Roman Poet Lucan 39 - 65 AD

Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (November 3, 39 AD – April 30, 65 AD), better known in English as Lucan, was a Roman poet, born in Corduba (modern-day Córdoba), in the Hispania Baetica. Despite his short life, he is regarded as one of the outstanding figures of the Imperial Latin period. His youth and speed of composition set him apart from other poets.

Three brief ancient lives, the earliest attributed to Suetonius, another to an otherwise unknown Vacca, and the third anonymous and undated, along with references in Martial, Cassius Dio, Tacitus's Annals, and one of Statius's Silvae, allow for the reconstruction of a modest biography. Lucan was the grandson of Seneca the Elder and grew up under the tutelage of his uncle Seneca the Younger. Born into a wealthy family, he studied rhetoric at Athens and was probably provided with a philosophical and Stoic education by his uncle.

He found success under Nero, became one of the emperor's close friends and was rewarded with a quaestorship in advance of the legal age. In 60 AD, he won a prize for extemporizing Orpheus and Laudes Neronis at the quinquennial Neronia, and was again rewarded when the emperor appointed him to the augurate. During this time he circulated the first three books of his epic poem, Pharsalia (labelled De Bello civili in the manuscripts), which told the story of the civil war between Julius Caesar and Pompey.

At some point, a feud began between Nero and Lucan. Two very different accounts of the events have survived that both trivialize the feud. According to Tacitus, Nero became jealous of Lucan and forbade him to publish his poems. According to Suetonius, Nero lost interest in Lucan and Lucan responded by writing insulting poems about Nero that Nero continued to ignore.

Other works, though, point to a more serious basis to the feud. Works by the grammarian Vacca and the poet Statius may support the claim that Lucan wrote insulting poems about Nero. Vacca mentions that one of Lucan's works was entitled De Incendio Urbis (On the Burning of the City). Statius' ode to Lucan mentions that Lucan described the "unspeakable flames of the criminal tyrant roamed the heights of Remus." Additionally, the later books of Pharsalia are anti-Imperial and pro-Republic. This criticism of Nero and office of the Emperor may have been the true cause of the ban.

Lucan later joined the 65 AD conspiracy of Gaius Calpurnius Piso against Nero. His treason discovered, he was obliged to commit suicide by opening a vein at the age of 25, but not before incriminating his mother, among others, in hopes of a pardon. According to Tacitus, as Lucan bled to death, "(he) recalled some poetry he had composed in which he had told the story of a wounded soldier dying a similar kind of death, and he recited the very lines. These were his last words."

His father was involved in the proscription but his mother escaped. Statius' poem about Lucan was addressed to his widow Polla Argentaria upon the occasion of his birthday during the reign of Domitian (Silvae, ii.7, the Genethliacon Lucani).

Works

According to Vacca and Statius, Lucan's works included:

Surviving work:

• Bellum Civile (Civil War), on the wars between Julius Caesar and Pompey Magnus

Often attributed to him (but to others as well):

• Laus Pisonis (Praise of Piso), a panegyric of a member of the Piso family

Lost works:

• Catachthonion
• Iliacon from the Trojan cycle
• Epigrammata
• Adlocutio ad Pollam
• Silvae
• Saturnalia
• Medea
• Salticae Fabulae
• Laudes Neronis, a praise of Nero
• Orpheus
• Prosa oratio in Octavium Sagittam
• Epistulae ex Campania
• De Incendio Urbis, on the Roman fire of 64, perhaps accusing Nero of arson

