Dionysios Solomos
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Dionysios Solomos (Greek: Διονύσιος Σολωμός) (1798-1857) was a Greek poet from Zakynthos. He is best known for writing the poem "Hymn to Freedom" (Imnos eis tin Eleftherian) in 1823, of which the first two stanzas became the Greek national anthem.
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[edit] Early Life and Education
He was born in 1798 as the illegitimate child of a wealthy count, Nikolaos Solomos, and his housekeeper, Angeliki Nikli, but his father married his mother a day before his death, making the young Dionysios legitimate and a co-heir of the estate with his half-brother. In 1808 he went to Italy, where he studied law, Latin and Italian literature in Venice, Cremona and Pavia. He was friends with the poet Ugo Foscolo (who was also born in Zakynthos). Solomos' first literary language was Italian. After 10 years he returned to Zakynthos with a solid background in literature. Solomos became famous as a poet during this time, while still a young man. His early poetry (sonnets and other short forms) was in Italian. His education in Greek was minimal, which kept him free of any scholarly influences, that might have led him to write in katharevousa, a "purist" language heavily influenced by ancient Greek. Instead he wrote in the language of the common people of his native island. The result was the first extensive body of literature written in the demotic language, the influence of which on subsequent writers was significant.
[edit] Later Life and Death
At the end of 1828 he left Zakynthos and settled in Kerkyra ("Corfu") in order to dedicate himself to poetry. Solomos died in February 1857 from apoplexy. His remains were transferred to Zakynthos in 1865.
[edit] Literary Influences and Major Works
Solomos was heavily influenced by European romanticism, including Byron and Leopardi. He was also exposed to the cultural and political ferment of the Enlightenment and the ideas of the French Revolution, and he identified with Italian national sentiments for unification and liberation from the Habsburgs.
Solomos' only complete major works are two long poems (of 158 and 166 stanzas respectively). The first was the epic Hymn to Freedom, the first two stanzas of which became the Greek national anthem. This work salutes the War of Greek Independence, started in 1821, by invoking the personified image of Liberty, reborn and renewed out of "the sacred bones of the Greeks." Of particular interest to non-Greeks are references to all the great powers of the time, which include the "heartfelt joy of Washington's land" that "remembered the irons that bound her also," and a savage dig at the Austrian Eagle "that feeds on the entrails of the Italians to grow wings and talons" and does his best to harm Liberty. Solomos' own Ionian islands, under British rule at the time, are described as being "artfully chained" and having "'False Freedom' written on their foreheads." The poem does not shrink from the savagery of the war, and ends with exhortations to the revolutionaries to maintain unity and avoid civil war, which had already erupted at the time of writing.
The second long poem, On the Death of Lord Byron, is labeled a lyrical one and was written after Byron died during the siege of Mesolongi, but the subject matter and form are epic.
In both works there are several direct and indirect references to Byron's works. A good example is a reference (in Solomos' own footnotes) to Byron's Don Juan, where in Canto the Third (The Greek Isles 15) a Greek poet says:
Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
Our virgins dance beneath the shade --
I see their glorious black eyes shine;
But gazing on each glowing maid,
My own the burning tear-drop laves,
To think such breasts must suckle slaves
By contrast, in the Hymn to Liberty Solomos rejoices in the sight of "lily-fingered virgins" whose "breasts are preparing the sweet-suckled milk of bravery and freedom."
The other romantic impulse (melancholy, gothic and supernatural, influenced by both Byron and Leopardi) comes out in two other poems, of which only fragments remain: Lambros and Porfyras.
Solomos' most ambitious work, The Free Besieged, is about the heroic siege and sally of Mesolongi. There are three fragmentary drafts of this unfinished work which show glimpses of what could have been a masterpiece. Another ambitious but fragmentary long poem is The Cretan.
[edit] Minor Works
Solomos also wrote translations of Italian poetry and Desdemona's song from Shakespeare's Othello, epigrams, other miscellanous verse, satirical poems in Zakynthos dialect, and two prose works, including the tragic/mystical The Woman of Zakynthos. Of his attempts to translate parts of the Iliad into modern Greek only a couple of dozen lines remain.
[edit] Formal Elements
The poet used different metrical and rhyme forms, starting with some influenced by Italian poetry (sonnet form, rhymed trochaic terameters) and settling into the standard forms of Greek folk songs (iambic 15-syllable blank verse). His epigram on the destruction of Psara (see War of Greek Independence), influenced by classical forms, is a marvel of rhythm and brevity in six lines of anapaest.
[edit] Surviving Works at His Death
Sadly, the poet's work at his death was mostly unfinished and in fragments, and was edited and published by his friend and fellow poet Iakovos Polylas. Whether Solomos was never satisfied with his work and kept little of it, whether large parts of his manuscripts ware lost (something Polylas implies), or whether he had difficulties fleshing out the ambitious structure of his planned works is not clear, but the fragments show a huge disconnect between intention and surviving work: The Cretan begins with a fragment of Canto 18 and ends with Canto 22, and none of them are complete; Lambros was conceived with at least 38 cantos (of some of them only a prose summary survives), with the shortest poetic fragment consisting of a single line, and the longest containing 33 stanzas; the second draft of The Free Besieged consists of 61 fragments, of which 27 are single lines, seven are two lines, and two are half-lines.
[edit] Legacy
Solomos is commonly referred to as Greece's "national poet" for his important legacy to Greek literature and national identity.
