Karyotakism

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Karyotakism ( Greek Καρυωτακισμός , derived from the name of the poet Kostas Karyotakis ) is the name in modern Greek literary history for the phenomenon that occurred mainly from 1928 to 1938, that numerous, especially young, poets tried to identify poetically with the poet and prose writer Kostas Karyotakis believed to be felt with his personality or consciously persecuted and mythified his suicide in 1928 . Even in later years, especially during the so-called generation of the 1970s, one encounters such a phenomenon, which is then also referred to as neokaryotacism .

The term used in literary criticism of the 1930s

The term karyotakism was first used by Andreas Karandonis, who in a newspaper article in 1935 sharply criticized the influence that the pessimistic and neo-bourgeois poet Karyotakis, who had died seven years earlier, had on the literary youth of Greece . While Karandonis can still understand that his work continued to have an impact in the years immediately following the poet's death, he considers the karyotakism movement since 1931 to be harmful and reprehensible, as it leads literary life in Greece to a dead end. The main arguments that Karandonis used against the numerous imitators of Karyotakic poetry aimed at their incessantly larmoyant and pessimistic writing style and the unwelcome mixing of vernacular ( Dimotiki ) and high-level words and phrases ( Katharevousa ).

Also Tellos Agras , of the few Karyotakis admirers from the ranks of the established poet and literary critic of the time belonged, wrote in 1935: "Even today [...] write almost all young [poet] - the few, albeit important exceptions can be count on one hand - following the example of Karyotakis and those who came after him. ”
Further evidence of the enormous influence of Karyotakis 'poetry on the young generation of Greece can be found in Vassos Varikas' book KG Karyotakis. The Drama of a Generation (1938) in which he states: “[Karyotakis'] work and his influence fill the last ten years of our spiritual life. It is still the starting point for our youth, and most of them still stop there. ”
Remarkably, the numerous imitators of karyotakis, who are summarized with the term karyotakism, were mostly unknown and little talented young or occasional poets who quickly return fell into oblivion. While 1935 marked a high point in the criticism of karyotakism, the phenomenon and at the same time the attention of the critics abruptly ebbed after 1938 - an interesting temporal coincidence with the first complete edition of Karyotakis' works, which also fell in 1938. The interest of literary critics soon turned to the new promising poets of the generation of the 1930s , such as: B. Giorgos Seferis , Odysseas Elytis or Andreas Embirikos , who, however, as Savvidis shows, were all more or less strongly influenced by Karyotakis' work.

Recent aspects of karyotakism and neokaryotakism

Recent literary research also deals with the topic of karyotakism. In his 1997 lecture at the Karyotakis Symposium, Dimitris Tziovas describes four aspects of karyotakism that, according to his theory, apply to the numerous poets of the 1930s who are grouped under this term:

  • Self-underestimation and self-parody of the poet and his role in society.
  • Complaints about social isolation and resistance to institutional pressure
  • Expression of personal hopelessness, the melancholy mood or the "open wound"
  • Linguistic sharpness and parody expressed in verse.

According to Tziovas, the common characteristic of these aspects and thus of the karyotakic topos is the interaction between the poet and his environment. Karyotakism should therefore be understood less as a poetic, but rather as a social and aesthetic phenomenon; it has the character of social resistance.

As neokaryotakism Evripidis Garantoudis describes the phenomenon that references to karyotakis in poems by modern Greek writers of the 1970s are clearly increasing again. This is mostly expressed in the fact that the name Karyotakis is explicitly mentioned in poems or that the lyrical self addresses him directly. Verses by Karyotakis are also taken up again in partly unchanged form and processed poetically, or there are clear references to Karyotakis' biography, for example with the mention of Preveza , the city in which Karyotakis took his own life in 1928. An insightful catalog of karyotakist poems of the 1970s generation has been compiled by Evripidis Garantoudis. However, the generation of the 1970s also mythified other poets, such as B. Konstantinos Kavafis , Edgar Allan Poe , Franz Kafka or Wladimir Majakowski . What all these mechanisms of mythification have in common is that - for example due to the suicidal exaggeration of the poet in question in the memory of posterity - the attention of imitators and heroisers is increasingly diverted from the work to the transfigured person of the poet. Literary criticism is largely in agreement today, as then, that most of Karyotakis' imitators did not achieve anything poetically valuable themselves and have therefore rightly been forgotten, while their great role model as a representative of an entire generation still enjoys great popularity and unquestionably to be counted among the most important modern Greek poets.

