Kostas Karyotakis
Encyclopedia
Kostas Karyotakis is considered one of the most representative Greek poets of the 1920s and one of the first poets to use iconoclastic themes in Greece. His poetry
conveys a great deal of nature
, image
ry and traces of expressionism
and surrealism
. The majority of Karyotakis' contemporaries viewed him in a dim light throughout his lifetime without a pragmatic accountability for their contemptuous views; for after his suicide
,the majority began to revert to the view that he was indeed a great poet. He had a significant, almost disproportionately progressive influence on later Greek poets.
, Greece
, his father's occupation as a county
engineer
resulted in his early childhood and teenage years being spent in various places, following his family’s successive moves around the Greek cities, including Argostoli
, Lefkada
, Larisa, Kalamata
, Athens
and Chania
.
He started publishing poetry in various magazine
s for children in 1912. It is solely rife speculation that he had felt deeply betrayed that a girl he had cared for in Hania in 1913 had married and sent him into melancholy. After receiving his degree from the Athens School of Law and Political Sciences
, in 1917, he did not pursue a career as a lawyer. Karyotakis became a clerk in the Prefecture of Thessaloniki
. However, he greatly disliked his work and could not tolerate the bureaucracy
of the state, which he wrote about often in his poems. His prose
piece Catharsis ('purification') is characteristic of this. For this reason he would often be removed from his posts and transferred to other locations in Greece. During these removals he became familiar with the boredom and misery of the country during World War I
.
review
called The Leg, which despite its success was banned by the police after the sixth issue. In 1921 he published his second collection called Nepenthe
and also wrote a musical revue
Pell-Mell. In 1922 he began having an affair with the poet Maria Polydouri
who was a colleague of his at the Prefecture of Attica
. In 1923 he wrote a poem called "Treponema pallidum
" , which was published under the title "Song of Madness" and gave rise to speculation that he may have been suffering from syphilis
, which before 1945 was considered a chronic illness with no proven cure for it. George Skouras, a physician of the poet, wrote: "He was sick, he was syphilitic" and George Savidis (1929–1999), professor of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
, who possessed the largest archive about Greek poets, revealed that Karyotakis was syphilitic, and that his brother, Thanasis Karyotakis, thought the disease to be a disgrace to the family. In 1924 he traveled abroad, visiting Italy
and Germany
. In December 1927 he published his last collection of poetry: Elegy and Satires . In February 1928, Karyotakis was transferred to Patras
although soon afterwards he spent a month on leave in Paris
and in June 1928 he was sent yet again to Preveza
by ship.
From Preveza
he sent desperate letters to friends and relatives describing the misery he felt in the town. His family offered to support him for an indefinite stay in Paris, but he refused knowing what a monetary sacrifice like this would entail for them. His angst is felt in the poem "Preveza" which he wrote shortly before his suicide. The poem displays an insistent, lilting anaphora on the word Death, which stands at the beginning of several lines and sentences. It is shot through with a pungent awareness of the gallows, in the tiny mediocrity of life as Karyotakis felt it, mortality is measured against insignificant, black, pecking birds, or the town policeman checking a disputed weight, or identified with futile street names (boasting the date of battles), or the brass band on Sunday, a trifling sum of cash in a bank book, the flowers on a balcony, a teacher reading his newspaper, the prefect coming in by ferry: "If only," mutters the last of these six symmetrical quatrains, "one of those men would fall dead out of disgust". On July 19, 1928 Karyotakis went to Monolithi beach and kept trying to drown in the sea for ten hours, but failed in his attempt, because he was an avid swimmer as he himself wrote in his suicide note. In the subsequent morning he returned home and left again to purchase a revolver
and went to a little café
. After smoking for a few hours, he went to a nearby seashore called Agios Spyridon and there, under a eucalyptus
tree, he shot himself through the heart. His suicide letter was found in his pocket.
. First of them is the television Documantery film of Freddie Germanos in 1981 performed by the Greek State Television ERT. In this research is available the interview of old shepherd Taxiarchis Nitsas, who saved Kostas Karyotakis in the Mytikas Beach and also the interview of his house owner Penelope Lygouri. Penelope was a young girl in 1928 and said "Mister Kostas had three French costumes and no books at home. After his death i found some papers, but i did'nt know that was poems, so i throwed them as litter". The second research in Preveza about Kostas Karyotakis is work of Dr. Harry Gouvas from 1990–2009, which contains 3 interviews of persons who knew Kostas Karyotakis, in his book "History of Preveza Prefecture". Harry Gouvas's office is today in the same building where Kostas Karyotakis was working. The third recearch in Preveza belongs to cinema director Tassos Psaras, who made the tv serial "Kostas Karyotakis" during year 2009.
