No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
The King of Asine, Makriyannis, Seferis and ourselves*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 January 2016
Abstract
‘The King of Asine’, one of George Seferis’s best-known poems, is the subject of the present article, which falls into two parts. The first part follows the standard interpretation, but with an emphasis on aspects that have not (at least sufficiently) been commented on hitherto. The second part pursues a new approach and concludes by proposing another, parallel, reading whereby ‘The King of Asine’ is also seen as exploring the poetic experience.
- Type
- Homage to George Seferis
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 2001
Footnotes
*
An earlier version of this article was read at the colloquium ‘George Seferis in a Comparative Context’ (University of Birmingham, 21/10/2000), and as one of ‘Four Lectures on George Seferis (1900-1971)’ (University of Cambridge, 22/11/2000). My thanks are due to the participants for the discussion that ensued on both occasions. I am particularly grateful, moreover, to Peter Mackridge, Theano Michaelidou and Harry Davis who read the typescript of this article and made valuable comments and suggestions. Quotations from Seferis’s prose writings are followed by a translation; unless otherwise indicated, the rendering is mine. An English rendering of his verse was considered superfluous, since the Keeley & Sherrard translation of his poetry is easily available: George Seferis, Collected Poems, tr. Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard (3rd edn, London 1982) as well as the new and revised (but no longer bilingual) edition, George Seferis, Complete Poems, tr. Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard (London 1995). The titles in English that I have adopted of Seferis’s poems are those of the 1982 edition. For the Greek I have used G. Seferis, Ποιήματα, 9th edn. [ed. G.P. Savvidis] (Athens 1974). The words of Maro Seferis prefacing this article (‘How strange, the word “king” keeps cropping up all the time. Would you say it is because of our “King of Asine”?’) are taken from her letter of 22 August 1938; see Kopidakis, M.Z. (ed.), Σεφέρης καὶ Μαρώ, Άλληλογραφία, A’ (1936-1940) 294.
References
1. Seferis, G., Μέρες, A’, 1 Γενάρη 1941-31 Δεκέμβρη 1944 (Athens 1977) 164 Google Scholar, and Seferis, G. & Malanos, T., Άλληλογραφία (1935-1963), ed. Daskalopoulos, D. (Athens 1990) 83 Google Scholar; cf.Seferis, G., Μέρες, Г’, 16 Άπρίλη 1934-4 Δεκέμβρη 1940 (Athens 1977) 229 Google Scholar. A like-minded attitude was expressed some twelve years later by T.S. Eliot in his lecture ‘The Three Voices of Poetry’, where he said of the (‘lyric’) poet: ‘when the words are finally arranged in the right way — or in what he comes to accept as the best arrangement he can find — he may experience a moment of exhaustion, of appeasement, of absolution, and of something very near annihilation, which is in itself indescribable. And then he can say to the poem: “Go away! Find a place for yourself in a book — and don’t expect me to take any further interest in you”’; see Eliot, T.S., On Poetry and Poets (London 1957, repr. 1979) 98 Google Scholar.
2. Seferis, G., ‘The King of Asine’ and Other Poems, tr. Spencer, B., Valaoritis, N., Durrell, L. (London 1948)Google Scholar.
3. Yatromanolakis, Y., ‘O Βασιλιάς τής Άσίνης’.Ή άνασκαφή évòc ποιήματος (Athens 1986)Google Scholar; Ricks, D., The Shade of Homer. A Study in Modern Greek Poetry (Cambridge 1989) 158–171 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4. Hom. Il. 2. 559-567.
5. ‘I found at last what is the characteristic that distinguishes the king of Asine. He was a king without a poet while his neighbours... This would imply that he was happy.’ Kopidakis (ed.), Σεφέρης και Μαρώ, Άλληλογραφία, 298.
6. Seferis, G., Μέρες, E’, 1 Τενάρη 1945-19 Άπρίλη 1951, 2nd edn [ed. Kasdaglis, E. Ch.] (Athens 1977) 83 Google Scholar; A Poet’s Journal, Days of 1945-1951, Anagnostopoulos, tr. A. (Cambridge, Massachusetts 1974) 64 Google Scholar. For a discussion of light in Seferis’s work, see: Krikos-Davis, K., Kolokes. A Study of George Seferis’s Logbook III (1953-1955) (Amsterdam 1994) 105–110 Google Scholar.
7. ‘a moving piazza where not only I but a lot of people have passed, as has the rain and the wind and human bodies’. Seferis, G., Αοκιμές, В’ (1948-1971), ed. Savvidis, G.P. (Athens 1974) 355 Google Scholar.
