Andreas Embirikos
Encyclopedia
Andreas Embirikos (Brăila
, 2 September 1901 – Athens
, 3 August 1975) was a Greek
surrealist poet
and the first Greek psychoanalyst.
. He was born in Brăila
, Romania
, but his family soon moved to Ermoupolis in Syros
. When Embirikos was only seven years old they moved to Athens
. While he was still a teenager his parents divorced; he started studying at the Faculty of Philosophy of the National and Capodistrian University of Athens, but he decided to move to Lausanne
to stay with his mother.
The following years Embirikos studied a variety of subjects both in France
and in the United Kingdom
where he studies at King's College London
; however it was in Paris
where he decided to study psychanalysis together with René Laforgue
.
book
, characterized by the lack of the punctuation and the peculiarity of the language. As the poet himself admitted it was precisely the originality and extravagance of his work that contributed to his relative commercial success.
On the other hand, together with Yorgos Seferis, Embirikos was the most important representative of the generation of the 1930s. He contributed greatly to the introduction of modernism in Greek letters and he helped change once and for all the poetic atmosphere of Greece.
(Μέγας Ἀνατολικός) from England to America. Embirikos describes the Great Eastern as a hedonic vessel, where the multitude of the passengers enjoy love without and beyond limits. During the ten-day trip (an allusion to the Decameron) they discover a new form of happiness and innocence. For this work, Odysseas Elytis
called Embirikos "a visionary and a prophet".
"; the second, "Nikos Engonopoulos
or the miracle of Elbassan and Bosphorus".
Braila
Brăila is a city in Muntenia, eastern Romania, a port on the Danube and the capital of Brăila County, in the close vicinity of Galaţi.According to the 2002 Romanian census there were 216,292 people living within the city of Brăila, making it the 10th most populous city in Romania.-History:A...
, 2 September 1901 – Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
, 3 August 1975) was a Greek
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
surrealist poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
and the first Greek psychoanalyst.
Life
Embirikos came from a wealthy family as his father was an important ship-ownerShip-owner
A shipowner is the owner of a merchant vessel . In the commercial sense of the term, a shipowner is someone who equips and exploits a ship, usually for delivering cargo at a certain freight rate, either as a per freight rate or based on hire...
. He was born in Brăila
Braila
Brăila is a city in Muntenia, eastern Romania, a port on the Danube and the capital of Brăila County, in the close vicinity of Galaţi.According to the 2002 Romanian census there were 216,292 people living within the city of Brăila, making it the 10th most populous city in Romania.-History:A...
, Romania
Kingdom of Romania
The Kingdom of Romania was the Romanian state based on a form of parliamentary monarchy between 13 March 1881 and 30 December 1947, specified by the first three Constitutions of Romania...
, but his family soon moved to Ermoupolis in Syros
Syros
Syros , or Siros or Syra is a Greek island in the Cyclades, in the Aegean Sea. It is located south-east of Athens. The area of the island is . The largest towns are Ermoupoli, Ano Syros, and Vari. Ermoupoli is the capital of the island and the Cyclades...
. When Embirikos was only seven years old they moved to Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
. While he was still a teenager his parents divorced; he started studying at the Faculty of Philosophy of the National and Capodistrian University of Athens, but he decided to move to Lausanne
Lausanne
Lausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and is the capital of the canton of Vaud. The seat of the district of Lausanne, the city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva . It faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura mountains to its north-west...
to stay with his mother.
The following years Embirikos studied a variety of subjects both in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
where he studies at King's College London
King's College London
King's College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the federal University of London. King's has a claim to being the third oldest university in England, having been founded by King George IV and the Duke of Wellington in 1829, and...
; however it was in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
where he decided to study psychanalysis together with René Laforgue
René Laforgue
Rene Laforgue was a French psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. Laforgue was born in Thann and died in Paris. He studied medicine in Berlin. He maintained a correspondence with Sigmund Freud. He is the author of several books on psychoanalysis.-External links:*...
.
Timeline
- 1929 Meets with the surrealists and is interested in automatic writingAutomatic writingAutomatic writing or psychography is writing which the writer states to be produced from a subconscious and/or spiritual source without conscious awareness of the content.-History:...
. - 1931 Returns to Greece and works for some time at the shipdocks.
- 1934 Develops an intermittent companionship to Marguerite YourcenarMarguerite YourcenarMarguerite Yourcenar was a Belgian-born French novelist and essayist. Winner of the Prix Femina and the Erasmus Prize, she was the first woman elected to the Académie française, in 1980, and the seventeenth person to occupy Seat 3.-Biography:Yourcenar was born Marguerite Antoinette Jeanne Marie...
. - 1940 Gets married with poetess Matsi Hatzilazarou; nevertheless, they divorce four years later. The same year he divorced his wife, he was arrested by the communist organizationOrganizationAn organization is a social group which distributes tasks for a collective goal. The word itself is derived from the Greek word organon, itself derived from the better-known word ergon - as we know `organ` - and it means a compartment for a particular job.There are a variety of legal types of...
OPLA and was treated in a humiliating way. - 1935 Gives the famous lecture On surrealism (Περί σουρρεαλισμού) in Athens and publishes Blast furnace; a pure surrealist text.