Modern Greek writers in the criticism of karyotakism

Giannis Ritsos , later recognized as one of the greatest modern Greek poets , found himself exposed to the accusation with his first collection of poems, Traktor (Τρακτέρ, 1934), that he was copying Karyotakis too much, even if he clearly distinguished himself from Karyotakis. Dimitris Tziovas, a scientist from the 1990s, recognizes in the writings of Embirikos, Kontós and Ganás more or less pronounced aspects of karyotakism or the author's endeavor to achieve identification with Kostas Karyotakis or to keep this alive in the collective memory. Other authors who have strong references to Karyotakis in their poems include Traianos, Poulios, Panagiotos, Siopis, Papageorgiou, Xenoudaki, Papanikolaou and Maria Polydouri .

literature

  • Andreas Karandonis (Αντρέας Καραντώνης): Η επίδραση του Καρυωτάκη στους νέους. In: Τα Νέα Γρμάματα, Volume 9, September 1935, pp. 478-486.
  • Giorgos Savvidis (Γ.Π. Σαββίδης): Στα χνάρια του Καρυωτάκη. Athens 1989
  • Vassos Varikas (Βάσος Βαρίκας): Κ.Γ. Καρυωτάκης. Το δράμα μιας γενηάς. Athens 1938.
  • Mario Vitti: Η γενιά του Τριάντα. Ιδεολογία και Μορφή . Athens 1989
  • Εταιρία Σπουδών Νεοελληνικού Πολιτισμού και Γενικής Παιδείας: Καρυωτάκης και Καρυωτακισμός. Επιστημονικό Συνέδριο 31 Ιανουαρίου και 1 Φεβρουαρίου 1997. Athens 1998

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Andreas Karandonis (Αντρέας Καραντώνης): Η επίδραση του Καρυωτάκη στους νέους. In: Τα Νέα Γρμάματα, Volume 9, September 1935, pp. 478-486.
  2. ↑ quoted from: Alexandros Argyriou (Αλέξανδρος Αργυρίου): Καρυωτακισμός: Ένα φαινόμενο μέσα και έξω από τη λογοτεχνία. In: Εταιρία Σπουδών Νεοελληνικού Πολιτισμού και Γενικής Παιδείας: Καρυωτάκης και Καρυωτακισμός. Επιστημονικό Συνέδριο 31 Ιανουαρίου και 1 Φεβρουαρίου 1997. Athens 1998, p 147. The original passage of Agras, first published on September 1, 1935 in the journal Νεοελληνικά Γράμματα reads: Και σήμερα [...] όλοι σχεδόν οι νέοι (οι εξαιρέσεις, αν και σημαντικές, ειν 'ελάχιστες) γράφουν με το παράδειγμα του Καρυωτάκη και των μετά απ' αυτόν.
  3. ↑ Vassos Varikas (Βάσος Βαρίκας): Κ.Γ. Καρυωτάκης. Το δράμα μιας γενηάς. Athens 1938, p. 114 f. The original passage reads: […] το έργο του και η επίδρασή του γεμίζει τα τελευταία δέκα χρόνια της πνευματικής μας ζωής. Από κει εξακολουθούν να ξεκινάνε οι νέοι μας, και οι περισσότεροι εκεί να σταματάνε […]
  4. ↑ Dimitris Tziovas (Δημήτρης Τζιόβας): Ποιητική Μνήμη: Εμπειρίκος, Κοντός, Γκανάς, in: Εταιρία Σπουδών Νεοελληνικού Πολιτισμού και Γενικής Παιδείας: Καρυωτάκης και Καρυωτακισμός. Επιστημονικό Συνέδριο 31 Ιανουαρίου και 1 Φεβρουαρίου 1997. Athens 1998, pp. 105-129
  5. ↑ Euripides Gavantoudis (Ευριπίδης Γαβαντούδης): Ο καρωυτακισμός και η ποιητική γενιά του 1970. In: Εταιρία Σπουδών Νεοελληνικού Πολιτισμού και Γενικής Παιδείας: Καρυωτάκης και Καρυωτακισμός. Επιστημονικό Συνέδριο 31 Ιανουαρίου και 1 Φεβρουαρίου 1997. Athens 1998, pp. 227-252.