The directory «Plots»

Solomos (Σολωμός) Dionysos
(1798—1857)

The national poet of Greece. Solomos was born in a family of Cretan origin, ennobled during the Venitian rule on the Ionian islands. He studied in Italy, in Cremona and Pavia, and wrote his first poems in Italian. The Greek war for independence (1821) and the release of books of popular songs of modern Greece by Fauriel (1824 & 1825) attracted him back to the Greek language, which he had to learn again from scratch. In 1823, he wrote the Hymn to Freedom, the national anthem of Greece, translated into French by Stanislas Julien and published by Fauriel in 1825, and the Poem on Lord Byron's Death in 1824. His Dialogue, on the use of the popular Greek language, was modelled on Dante's Convivio. His pre-Surrealist text The Woman from Zante was published only in 1927. After the fall of Missolonghi, Solomos wrote The Liberated Besieged, a philosophical and epic poem celebrating the spiritual strength of the besieged, as opposed to the brutal, material strength of the besiegers. Solomos is considered as the founder of the Ionian poetry school and the father of modern Greek poetry.

Greece, 1930, Dionysos Solomos

Greece, 1957, Solomos and composer Mantzaros

Greece, 1957, Dionysos Solomos

Greece, 1957, Zante landscape and Solomos

Greece, 1996, Dionysos Solomos and verse of poem (1824)