- 1947 Gets married for the second time with Vivika Zisi. A year later, his father, with whom Embeirikos' relationship was rather normal, dies in GenevaGenevaGeneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
. - 1962 Together with Yorgos TheotokasYórgos TheotokásYórgos Theotokás , also spelt Geórgios Theotokás, was a Greek novelist.-Biography:He was born in Constantinople ....
and Odysseas ElytisOdysseas ElytisOdysseas Elytis was regarded as a major exponent of romantic modernism in Greece and the world. In 1979 he was bestowed with the Nobel Prize in Literature.-Biography:...
, he was invited to travel to the USSR by the "Greco-Soviet" Union; the trip inspired him to write the poem ES ES ES ER Rossia. - 1975 He dies in KifissiaKifissiaKifissia or Kifisia is one of the most expensive northern suburbs of Athens, mainly accessed via Kifissias Avenue, running all the way from central Athens up to Theseos Avenue in the suburb of Nea Erythraia. It has traditionally been home to the major Greek political families...
; his mother preceded him by only two years.
Poetry
His poetry can be defined by two major tendencies. On the one hand, he was one of the major representatives of surrealism in Greece. His first poetic collection, Ipsikaminos, was a hereticHeresy
Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...
book
Book
A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...
, characterized by the lack of the punctuation and the peculiarity of the language. As the poet himself admitted it was precisely the originality and extravagance of his work that contributed to his relative commercial success.
On the other hand, together with Yorgos Seferis, Embirikos was the most important representative of the generation of the 1930s. He contributed greatly to the introduction of modernism in Greek letters and he helped change once and for all the poetic atmosphere of Greece.
Megas Anatolikos
Arguably, the most significant and influential work by Embirikos is Megas Anatolikos. The poet dedicated many years of work to this particularly long novel, that consists of more than one hundred chapters. In this work, Embirikos narrates the first trip of the ocean liner Great EasternSS Great Eastern
SS Great Eastern was an iron sailing steam ship designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and built by J. Scott Russell & Co. at Millwall on the River Thames, London. She was by far the largest ship ever built at the time of her 1858 launch, and had the capacity to carry 4,000 passengers around the...
(Μέγας Ἀνατολικός) from England to America. Embirikos describes the Great Eastern as a hedonic vessel, where the multitude of the passengers enjoy love without and beyond limits. During the ten-day trip (an allusion to the Decameron) they discover a new form of happiness and innocence. For this work, Odysseas Elytis
Odysseas Elytis
Odysseas Elytis was regarded as a major exponent of romantic modernism in Greece and the world. In 1979 he was bestowed with the Nobel Prize in Literature.-Biography:...
called Embirikos "a visionary and a prophet".
Literary critic
Embirikos also wrote articles of literary criticism; at least two of them are worth-mentioning. The first is "The hidden necrophilia in the works of Edgar Allan PoeEdgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
"; the second, "Nikos Engonopoulos
Nikos Engonopoulos
Nikos Engonopoulos was a modern Greek painter and poet. He is one of the most important members of the Greek Generation of the '30s as well as a major representative of the surrealistic movement in Greece...
or the miracle of Elbassan and Bosphorus".
Selected works
- Blast furnace (Ὑψικάμινος), 1935
- Hinterland (Ἐνδοχώρα), 1945
- Writings or Personal Mythology (Γραπτά ἤ Προσωπική Μυθολογία), 1960
- ES ES ES ER Rossia (ΕΣ ΕΣ ΕΣ ΕΡ Ρωσσία), 1962
- Argo or Aerostat Flight (Ἄργώ ἤ Πλούς Αεροστάτου), 1964
- Oktana (Ὀκτάνα), 1980
- Every Generation or Today as Tomorrow and as Yesterday (Αἱ Γενεαί Πᾶσαι ἤ Ἡ Σήμερον ὡς Αὔριον καί ὡς Χθές), 1985
- Armala or Introduction to a city (Ἄρμαλα ἤ Εἰσαγωγή σέ μία πόλι), 1985
- The Great Eastern (Ό Μέγας Ἀνατολικός), 1990
- Zemphyra or The Secret of Pasiphae (Ζεμφύρα ή Το Μυστικόν της Πασιφάης), 1997
- Nikos Engonopoulos or the miracle of Elbassan and Bosphorus, 2000
- Lecture 1963, 2000
- prologue in Marie Bonaparte'sPrincess Marie BonapartePrincess Marie Bonaparte was a French author and psychoanalyst, closely linked with Sigmund Freud. Her wealth contributed to the popularity of psychoanalysis, and enabled Freud's escape from Nazi Germany....
book The hidden necrophilia in the work of Edgar Poe, (Η λανθάνουσα νεκροφιλία στο έργο του Έδγαρ Πόε, 2000) - A Case of Obsessive-Compulsive Neurosis with Premature Ejaculations and Other Psychoanalytic Texts (Μια Περίπτωσις Ιδεοψυχαναγκαστικής Νευρώσεως με Πρόωρες Εκσπερματώσεις και Άλλα Ψυχαναλυτικά Κείμενα, 2005)
- a translation of Picasso's The four little girls, 1980
- Amour, Amour: writings or personal mythology, tr. N. Stangos, A. Ross (1966).
External links
- (in Greek) An homage site for the hundred years from Embirikos birth
- Matsi Hatzilazarou's poems from Translatum's anthology of Poets from Thessaloniki