Selected modern studies

• Ahl, Frederick M. Lucan: An Introduction. Cornell Studies in Classical Philology 39. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Pr., 1976.
• Bartsch, Shadi. Ideology in Cold Blood: A Reading of Lucan's Civil War. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Pr., 1997.
• Dewar, Michael. "Laying It On with a Trowel: The Proem to Lucan and Related Texts." Classical Quarterly 44 (1994), 199–211.
• Fantham, Elaine. "Caesar and the Mutiny: Lucan's Reshaping of the Historical Tradition in De Bello Civili 5.237–373." Classical Philology 80 (1985), 119–31.
• ———. "Lucan's Medusa Excursus: Its Design and Purpose." Materiali e discussioni 29 (1992), 95–119.
• Hays, Gregory. "'Important If True': Lucan's Orpheus and Aethicus Ister," Notes and Queries, 57,2 (2010), 196-199.
• Henderson, John G. W. "Lucan: The Word at War." Ramus 16 (1987), 122–64.
• Johnson, Walter R. Momentary Monsters: Lucan and His Heroes. Cornell Studies in Classical Philology 47. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Pr., 1987.
• Lapidge, M. "Lucan's Imagery of Cosmic Dissolution." Hermes 107 (1979), 344–70.
• Leigh, Matthew. Lucan: Spectacle and Engagement. New York: Oxford Univ. Pr., 1997.
• Marti, Berthe. "The Meaning of the Pharsalia." American Journal of Philology 66 (1945), 352–76.
• Martindale, Charles A. "The Politician Lucan." Greece and Rome 31 (1984), 64–79.
• Masters, Jamie. Poetry and Civil War in Lucan's 'Bellum Civile'. Cambridge Classical Studies. New York: Cambridge Univ. Pr., 1992.
• ———. "Deceiving the Reader: The Political Mission of Lucan's Bellum Civile." Reflections of Nero: Culture, History, and Representation, ed. Jás Elsner and Jamie Masters. Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Pr., 1994. 151–77.
• Morford, M. P. O. The Poet Lucan. New York: Oxford Univ. Pr., 1967.
• O'Gorman, Ellen. "Shifting Ground: Lucan, Tacitus, and the Landscape of Civil War." Hermathena 159 (1995), 117–31.
• Rossi, Andreola. "Remapping the Past: Caesar's Tale of Troy (Lucan BC 9.964–999)." Phoenix 55 (2001), 313–26.
• Sklenar, Robert John. The Taste for Nothingness: A Study of "Virtus" and Related Themes in Lucan's Bellum Civile. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Mich. Pr., 2003.
• Thomas, Richard F. "The Stoic Landscape of Lucan 9." Lands and Peoples in Roman Poetry: The Ethnographic Tradition. New York: Cambridge Univ. Pr., 1982. 108–23.

Notes

1. Suetonius, "Life of Lucan"
2. Tacitus, Annals XV.49
3. Suetonius, "Life of Lucan"
4. Vacca, Life of Lucan
5. Statius, Silvae II.vii
6. Tacitus, Annals XV.70.1. Scholars have vainly tried to locate Lucan's last words in his work but no passage in Lucan's extant poem exactly matches Tacitus' description at "Annals" 15.70.1. See, e.g., P. Asso, "A Commentary on Lucan 'De Bello Civili IV.'" Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010, p. 9n38.
   

Jamican American Poet Michelle Cliff 1946

Michelle Cliff (born 2 November 1946) is a Jamaican-American author whose notable works include No Telephone to Heaven, Abeng and Free Enterprise.

Cliff also has written short stories, prose poems and works of literary criticism. Her works explore the various, complex identity problems that stem from post-colonialism, as well as the difficulty of establishing an authentic, individual identity despite race and gender constructs. Cliff is a bisexual who grew up in Jamaica.

Cliff was born in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1946 and moved with her family to New York City three years later. She was educated at Wagner College and the Warburg Institute at the University of London. She has held academic positions at several colleges including Trinity College and Emory University.

Cliff was a contributor to the Black feminist anthology Home Girls.

As of 1999, Cliff was living in Santa Cruz, California, with her partner, poet Adrienne Rich. The two have been partnered since 1976.

Works

Fiction

• 1998: The Store of a Million Items (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company). Short stories
• 1993: Free Enterprise: A Novel of Mary Ellen Pleasant (New York: Dutton). Novel
• 1990: Bodies of Water (New York: Dutton). Short stories
• 1987: No Telephone to Heaven (New York: Dutton). Novel (sequel to Abeng)
• 1985: Abeng (New York: Penguin). Novel

Prose poetry

• The Land of Look Behind and Claiming.
• 1980:Identity They Taught Me to Despise.

Editor

• 1982: Lillian Smith, The Winner Names the Age: A Collection of Writings (New York: Norton).