The writing of Karyotakis, was characterized by his own personal language similar to that of Constantine P. Cavafy
, which adopted verbal acrobatics between archaism and demotic language, as well as a deep pessimism, which is usually inflected by irony and set a fashion for melancholy and sardonic verse that became known as Karyotakism. Poets who adopted his style increased, especially after his swan song Elegies and Satires (1927), with followers such as Angheliki Varvitsiotis-Konti, Spyros Gouskos and Sotos Skoutaris.
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
conveys a great deal of nature
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
, image
Image
An image is an artifact, for example a two-dimensional picture, that has a similar appearance to some subject—usually a physical object or a person.-Characteristics:...
ry and traces of expressionism
Expressionism
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
and surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
. The majority of Karyotakis' contemporaries viewed him in a dim light throughout his lifetime without a pragmatic accountability for their contemptuous views; for after his suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
,the majority began to revert to the view that he was indeed a great poet. He had a significant, almost disproportionately progressive influence on later Greek poets.
Biography
Karyotakis gave existential depth as well as a tragic dimension to the emotional nuances and melancholic tones of the neo-Symbolist and new-Romantic poetry of the time. With a rare clarity of spirit and penetrating vision, he captures and conveys with poetic daring the climate of dissolution and the impasses of his generation, as well as the traumas of his own inner spiritual world.Early life
Karyotakis was born in TripoliTripoli, Greece
Tripoli is a city of about 25,000 inhabitants in the central part of the Peloponnese, in Greece. It is the capital of the prefecture of Arcadia and the centre of the municipality of Tripolis, pop...
, Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
, his father's occupation as a county
County
A county is a jurisdiction of local government in certain modern nations. Historically in mainland Europe, the original French term, comté, and its equivalents in other languages denoted a jurisdiction under the sovereignty of a count A county is a jurisdiction of local government in certain...
engineer
Engineer
An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...
resulted in his early childhood and teenage years being spent in various places, following his family’s successive moves around the Greek cities, including Argostoli
Argostoli
Argostoli is a town and a former municipality on the island of Kefalonia, Ionian Islands, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Kefalonia, of which it is a municipal unit...
, Lefkada
Lefkada
Lefkada, or Leucas or Leucadia , is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea on the west coast of Greece, connected to the mainland by a long causeway and floating bridge. The principal town of the island and seat of the municipality is Lefkada . It is situated on the northern part of the island,...
, Larisa, Kalamata
Kalamata
Kalamata is the second-largest city of the Peloponnese in southern Greece. The capital and chief port of the Messenia prefecture, it lies along the Nedon River at the head of the Messenian Gulf...
, 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...
and Chania
Chania
Chaniá , , also transliterated Chania, Hania, and Xania, older form Chanea and Venetian Canea, Ottoman Turkish خانيه Hanya) is the second largest city of Crete and the capital of the Chania peripheral unit...
.
He started publishing poetry in various magazine
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
s for children in 1912. It is solely rife speculation that he had felt deeply betrayed that a girl he had cared for in Hania in 1913 had married and sent him into melancholy. After receiving his degree from the Athens School of Law and Political Sciences
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
The National and Kapodistrian University of Athens , usually referred to simply as the University of Athens, is the oldest university in Southeast Europe and has been in continuous operation since its establishment in 1837. Today, it is the second-largest institution of higher learning in Greece,...
, in 1917, he did not pursue a career as a lawyer. Karyotakis became a clerk in the Prefecture of Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki , historically also known as Thessalonica, Salonika or Salonica, is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the region of Central Macedonia as well as the capital of the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace...
. However, he greatly disliked his work and could not tolerate the bureaucracy
Bureaucracy
A bureaucracy is an organization of non-elected officials of a governmental or organization who implement the rules, laws, and functions of their institution, and are occasionally characterized by officialism and red tape.-Weberian bureaucracy:...
of the state, which he wrote about often in his poems. His prose
Prose
Prose is the most typical form of written language, applying ordinary grammatical structure and natural flow of speech rather than rhythmic structure...
piece Catharsis ('purification') is characteristic of this. For this reason he would often be removed from his posts and transferred to other locations in Greece. During these removals he became familiar with the boredom and misery of the country during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
.
Adulthood and career
In February 1919 he published his first collection of poetry: The Pain of Men and Things , which was largely ignored or badly criticized by the critics. In the same year he published with his friend Agis Levendis a satiricalSatire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
review
Review
A review is an evaluation of a publication, a product or a service, such as a movie , video game, musical composition , book ; a piece of hardware like a car, home appliance, or computer; or an event or performance, such as a live music concert, a play, musical theater show or dance show...
called The Leg, which despite its success was banned by the police after the sixth issue. In 1921 he published his second collection called Nepenthe
Nepenthe
Nepenthe is a medicine for sorrow, literally an anti-depressant – a "drug of forgetfulness" mentioned in ancient Greek literature and Greek mythology, depicted as originating in Egypt....
and also wrote a musical revue
Revue
A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance and sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century American popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own during its golden years from 1916 to 1932...
