Perhaps Greece's most important poet, Yannis Ritsos follows such eminent
predecessors as Cavafy, Sikelianos, and Seferis in the dramatic and
symbolic expression of a tragic sense of life. The three volumes of
Ritsos's poetry translated here--Parentheses, 1946-47, Parentheses,
1950-61, and The Distant, 1975--represent a thirty year poetic journey
and a developing sensibility that link the poet's subtler perceptions at
different moments of his maturity.
In his introduction to the poems, and as an explanation of the book's
title, Edmund Keeley writes: "The two signs of the parenthesis are like
cupped hands facing each other across a distance, hands that are
straining to come together, to achieve a meeting that would serve to
reaffirm human contact between isolated presences; but though there are
obvious gestures toward closing the gap between the hands, the gestures
seem inevitably to fail, and the meeting never quite occurs."
In terms of the development of Ritsos's poetic vision, the distance
within the parenthesis is shorter in each of the two earlier volumes
than in the most recent volume. There the space has become almost
infinite, yet Ritsos's powerfully evocative if stark landscape reveals a
stylistic purity that is the latest mark of his greatness.
Originally published in 1979.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand
technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from
the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions
preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting
them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the
Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich
scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by
Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
