The Poets’ Voice

The Hellenic Parliament Foundation for Parliamentarism and Democracy, celebrating both Constantine Cavafy Year (2013) and the 50th anniversary of the Nobel Prize award to George Seferis (1963), has published this volume of poems by the two distinguished Greek poets.
Constantine Cavafy and George Seferis, with their poetic oeuvre and their influence on contemporary and future poets, were chiefly responsible for shaping the course of Modern Greek poetry after 1930. In using irony as the main instrument for creating poetic feeling, Cavafy not only contrives to arouse poetic emotion; his verse remains equally relevant today, through a technique of clearly evident historical and political analogy. Seferis responded to the raw realism of Cavafy, disguised as history, by humanising his mythological heroes with the features of men and women of his own time. The combination in his own lifetime of politics and poetry enabled him to perceive all aspects of life within the context of the fundamental pairing of justice and injustice.
Through the medium of political reference, both these great poets achieved the ultimate goal of their creative work: poetic catharsis, experienced as a transcending of the human condition.