Pell-Mell. In 1922 he began having an affair with the poet Maria Polydouri
Maria Polydouri
Maria Polydouri was a Greek poet.Polydouri was born in Kalamata. She was a contemporary of Kostas Karyotakis, with whom she had a desperate but incomplete love affair...
who was a colleague of his at the Prefecture of Attica
Attica
Attica is a historical region of Greece, containing Athens, the current capital of Greece. The historical region is centered on the Attic peninsula, which projects into the Aegean Sea...
. In 1923 he wrote a poem called "Treponema pallidum
Treponema pallidum
Treponema pallidum is a species of spirochaete bacterium with subspecies that cause treponemal diseases such as syphilis, bejel, pinta and yaws. The treponemes have a cytoplasmic and outer membrane...
" , which was published under the title "Song of Madness" and gave rise to speculation that he may have been suffering from syphilis
Syphilis
Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the spirochete bacterium Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum. The primary route of transmission is through sexual contact; however, it may also be transmitted from mother to fetus during pregnancy or at birth, resulting in congenital syphilis...
, which before 1945 was considered a chronic illness with no proven cure for it. George Skouras, a physician of the poet, wrote: "He was sick, he was syphilitic" and George Savidis (1929–1999), professor of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
The Aristotle University of Thessaloniki is the largest Greek university, and the largest university in the Balkans. It was named after the philosopher Aristotle, who was born in Stageira, Chalcidice, about 55 km east of Thessaloniki, in Central Macedonia...
, who possessed the largest archive about Greek poets, revealed that Karyotakis was syphilitic, and that his brother, Thanasis Karyotakis, thought the disease to be a disgrace to the family. In 1924 he traveled abroad, visiting Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
and Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. In December 1927 he published his last collection of poetry: Elegy and Satires . In February 1928, Karyotakis was transferred to Patras
Patras
Patras , ) is Greece's third largest urban area and the regional capital of West Greece, located in northern Peloponnese, 215 kilometers west of Athens...
although soon afterwards he spent a month on leave 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...
and in June 1928 he was sent yet again to Preveza
Preveza
Preveza is a town in the region of Epirus, northwestern Greece, located at the mouth of the Ambracian Gulf. It is the capital of the regional unit of Preveza, which is part of the region of Epirus. An immersed tunnel, completed in 2002 which runs between Preveza and Actium, connects the town...
by ship.
Last month in Preveza city and Suicide
Kostas Karyotakis lived in Preveza only for 33 days, until his suicide on July 21, 1928. His work was in Prefecture of Preveza, in the Palios mansion, 10 Speliadou street, as a lowyer for control for land donations from State to refugees from Asia Minor War of 1922.From Preveza
Preveza
Preveza is a town in the region of Epirus, northwestern Greece, located at the mouth of the Ambracian Gulf. It is the capital of the regional unit of Preveza, which is part of the region of Epirus. An immersed tunnel, completed in 2002 which runs between Preveza and Actium, connects the town...
he sent desperate letters to friends and relatives describing the misery he felt in the town. His family offered to support him for an indefinite stay in Paris, but he refused knowing what a monetary sacrifice like this would entail for them. His angst is felt in the poem "Preveza" which he wrote shortly before his suicide. The poem displays an insistent, lilting anaphora on the word Death, which stands at the beginning of several lines and sentences. It is shot through with a pungent awareness of the gallows, in the tiny mediocrity of life as Karyotakis felt it, mortality is measured against insignificant, black, pecking birds, or the town policeman checking a disputed weight, or identified with futile street names (boasting the date of battles), or the brass band on Sunday, a trifling sum of cash in a bank book, the flowers on a balcony, a teacher reading his newspaper, the prefect coming in by ferry: "If only," mutters the last of these six symmetrical quatrains, "one of those men would fall dead out of disgust". On July 19, 1928 Karyotakis went to Monolithi beach and kept trying to drown in the sea for ten hours, but failed in his attempt, because he was an avid swimmer as he himself wrote in his suicide note. In the subsequent morning he returned home and left again to purchase a revolver
Revolver
A revolver is a repeating firearm that has a cylinder containing multiple chambers and at least one barrel for firing. The first revolver ever made was built by Elisha Collier in 1818. The percussion cap revolver was invented by Samuel Colt in 1836. This weapon became known as the Colt Paterson...
and went to a little café
Café
A café , also spelled cafe, in most countries refers to an establishment which focuses on serving coffee, like an American coffeehouse. In the United States, it may refer to an informal restaurant, offering a range of hot meals and made-to-order sandwiches...
