A Portrait of Dionysios Solomos and Two of His Poems

By Professor Nina Gatzoulis

Professor Nina Gatzoulis
The Seven Islands of the Ionian Sea, due to their historic development and relationships with other European countries, greatly influenced the growth of Modern Greek literature. Their geographic proximity to Italy helped them to cultivate exclusive contacts with Western Europe. The islands were never dominated by the Ottoman rule, and during the second half of the eighteenth century the people on the Ionian Islands enjoyed an unprecedented prosperity under Venetian rule. The upper class of the Islands led the cultivated life of a sophisticated leisure class. Since they were the subjects of the Venetian Republic, both upper class and the "popolari" did not experience sufferings similar to those of the other Greeks who lived under Ottoman rule. The Venetians treated them well because the Seven Islands were a key fortress and played an important role in the defense system of the Venetian Empire.

Dionysios Solomos was born on the island of Zakinthos, (Zante) in 1780. His father, the aristocrat Count Nikolaos Solomos, known as "Conte-Tobacco" because he controlled the tobacco monopoly, married Dionysios' mother, the young and beautiful maid of Solomos, Angeliki Necles, only one day before his death, in 1807. The Solomos family was an aristocratic family of Venice with branches on the island of Crete, remaining there until the Turks conquered the island in 1669.

When Conte - Solomos passed away, young Dionysios was sent to Italy to study. There the young boy studied Latin and Italian philology and wrote Italian and Latin verses that greatly impressed his schoolmasters. One of his teachers once exclaimed: "Greek, you will cause our Monti to be forgotten." In 1815 the young Solomos graduated from the Cremona High School and entered the Law School of the University of Padua, where the children of most of the Ionian Islands' aristocracy studied.

Solomos, leaving Italy in 1818, returned to his native Zante. He had completed his law studies, though not very successfully, but during his stay in Italy he became acquainted not only with Italian literature but also with Classical Greek and Latin literature.

His doubts about his ability to use the Greek language effectively were swept away...The heroic fight for freedom, Hellas' War of Independence, his own love for liberty and his craving for the emancipation of his enslaved fellow-patriots provided ample inspiration for Solomos to become the bard of Greek freedom.
Spyridon Trikoupis, the Greek Stateman, invited by Lord Guilford, came to Zante in the winter of 1822. Many claim that the outcome of this meeting resulted in Solomos' decision to devote himself to writing Greek poetry. Indisputably Trikoupes' comments -- urging him to try to get the top place on the Greek Parnassus, instead of resigning himself to a lesser position on the Italian Parnassus, where the top seats were already occupied -- assisted Solomos to concentrate on writing in Greek rather than on Italian poetry. His doubts about his ability to use the Greek language effectively were swept away with Trikoupis' help, his private tutor's assistance, the study of Greek poets, and Fauriel's collection of Greek demotic songs. The heroic fight for freedom, Hellas' War of Independence, his own love for liberty and his craving for the emancipation of his enslaved fellow-patriots provided ample inspiration for Solomos to become the bard of Greek freedom.

 Solomos and Tricoupis discussed the Hellenic War of Independence quite extensively. His poem "Hymn to Liberty", which he wrote in 1823, is a result of these discussions. The first two stanzas of the poem, with music by his close friend Nicolaos Mantzaros, became the national anthem of Greece in 1864, replacing the Greek translation of the Bavarian National Anthem, which had been used until that time. The poem consists of 158 stanzas of rhymed eight and seven and eight-syllable trochaic verses, was written in about one month in the spring of 1823. The trochaic meter used by Solomos, intensifies the image he captures - Freedom as a young woman rushing through the land. In the two first stanzas the poet addresses and greets Freedom who is dwelling in a tomb, with words she never heard before. In stanzas 3-16 Freedom appears sad, because she is driven out from her home, Hellas. Even though people are not concerned with her fate she endures and hopes that some time her home will be glorious again. When she asks for help knocking on doors, she suffers false promises that turn into sarcastic remarks and she frantically returns to her tomb.

Stanzas 17-34 show the change of the Hellenes as they realize that the time has come to liberate their country, which they achieve after many efforts. They announce the happy news to Freedom. England is surprised by and suspicious of this sudden change and the Turks behave frantically, realizing this is the end for them. The "brave" Hellenic cities frighten away the enemy who is still trying to overpower Hellas. The Hellenes however don't give up and at the end of the poem (stanzas 137-158) Freedom is invited back to her homeland and everyone is ready to welcome her and to honor her as before. A lot of people have tried to translate the first stanzas of this poem into English, but none has succeeded in rendering the splendor of the images and the rhythm of the original satisfactorily, because it is a very complicated poem to translate. More
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