Other

• 1982: "If I Could Write This in Fire I Would Write This in Fire", in Barbara Smith, ed., Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology (New York: Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press).
• 1994: "History as Fiction, Fiction as History", Ploughshares Fall, 1994; 20(2-3): 196-202.
• 1990: "Object into Subject: Some Thoughts on the Work of Black Women's Artists," in Gloria Anzaldua, ed., Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Women of Color (San Francisco: Aunt Lute) pp. 271-290.

For further reading

• Cartelli, Thomas (1995) "After the Tempest: Shakespeare, Postcoloniality, and Michelle Cliff's New, New World Miranda," Contemporary Literature 36(1): 82-102.
• Edmondson, Belinda (1993) "Race, Writing, and the Politics of (Re)Writing History: An Analysis of the Novels of Michelle Cliff," Callaloo 16(1): 180-191.
• Lima, Maria Helena (1993) "Revolutionary Developments: Michelle Cliff's No Telephone to Heaven and Merle Collins's Angel," Ariel 24(1): 35-56.
• Lionnet, Francoise (1992) "Of Mangoes and Maroons: Language, History, and the Multicultural Subject of Michelle Cliff's Abeng," in Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson, eds. De/Colonizing the Subject: The Politics of Gender in Women's Autobiography, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 321-345.
• Raiskin, Judith (1994) "Inverts and Hybrids: Lesbian Rewritings of Sexual and Racial Identities," in Laura Doan, ed. The Lesbian Postmodern, New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 156-172.
• Raiskin, Judith (1993) "The Art of History: An Interview with Michelle Cliff," Kenyon Review 15(1): 57-71.
• Schwartz, Meryl F. (1993) "An Interview with Michelle Cliff," Contemporary Literature 34(4): 595-619.
  

Greek Poet Odysseus Elytis 1911 - 1996

Odysseas Elytis or Elytes (November 2, 1911 – March 18, 1996) was a modernist Greek poet. In 1979 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Descendant of the Alepoudellis, an old industrial family from Lesbos, Odysseas was born in Heraklion on the island of Crete, on November 2, 1911. His family later moved to Athens, where the poet graduated from high school and later attended courses as an auditor at the Law School at University of Athens.

In 1935 Elytis published his first poem in the journal New Letters (Νέα Γράμματα) at the prompting of such friends as George Seferis. His entry with a distinctively earthy and original form assisted to inaugurate a new era in Greek poetry and its subsequent reform after the Second World War.

From 1969-1972, under the Greek military junta of 1967–1974, Elytis exiled himself to Paris. He was romantically linked to the lyricist and musicologist Mariannina Kriezi, who subsequently produced and hosted the popular children's radio broadcast "Here Lilliput Land". Elytis was intensely private and vehemently solitary in pursuing his ideals of poetic truth and experience.

The war

In 1937 he served his military requirements. As an army cadet, he joined the National Military School in Corfu. During the war he was appointed Second Lieutenant, placed initially at the 1st Army Corps Headquarters, then transferred to the 24th Regiment, on the first-line of the battlefields. Elytis was sporadically publishing poetry and essays after his initial foray into the literary world.

He was a member of the Association of Greek Art Critics, AICA-Hellas, International Association of Art Critics.

Programme director for ERT

He was twice Programme Director of the Greek National Radio Foundation (1945–46 and 1953–54), Member of the Greek National Theatre's Administrative Council, President of the Administrative Council of the Greek Radio and Television as well as Member of the Consultative Committee of the Greek National Tourist's Organisation on the Athens Festival. In 1960 he was awarded the First State Poetry Prize, in 1965 the Order of the Phoenix and in 1975 he was awarded the Doctor Honoris Causa in the Faculty of Philosophy at Thessaloniki University and received the Honorary Citizenship of the Town of Mytilene.

