An Heroic And Funeral Chant For The Lieutenant Lost In Albania: Asma Iroiko kai Penthimo gia ton Chameno Anthypolochago tis Alvanias

Οδυσσέας Ελύτης

Άσμα ηρωικό και πένθιμο για τον χαμένο ανθυπολοχαγό της Αλβανίας

Asma Iroiko kai Penthimo gia ton Chameno Anthypolochago tis Alvanias

Αθήνα, Ίκαρος 1962

Odysseas Elytis

An Heroic And Funeral Chant For The Lieutenant Lost In Albania

First Edition, First Printing

One of Elytis's masterpieces

Printed by Ikaros in Athens in 1962

8vo, Pages 36

In original soft binding

Front piece and Cover by Yiannis Moralis

Text: Greek, Printed in 1500 Copies

Odysseas Elytis pen name of Odysseas Alepoudellis, Greek: Οδυσσέας Αλεπουδέλλης; 1911 – 1996) 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. Source: Wikipedia

Elytis on his war experiences
As a reserve officer, the poet Odysseas Elytis was called up immediately after the Italian invasion and served on the Albanian front with the rank of second lieutenant in the First Army Corps. The translator Kimon Friar says of Eltyis' war experiences that the poet 'saw in the heroic resistance of the Greek people against superior odds, throughout their long history, a recklessness of spirit, a divine madness. In the spontaneous reaction of the Greek people to Mussolini's invasion, he saw the victory of a beautiful rashness over self-calculation, an instinct that could distinguish between good and evil in a time of danger'.

Yiannis Moralis (1916 – 2009) was an important Greek visual artist and part of the so-called "Generation of the '30s".