Issues of Modern Greek Literature II

In this course we study issues relating to the second postwar poetic generation. The poets are turning to traditional literary themes such as loneliness , death, alienation, love, time and human responsibility, trying to convey the anguish of the postwar man. The study of the second postwar poetic generation is supported by the discussion about the development, the renewal and the overthrow of the characteristics of the poetry of mourning during the 20th and 21st century. The prosody of death is expressed by irony, metonymy, ambiguity, elliptical speech, use of antithetic concepts, and by the subversion of the established rules of syntax and grammar. The poetry and the poetics of Kiki Dimoula –from the early collection of Έρεβος (1956) to Τα εύρετρα (2010) are in particular interest in the light of a continuous process of mourning. Her poetry laments the ephemeral human existence, the decay of time, the catalytic dominion of death, creating the sense – as it has been said – that the common fate of mortals had addressed only Kiki Dimoula. Dimoula’s poetry is distinguishable because of its elegiac tonality that expresses creatively the poetry of mourning, the poetry of loss.

Objectives

Prerequisites

No specific requirements needed.

Syllabus