Dionysios Solomos

Dionysios Solomos (Greek Διονύσιος Σολωμός; born April 8, 1798 Zakynthos, Corfu † 1857 ) was a Greek nobleman and poet.

Life

Born in 1798 on Zakynthos Solomos leaned on in his poetry to the demotic ( " vernacular " ) tradition and gave the popular tradition a new poetic dimension. A romantic notion people appending, he sought thereby to gain artistic inspiration and authenticity. So there is evidence that he collected folk idioms and terms and the Greek vernacular ( Dimotiki ) examined. In his dialogue on the language ( Διάλογος, 1824) he let the poets extol the virtues of the "authentic" vernacular; him he presented as fictional interlocutor towards the position shown in grotesquely comical trains figure of pedants, who championed necessarily a pure language on the ancient model.

This interest in linguistic can also be seen against the background that Solomos many years stayed to study in Italy, where he stood with representatives of Romanticism in connection; among other things, he learned personally Ugo Foscolo know; his first poetic attempts he made in Italian. After his return to Greece, where he later lived in Corfu, he began to write poetry in his mother tongue; his expressive poetry embodies a first peak literary work in a national form of the vernacular.

Is greatly influenced Solomos ' seal also by the national liberation struggle of the Greeks. Language won for the poet as well as an identity factor significance. His 1823 poem penned " Imnos is tin Eleftherian " ( " Hymn to Freedom " ) was a great success and introduced him abruptly. In the setting of Nikolaos Mantzaros it was at the foundation of the modern Greek State to the national anthem ( the original Greek text has been audited by the Bavarian royal court based on a custom built by Joseph Mindler order translation ). There were other larger poems which remained unfinished in part, the Ελεύθεροι Πολιορκημένοι [" The free besieged " ], and Εις το θάνατο του Λορδ Μπάιρον [" On the Death of Lord Byron " ] (1824 ) and two prose.

Honors and Awards

During his lifetime, the fame of the poet, however, kept within limits. Solomos was mapped to the 20- drachma coin used in the 1990s until the end of 2001 ( about 6 euro cents).

Works

Werkausgaben

• Linos Politis (ed.): Διονυσίου Σολωμού Άπαντα. Athens 1948-1960 ( " Dionysios Solomos, The Complete Works " )
• Hans- Christian Günther ( ed.): Dionysios Solomos, works. Steiner, Stuttgart 2000.

Translation of the Hymn to Liberty

• Hans -Peter Drögemüller: The Freedom of the Greeks and their singer: the 200th anniversary of the poet Dionysios Solomos ( 1798-1857 ). Romiosini, Cologne 1999, ISBN 3-929889-32-3. (Book display).
• Hans -Bernhard Snooze, Andreas Kerch, Konstantinos Zervopoulos (ed.): Joseph M. Mindler: Hymn to Freedom. The first complete German translation of the hymn by Dionysios Solomos to music by Nikolaos Mantzaros, Paderborn (IFB publishing German Language ) 2010, ISBN 978-3-931263-88-1. Review by Diana Siebert online.