Travels

During the years 1948-1952 and 1969-1972 he settled in Paris. There, he audited philology and literature seminars at the Sorbonne and was well received by the pioneers of the world's avant-garde (Reverdy, Breton, Tzara, Ungaretti, Matisse, Picasso, Francoise Gilot, Chagall, Giacometti) as Tériade's most respected friend. Teriade was simultaneously in Paris publishing works with all the renowned artists and philosophers (Kostas Axelos, Jean Paul Sartre, Francoise Gilot, Rene Daumal...) of the time. Elytis and Teriade had formed a strong friendship that solidified in 1939 with the publication of Elytis first book of poetry entitled "Orientations". Both Elytis and Teriade hailed from Lesbos and had a mutual love of the Greek painter Theophilos. Starting from Paris he travelled and subsequently visited Switzerland, England, Italy and Spain. In 1948 he was the representative of Greece at the International Meetings of Geneva, in 1949 at the Founding Congress of the International Art Critics Union in Paris and in 1962 at the Incontro Romano della Cultura in Rome.

In 1961, upon an invitation of the State Department, he traveled through the U.S.A.; and —upon similar invitations— through the Soviet Union in 1963 and Bulgaria in 1965.

Death

Odysseas Elytis had been completing plans to travel overseas when he died in Athens on 18 March 1996, at the age of 84. He was survived by his niece Myrsene and his older brother Evangelos, who received a writ of condolence from the mayor of Athens on behalf of the nation at the funeral at the First National Cemetery.

The Poetry of Elytis

Relief depicting Odysseas Elytis in the Venetian loggia of Heraklion, Crete.

Elytis' poetry has marked, through an active presence of over forty years, a broad spectrum of subject matter and stylistic touch with an emphasis on the expression of that which is rarefied and passionate. He borrowed certain elements from Ancient Greece and Byzantium but devoted himself exclusively to today's Hellenism, of which he attempted—in a certain way based on psychical and sentimental aspects—to reconstruct a modernist mythology for the institutions. His main endeavour was to rid people's conscience from unjustifiable remorses and to complement natural elements through ethical powers, to achieve the highest possible transparency in expression and finally, to succeed in approaching the mystery of light, the metaphysics of the sun of which he was a "worshiper" -idolater by his own definition. A parallel manner concerning technique resulted in introducing the inner architecture, which is evident in a great many poems of his; mainly in the phenomenal landmark work Worthy It Is (Το Άξιον Εστί). This work due to its setting to music by Mikis Theodorakis as an oratorio, is a revered anthem whose verse is sung by all Greeks for all injustice, resistance and for its sheer beauty and musicality of form. Elytis' theoretical and philosophical ideas have been expressed in a series of essays under the title The Open Papers (Ανοιχτά Χαρτιά). Besides creating poetry he applied himself to translating poetry and theatre as well as creating a series of collage pictures. Translations of his poetry have been published as autonomous books, in anthologies or in periodicals in eleven languages.

Works

Poetry

• Orientations (Προσανατολισμοί, 1939)
  

  Port and venetian fortress in Heraklion, Crete
• Sun The First Together With Variations on A Sunbeam (Ηλιος ο πρώτος, παραλλαγές πάνω σε μιαν αχτίδα, 1943)
• An Heroic And Funeral Chant For The Lieutenant Lost In Albania (Άσμα ηρωικό και πένθιμο για τον χαμένο ανθυπολοχαγό της Αλβανίας, 1946)
• To Axion Esti—It Is Worthy (Το Άξιον Εστί, 1959)
• Six Plus One Remorses For The Sky (Έξη και μια τύψεις για τον ουρανό, 1960)
• The Light Tree And The Fourteenth Beauty (Το φωτόδεντρο και η δέκατη τέταρτη ομορφιά, 1972)
• The Sovereign Sun (Ο ήλιος ο ηλιάτορας, 1971)
• The Trills Of Love (Τα Ρω του Έρωτα, 1973)
• The Monogram (Το Μονόγραμμα, 1972)
• Step-Poems (Τα Ετεροθαλή, 1974)
• Signalbook (Σηματολόγιον, 1977)
• Maria Nefeli (Μαρία Νεφέλη, 1978)
• Three Poems under a Flag of Convenience (Τρία ποιήματα με σημαία ευκαιρίας 1982)
• Diary of an Invisible April (Ημερολόγιο ενός αθέατου Απριλίου, 1984)* Krinagoras (Κριναγόρας, 1987)
• The Little Mariner (Ο Μικρός Ναυτίλος, 1988)
• The Elegies of Oxopetra (Τα Ελεγεία της Οξώπετρας, 1991)
• West of Sadness (Δυτικά της λύπης, 1995)
• Eros, Eros, Eros: Selected and Last Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 1998) (translated by Olga Broumas)