8. Re-reading this passage from the Odyssey eighteen months after he had completed the poem, Seferis noted in his diary that he was not — at least consciously — alluding to it (Seferis, Мерк, А’, 113-114). This does not, of course, lessen the impact of the Homeric connotations.
9. Keeley and Sherrard, in their 1982 and 1995 editions of Seferis, render these verses in such a way as to rule out the possibility of an epiphany: ‘Would that it were the king of Asine / we’ve been searching for so carefully on this acropolis / sometimes touching with our fingers his touch upon the stones.’ (Seferis, Collected Poems, 269-271) and ‘If only that could be the king of Asini [...]’ (Seferis, Complete Poems, 136). This marks a change from their earlier rendering, which was in line with those of most other translators: ‘Could that be the King of Asine [...]’ ( Seferis, George, Collected Poems 1924-1955, Keeley, tr. Edmund and Sherrard, Philip, London 1969, 263)Google Scholar. Cf.Levesque, R., Séféris (Athens 1945) 183 Google Scholar; Seferis, ‘The King of Asine’ and Other Poems, 73; Seferis, George, Poems, Warner, tr. Rex (London 1960) 73 Google Scholar; Friar (tr.), K., Modern Greek Poetry. From Cavafis to Elytis (New York 1973) 305 Google Scholar; Séféris, Georges, Poèmes (1933-1955), tr. Jacques Lacarrière & Egèrie Mavraki, suivis de Trois poèmes secrets, tr. Yves Bonnefoy & Loránd Gaspar (Paris 1989, repr. 1994) 115 Google Scholar; Ricks, The Shade of Homer, 160.
10. See Karandonis, A., Είσαγωγή στή νεώτερη ποίηση. Γύρω άπο τή σΰγχρονη έλληνική ποίηση (5th edn, Athens 1978) 178 Google Scholar, cf. 182.
11. Keeley, E. and Sherrard (tr.), P., Six Poets of Modem Greece (London 1960) 23 Google Scholar.
12. See what the poet wrote to Robert Levesque with reference to the ‘Thrush’: ‘les statues ne signifient pas autre chose dans ce poème que les corps humains durs d’insensibilité, ou infléchis par l’amour, ou mutilés par les ravages du temps’ (cited in Kohler, D., L’Aviron d’Ulysse (Paris 1985) 778)Google Scholar.
13. Seferis, G., Μέρκ, Л’(Athens 1975) 75–76 Google Scholar; cf. “Εξι Νύχτες στήν Άκρόπολη , ed. Savvidis, G.P. (Athens 1974) 73 Google Scholar.
14. Chrysanthis, Kypros, “‘Ό ποιητής ενα κενο” той Σεφέρη’, Πνευματική Κύπρος 46-47 (July-Aug. 1964) 263–264 Google Scholar.
15. See Πνευματική Κνπρος 134 (November 1971) 29-30; see also Pavlou, S., «Συμπληρωμαπκά φιλολονικά γιά τον Σεφέρη», Άκτή 1 (Winter 1989) 109–111 Google Scholar; and Dimitrakopoulos, F. (ed.), Γ. Σεφέρης-Κ. Χρυσάνθης και ‘Oí Γάτες τ’ “Αη Νικόλα ’ (Athens 1995) 65–71 Google Scholar, where Chrysanthis’s article and his letter to Seferis are likewise cited.
16. Seferis, G., Δοκψές, A’(1936-1947), ed. Savvidis, G. P. (Athens 1974) 153–154 Google Scholar.
17. Seferis, Δοκιμκ, В’, 163-164.
18. Μέρες, Г’, 190
19. Seferis, Μέρες, E’, 168-169; A Poet’s Journal, tr. A. Anagnostopoulos, 142-143; cf. Δοκιμές A’, 43, 48, 159, 266, 289, 314-316; Λοκψές, В’, 246.
20. Forster, E. M., Two Cheers for Democracy (London 1951 Google Scholar; Penguin edn, ed. O. Stallybrass, 1972) 97; Seferis, Αοκιμκ, A’, 165ff.
21. Forster, Two Cheers, 97.
22. Seferis, Αοκψέζ, В’, 177; ‘Language in our Poetry’, tr. Peter Thompson, Labrys 8 (April 1983) 43.
23. See Seferis, Λοκιμές, Α 153-156.
24. Seferis, Αοκιμές, В’, 164; ‘Language in our Poetry’, tr. P. Thompson, 35-36.
25. Νεοελληνικά Γράμματα (27/7/40) 6.
26. Seferis, Μέρες, Г’, 237.