacos's work is characterised by its genre-defying form and the avant-garde combination of themes from literary tradition with elements from ritual, religion, philosophy and anthropology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sparagmos</span> Dionysian rite of sacrifice

Sparagmos is an act of rending, tearing apart, or mangling, usually in a Dionysian context.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chinvat Bridge</span> Zoroastrian mythological location

The Chinvat Bridge or the Bridge of the Requiter in Zoroastrianism is the sifting bridge, which separates the world of the living from the world of the dead. All souls must cross the bridge upon death. The bridge is guarded by two four-eyed dogs, described in the Videvdat (Vendidad) 13,9 as 'spâna pəšu.pâna'.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abradatas</span>

Abradatas was a king, probably fictional, of Susa, known to us from Xenophon's partly fictional biography of Cyrus the Great, the Cyropaedia. According to it, he was an ally of the Assyrians against Cyrus the Great, while Cyrus was still a vassal to his uncle, Cyaxares II.

Stratis Paschalis is a Greek poet, novelist and translator. He read Political Science at the Law School of the University of Athens. His first collection of poems was published in 1977 with the title Anaktoria from the publishing house Ikaros with the assistance of the poet Odysseas Elytis whose publisher this was. His "reach out" critical letter in 1976 to Elytis introducing himself and asking for help is within the documents and letters deposited within the archives at The American School of Classical Studies in Athens. Elytis has left most of his letters documents and partial manuscripts there until a certain timeframe. Paschalis has been awarded the Kostas and Eleni Ouranis Prize of the Academy of Athens (1994), the State Prize for Translation (1998) and the Poetry Prize for Poetry of the literary journal Diavazo (1999).The poetry of Paschalis is marked by a high degree of eclecticism in words and topic denominators.He is one of the few Greek poets who can write in the "blind field" of the English school of thought.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greek junta trials</span> Court trials following the Greek military junta

The Greek junta trials were the court trials involving members of the military junta that ruled Greece from 21 April 1967 to 23 July 1974. These trials involved the instigators of the 21 April coup d'état, as well as other junta members of various ranks who took part in the events of the Athens Polytechnic uprising and in the torture of citizens.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Papyrus 6</span> New Testament 4th century papyrus fragment of the Gospel of John in Greek and Coptic

Papyrus 6, designated by 𝔓6 or by ε 021, is a fragmentary early copy of the New Testament in Greek and Coptic (Akhmimic). It is a papyrus manuscript of the Gospel of John that has been dated paleographically to the 4th century. The manuscript also contains text of the First Epistle of Clement, which is treated as a canonical book of the New Testament by the Coptic Church. The major part of the codex is lost.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scapegoat</span> Animal which is ritually burdened

In the Bible, a scapegoat is one of a pair of kid goats that is released into the wilderness, taking with it all sins and impurities, while the other is sacrificed. The concept first appears in the Book of Leviticus, in which a goat is designated to be cast into the desert to carry away the sins of the community.

Then Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and sending it away into the wilderness by means of someone designated for the task. The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a barren region; and the goat shall be set free in the wilderness.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexandros Pallis</span>

Alexandros Pallis was a Greek educational and language reformer who translated the New Testament into Modern Greek. The publication, in the Akropolis newspaper, caused riots in Athens in 1901 in which 8 people died. His translation was subsequently published in Liverpool. The New Testament in Modern Greek was not legalised until 1924.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yiannis Melanitis</span> Greek conceptual artist

Yiannis Melanitis is a Greek conceptual artist, sculptor, painter, installation artist and digital artist born in Athens in 1967. In 2016, he was elected assistant professor at the Sculpture Department of the Athens School of Fine Arts. Melanitis' work uses hybrid art forms initially with concepts from philosophy and the sciences. His research focuses on the role of information on the arts considering "Information as the New Conceptualisation".

<i>Z213: Exit</i> 2009 novel by Dimitris Lyacos

Z213: Exit is a 2009-2018 novel by Greek author Dimitris Lyacos. It is the first installment of the Poena Damni trilogy. Despite being the first of the trilogy in narrative order, the book was the third to be published in the series. The work develops as a sequence of fragmented diary entries recording the solitary experiences of an unnamed, Ulysses-like persona in the course of a train voyage gradually transformed into an inner exploration of the boundaries between self and reality. The voyage is also akin to the experience of a religious quest with a variety of biblical references, mostly from the Old Testament, being embedded into the text which is often fractured and foregoing punctuation. Most critics place Z213: Exit in a postmodern context exploring correlations with such writers as Samuel Beckett and Cormac McCarthy while others underline its modernist affinities and the work's firm foundation on classical and religious texts.

