SOURCE: "Odysseus Elytis: A Contemporary Greek Poet," in Nette Zürcher Zeitung, July 17, 1960, pp. 59-63.

In the excerpt below (an article especially liked by Elytis himself), Hilty explores Elytis's relationship to French surrealists and its impact on his use of traditional Greek themes and images in his poetry.

Elytis (born Odysseás Alepoudhélis) is descended from an old family native to Lesbos and was born in 1911 in Iráklion, Crete—where, by the way, Kazantzakis also first saw the light of day (1883). He grew up in Athens and began studying law in 1930, but soon felt himself drawn more to writing and to art. He was particularly captivated by the expressive world of the French surrealists. He translated Lautréamont, Éluard, Jouve and Lorca into modern Greek, wrote studies on modern art, traveled, then settled for a time in Paris in 1948; and without this expedition into the wide-open...