. After smoking for a few hours, he went to a nearby seashore called Agios Spyridon and there, under a eucalyptus
Eucalyptus
Eucalyptus is a diverse genus of flowering trees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Members of the genus dominate the tree flora of Australia...
tree, he shot himself through the heart. His suicide letter was found in his pocket.
Researches in Preveza
There are available three researches about Kostas Karyotakis, accomplished in PrevezaPreveza
Preveza is a town in the region of Epirus, northwestern Greece, located at the mouth of the Ambracian Gulf. It is the capital of the regional unit of Preveza, which is part of the region of Epirus. An immersed tunnel, completed in 2002 which runs between Preveza and Actium, connects the town...
. First of them is the television Documantery film of Freddie Germanos in 1981 performed by the Greek State Television ERT. In this research is available the interview of old shepherd Taxiarchis Nitsas, who saved Kostas Karyotakis in the Mytikas Beach and also the interview of his house owner Penelope Lygouri. Penelope was a young girl in 1928 and said "Mister Kostas had three French costumes and no books at home. After his death i found some papers, but i did'nt know that was poems, so i throwed them as litter". The second research in Preveza about Kostas Karyotakis is work of Dr. Harry Gouvas from 1990–2009, which contains 3 interviews of persons who knew Kostas Karyotakis, in his book "History of Preveza Prefecture". Harry Gouvas's office is today in the same building where Kostas Karyotakis was working. The third recearch in Preveza belongs to cinema director Tassos Psaras, who made the tv serial "Kostas Karyotakis" during year 2009.
Legacy and Karyotakism
Today, there is general agreement on the importance of Karyotakis’ work, despite the fact that, for a long period, it was undervalued on ideological grounds. Greek idealists as well as spokesmen for the Leftist movement reproached him for being both pessimistic and decadent and some contemporary writers (F. Skouras, A. Papadimas) considered him seriously neurotic and they tried to stifle the striking effect he had on the younger generation. Despite being labeled as a minor poet by critics and philologists until 1970, poets amongst the Communists and surrealists of the inter-war, post-war and later years nevertheless recognized his leading role in the shaping of modern Greek poetry.The writing of Karyotakis, was characterized by his own personal language similar to that of Constantine P. Cavafy
Constantine P. Cavafy
Constantine P. Cavafy, also known as Konstantin or Konstantinos Petrou Kavafis, or Kavaphes was a renowned Greek poet who lived in Alexandria and worked as a journalist and civil servant...
, which adopted verbal acrobatics between archaism and demotic language, as well as a deep pessimism, which is usually inflected by irony and set a fashion for melancholy and sardonic verse that became known as Karyotakism. Poets who adopted his style increased, especially after his swan song Elegies and Satires (1927), with followers such as Angheliki Varvitsiotis-Konti, Spyros Gouskos and Sotos Skoutaris.
Poems and Collections
- Xeprovodisma (1919) published in «Noumas» (638)
- When you Came... (1919) published in «Noumas» (650)
- Your Letters (1920) published in «Noumas» (671)
- The Pain of Men and Things (1919)
- Nepenthe (1921)
- Song (1922) published in «Pharos» (82)
- Lycabettus ( 1922) published in «Noumas» (765)
- Treponema pallidum (1923) published in «New Life» (322)
- the Ash beyond the Horizon... (1923)) published in «Noumas» (771)
- Varium et Mutabile (1923)) published in «Easter Anthology, 1923 (together with one of his friends Agis Leventis).
- Escape (1923) published in «New Life» (324)
- Prepare (1923) published in «Espero» (3)
- Elegies and Satires (1927) published by printing press "Αthena"
- Optimism (1929) [Posthumously] «Nea Estia» (6, 63)
- Sunday (1929) [Posthumously] published in «Pnoe» (1)
- Preveza (1930) [Posthumously] published in «Nea Estia» (8, 88)
- When we get down the stairs... (1933) [Posthumously] published in «Beginnings» (7, July 1933)
Translations
1. Elegias e Sátiras/Ελεγεία και Σάτιρες, Théo de Borba Mossburger (Trans.), (n.t.) Revista Literária em Tradução, nº 1 (set/2010), Fpolis/Brasil, ISSN 2177-5141External links
- Tribute to Kostas Karyotakis
- Poems from Nepenthe and Elegies & Satires (translated by Peter J. King & Andrea ChristofidouAndrea ChristofidouAndrea Christofidou is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Keble College and Lecturer in Philosophy at Worcester College, Oxford. She has taught philosophy at the University of Oxford since 1992, and at Keble since 2001. She previously held lectureships at New College, Balliol, and Wadham College.She...
- another tribute to Kostas Karyotakis