<i>With the People from the Bridge</i> 2014 book by Dimitris Lyacos

With the People from the Bridge is the second part of the Poena Damni trilogy by Greek author Dimitris Lyacos. The book deals with the theme of loss and the return of the dead in the context of Christian teleology. The text is encased in a post-theatrical ritual drama form, drawing on various philosophical and literary sources as well as ancient and modern Greek folklore. The plot-line centers around an Orpheus-like journey of the protagonist LG who joins his deceased companion in the grave and is subsequently led by her to a liminal realm ahead of the imminent Resurrection Day. The work has been categorized by critics to belong to both the Modernist and the Post-Modernist tradition, while at the same time bearing strong affinities to a variety of canonical texts, among others Homer, Dante, Kafka, Joyce and Beckett.

Dimitris "Mitsos" Giotopoulos was a Greek Marxist who fought in the Spanish Civil War.

Until the Victim Becomes our Own is a composite novel by Greek author Dimitris Lyacos. Conceived as the book "zeroth" of the Poena Damni trilogy the book explores bloodshed as the building-block in the formation of society and the eventual place of the individual in a world "permeated by institutionalized violence."

References

  1. ↑ Dimitris Lyacos, Riflessioni sulla traduzione. Italian translation by Viviana Sebastio. https://www.theitalianreview.com/riflessioni-sulla-traduzione/
  2. 1 2 Woodhouse, Jena (4 May 2000). "Lyacos: A "feast of all fruits"". International Herald Tribune/Kathimerini English Edition.
  3. 1 2 Denegris, Tassos; Solomos, Dionysios (2001). "Dimitris Lyacos". The Journal of Modern Greek Studies. 19. Johns Hopkins University Press.
  4. ↑ Mason, Fran (2016). Historical dictionary of postmodernist literature and theater (2 ed.). Lanham. pp. 276–277. ISBN   978-1-4422-7620-8. OCLC   959698473.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  5. ↑ Oehle, Peter (July 2020). "Flucht als Heiligenpassion". Fixpoetry.
  6. ↑ Revelation 2:11
  7. ↑ Revelation 20:6
  8. ↑ Revelation 20:14
  9. ↑ Revelation 21:8
  10. ↑ Swedenborg, Emanuel (1836). The Apocalypse Revealed: Wherein are Disclosed the Arcana There Foretold, which Have Hitherto Remained Concealed. Boston New Church Printing Society. p.  133 – via Internet Archive. the first death apocalypse.
  11. ↑ "A Dissociated Locus: Dimitris Lyacos Interviewed by Andrew Barrett". Bomb Magazine. 21 November 2018.
  12. 1 2 "Review: The First Death (Poena Damni) by Dimitris Lyacos". 9 October 2018.
  13. 1 2 Malone, Tony (19 September 2019). "'Poena Damni – The First Death' by Dimitris Lyacos (Review)". Tony's Reading List. Melbourne. Retrieved 25 December 2022.
  14. ↑ "NonFiction". The Writing Disorder. Retrieved 27 July 2013.
  15. 1 2 3 Lyakos, Dēmētrēs (2017). Poena Damni: The First Death. Translated by Sullivan, Shorsha (2 ed.). Beeston, Nottingham. ISBN   978-1-910323-87-8. OCLC   990849551.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  16. ↑ Rupke, Jorg; Lincoln, Bruce (January 1993). "Death, War, and Sacrifice. Studies in Ideology and Practice". Numen. 40 (1): 102. doi:10.2307/3270404. ISSN   0029-5973. JSTOR   3270404.
  17. ↑ Goodman, Justin (22 December 2015). "Poena Damni Trilogy by Dimitris Lyacos". Cleaver Magazine.
  18. ↑ Shaw, Philip (2017). "The Sublime is Now". The Sublime. Routledge. p. 176.
  19. 1 2 O'Brien, Toti (May 2019). "Poena Damni, A Review Essay". Ragazine Magazine. Los Angeles.
  20. ↑ Franks, Talia (10 July 2020). "Book Review: Poena Damni Trilogy by Dimitris Lyacos (Translated by Shorsha Sullivan)". Word-for-Sense and Other Stories. Retrieved 25 December 2022.
  21. 1 2 Zaller, Robert (2001). "Recent Translations from Shoestring Press". The Journal of Modern Greek Studies. 19 (2). Johns Hopkins University Press: 283–286. doi:10.1353/mgs.2001.0026. S2CID   145014868.
  22. ↑ Bruno, Rosada (2000). On the first death : characteristics of Dimitris Lyacos' poetry. Shoesting Press. OCLC   808728498.
  23. ↑ "Book Publisher - Poetry & Short Fiction Publisher - Bitter Oleander Press". Book Publisher, Poetry & Short Fiction Publisher - Bitter Oleander Press.
  24. ↑ "Current Feature from the Bitter Oleander Press".
  25. ↑ "Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts". gulfcoastmag.org.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.