Prose, essays

• The True Face and Lyrical Bravery of Andreas Kalvos (Η Αληθινή φυσιογνωμία και η λυρική τόλμη του Ανδρέα Κάλβου, 1942)
• 2x7 e (collection of small essays) (2χ7 ε (συλλογή μικρών δοκιμίων))
• (Offering) My Cards To Sight (Ανοιχτά χαρτιά (συλλογή κειμένων), 1973)
• The Painter Theophilos (Ο ζωγράφος Θεόφιλος, 1973)
• The Magic Of Papadiamantis (Η μαγεία του Παπαδιαμάντη, 1975)
• Report to Andreas Empeirikos (Αναφορά στον Ανδρέα Εμπειρίκο, 1977)
• Things Public and Private (Τα Δημόσια και τα Ιδιωτικά, 1990)
• Private Way (Ιδιωτική Οδός, 1990)
• Carte Blanche («Εν λευκώ» (συλλογή κειμένων), 1992)
• The Garden with the Illusions (Ο κήπος με τις αυταπάτες, 1995)
• Open Papers: Selected Essays, (Copper Canyon Press, 1995) (translated by Olga Broumas and T. Begley)

Translations

• Second Writing (Δεύτερη γραφή, 1976)
• Sappho (Σαπφώ)
• The Apocalypse (by John) (Η αποκάλυψη, 1985)

Reference works

• Mario Vitti: Odysseus Elytis. Literature 1935-1971 (Icaros 1977)
• Tasos Lignadis: Elytis' Axion Esti (1972)
• Lili Zografos: Elytis - The Sun Drinker (1972); as well as the special issue of the American magazine Books Abroad dedicated to the work of Elytis (Autumn 1975. Norman, Oklahoma, U.S.A.)
• Odysseas Elytis: Analogies of Light. Ed. I. Ivask (1981)
• A. Decavalles: Maria Nefeli and the Changeful Sameness of Elytis' Variations on a theme (1982)
• E. Keeley: Elytis and the Greek Tradition (1983)
• Ph. Sherrard: 'Odysseus Elytis and the Discovery of Greece', in Journal of Modern Greek Studies, 1(2), 1983
• K. Malkoff: 'Eliot and Elytis: Poet of Time, Poet of Space', in Comparative Literature, 36(3), 1984
• A. Decavalles: 'Odysseus Elytis in the 1980s', in World Literature Today, 62(l), 1988

Translations of Elytis' work

• Poesie. Procedute dal Canto eroico e funebre per il sottotenente caduto in Albania. Trad. Mario Vitti (Roma. Il Presente. 1952)
• 21 Poesie. Trad. Vicenzo Rotolo (Palermo. Istituto Siciliano di Studi Bizantini e Neoellenici. 1968)
• Poèmes. Trad. Robert Levesque (1945)
• Six plus un remords pourle ciel. Trad. F. B. Mache (Fata Morgana. Montpellier 1977)
• Korper des Sommers. Übers. Barbara Schlörb (St. Gallen 1960)
• Sieben nächtliche Siebenzeiler. Übers. Günter Dietz (Darmstadt 1966)
• To Axion Esti - Gepriesen sei. Übers. Güinter Dietz (Hamburg 1969)
• The Axion Esti. Tr. E. Keeley and G. Savidis (Pittsburgh 1974 - Greek & English)(repr. London: Anvil Press, 1980 - English only)
• The Sovereign Sun: selected poems. Tr. K. Friar (1974; repr. 1990)
• Selected poems. Ed. E. Keeley and Ph. Sherrard (1981; repr. 1982, 1991)
• Maria Nephele, tr. A. Anagnostopoulos (1981)
• What I love: selected poems, tr. O. Broumas (1986) [Greek & English texts]