SOURCE: A review of The Little Mariner, in Publishers Weekly, Vol. 233, No. 16, April 22, 1988, p. 79.

In the following review, the critic asserts that Elytis's The Little Mariner is about a journey.

This major work by Nobel laureate Elytis is composed in an elaborate symphonic form but has the simplest and oldest of story lines: a journey or quest—in this case, as the poet writes, "to find out who I am." The "I" is multipartite—representing not just the poet or the Greek nation but all humankind; and the journey takes place on many levels—geographical, historical, philosophical, linguistic, spiritual—alternating among four different kinds of "movements" that approach the problem of human self-realization from various angles using multifarious styles of verse. The poems are by turns lyrically luminous and simply direct; the sheer beauty of the Aegean pelago shimmers throughout as does the tradition of Greek ideals, which...