Kostís Palamás

Kostís Palamás (in Greek modern Κωστής Παλαμάς), born with Patras in 1859 and died in Athens in 1943, was a Greek Poète of very first plan, considered as most important of its generation. He was proposed besides for the Nobel Prize of Literature in 1939.

He indeed returns in Palamás to have been the apostle of the generalization of the language Démotique (popular), by reaction to the use of the Katharévousa (artificial), in the Hellenic literature.

It is with him that one owes the words of the Hymne Olympic, put in music by the type-setter Spyros Samaras and created at the time of the first Olympic Games of the modern era celebrated at Athens in 1896.

Secretary of the University of Athens and founder of the Academy of Athens (1926), Palamás produced one opens abundant and varied. Among its poetic works most representative, it is advisable to quote: Eyes of my heart (1892); Iambes and anapaests (1897); The tomb (1898), opens very moving inspired by the tragic death of the third wire of the poet whereas it was old only four years; Immutable life (1904); Satirical exercises (1907 - 1909); two épico-lyric philosopher's stones where it symbolized to become to it civilization and Hellénisme, twelve words of the Gypsy (1907) and the flute of the king (1910), etc

Palamás was also novelist, playwright and critical literary.

In 1926 and 1927, many demonstrations were organized, in Greece like abroad, in the universities and the circles philhellenes, in order to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of the first poem of the " maître". For example, with Paris, Hubert Pernot, famous hellenist of the Sorbonne a homage to Kostís Palamás in April 1926 organized, during which several reciting the worms of the poet déclamèrent.

In October 1940, Palamás launched a very famous message at the beginning of the German occupation: “I have only one thing to say to you. Enivrez you of the immortal wine of 1821. ” Three years later, the national funeral of Palamás gave place to a poignant call to resistance by the poet Angelos Sikelianos.

French bibliography

BAUD-BOVY, Samuel, Poetry of modern Greece , Lausanne, 1946.
CARATZAS, Stam C., " New documents concerning the demoticism: Eight letters of Costis Palamas in Psichari, Pale and Hubert Pernot" , in Mixtures offered to Octave and Melpo Merlier at the time of the 25e birthday of their arrival in Greece , Athens, French Institute of Athens (Collection of the French Institute of Athens, 92), 1956, pp. 83-111.
DIMARAS, C. Th., History of the néo-Hellenic literature. Origins at our days, Athens, French Institute of Athens, 1965.
MICHEL, Jean (French translation), Anthology of the Modern Greek poets, 1886-1929 , Countess of Noailles (foreword), Philéas Lebesgue (foreword), Paris, Albert Messein, 1930.
MORÉAS, Jean, Drafts and memories , Paris, Mercure de France, 1908.
PERNOT, Hubert, current Greece in its poets , Paris, Bookstore Garnier Brothers, 1921. (work dedicated to Kostís Palamás)

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