The first death

POENA DAMNI TRILOGY - GERMAN EDITION

The first death (Greek: Ο Πρώτος Θάνατος; English: The First Death) by Dimitris Lyacos is the last part of the Poena Damni trilogy. The book tells the story of a man who finds himself on a desert island in a series of fourteen poetry sections and tells of his relentless struggle for survival as well as his physical and mental dissolution. The work alludes simultaneously to a modern Philoctetes , an inverted version of Robinson Crusoe and the myth of the dismemberment of Dionysus . The poem's dense and nightmarish images, filled with sensations of hallucination, delirium, synesthesia, and putrefaction, have drawn comparisons with Lautreamont , Trakl, and Beckett . Although The First Death is the first part of the Poena Damni trilogy's release story, it is the last part of the narrative sequence.

title

The title of the book refers to the contradiction between first and second death in the apocalypse of John the Divine, the first death refers to the natural end of life (death of the body) as opposed to the second death (annihilation, death of the soul) . In so far as the first death is not a death of a spiritual nature, it is not regarded as "real death" or annihilation. In such a spiritual sense, the book's protagonist exists in a "hellish" existence, presumably waiting for future redemption or ultimate extinction to occur.

Synopsis

The First Death tells the torture of a nameless protagonist who is stranded on a desert-like island. The book begins with a description of his mutilated body dragging against the rocks. The poem addresses the theme of his ongoing humiliation, physically and mentally, as even the mechanisms of memory are dislocated. However, the connection between human and body ensures that life continues, and "at this point without substance / where the world collides and takes off", the mechanical instincts of the cosmos roar into action and throw this irreducible substance back into space - perhaps a future regeneration.

subjects

Dimitris Lyacos by Walter Melcher

The first death tells the result of the destruction of the protagonists. His body and mind are on the verge of dissolution as they struggle to exist and survive. Portrayed as a victim of nature and presumably expelled from society, he is portrayed as both a void and an abortion and dies before he is even born. The work describes his purgatory torture by naming a desert and a rocky island as the place of his suffering. His exclusion and loneliness allude to Greek tragedy, especially Philoctetes, while images of mutilation and dismemberment are related to ancient Greek sacrifices and rituals. The myth of the fragmentation of Dionysus by the Titans is also implied, and at the same time the text falls back on the concept of the Sparagmos (Ancient Greek: σπαραγμός, from σπαράσσω sparasso , "tear, tear, pull into pieces"). Other weird classical references are equally embedded in the text, such as the presence of Orpheus, as suggested in pictures of dismemberment. [12] In its role as the epilogue of the Poena Damni trilogy, the poem also testifies to the impending violence of the first volume, Z213: Exit.

style

The original Greek uses an unconventional, modern idiom that takes a variety of ancient Greek words and integrates them into the flow of text. In contrast to the previous book in the trilogy, With the People from the Bridge , which uses mostly bare, simple sentences in a theatrical context, The First Death is written in a dense, highly tropical style. Each poem section reveals a complex chain of images to illustrate the tireless agony of the book's protagonists. Often the weight of the surreal abstraction gives the work a metaphysical atmosphere, whereby the torture experienced by the protagonist is of sublime quality, because despite the whole world he continues his struggle to the limits of his strength. The book expresses aspects of Homeric clarity of description, which in turn are coupled with violent and expressionistic depictions of a nightmarish environment. The first death, in its disparate literary traditions, to intensely depict the clash of the human subject in the midst of a hostile world, is considered to be one of the most violent works of Greek literature in modern times.

Publication history

The book was originally published in Greek in 1996 and has been translated into English, German, Spanish, and Italian. The first English edition appeared in 2000 and was sold out in 2005. A second revised English edition was published as an e-book in spring 2017 and appeared in autumn of the same year ( ISBN 9781910323878 ). The new edition contains extended notes by the translator, which explain the ancient Greek references to the original Greek text. The book was published in German by Verlagshaus Berlin in 2008 (translation by Nina-Maria Wanek), (ISBN-13: 978-3940249272), followed by a second edition in 2014 (ISBN-13: 978-3940249852). The final, complete trilogy edition was published in April 2020 by Klak Verlag (translation by Nina-Maria Wanek) [ ISBN 978-3-948156-33-6 ].

Individual evidence

↑ Jena Woodhouse, Lyacos: A "feast of all fruits" International Herald Tribune / Kathimerini English Edition, 4 May 2000

^ The Journal of Modern Greek Studies, Volume 19, 2001 / Johns Hopkins University Press. Robert Zaller - Recent Translations from Shoestring Press. Tassos Denegris, Dimitris Lyacos, Dionysios Solomos.

^ Fran Mason, Historical Dictionary of postmodern Literature and Theater, Dimitris Lyacos pp. 276-77. Second Edition, Rowman and Littlefield 2016.

↑ Revelation, 2:11, 20: 6, 20:14 and 21: 8.

↑ Emanuel Swedenborg. The Apocalypse Revealed. Boston New Church PrintingSociety, 1836. https://books.google.gr/books?id=MhrRh6x4UQAC&pg=RA1-PA133&lpg=RA1PA133&dq=%22the+first+death%22+apocalypse&source=bl&ots=p1KS4VPCtM&sig=_BqtO49djpgL1lCJKIdYBxuXqpU&hl=en&sa=X&ved = 0ahUKEwjhwcD_qPnTAhXIkywKHdGrC1IQ6AEIJTAB # v = onepage & q =% 22the% 20first% 20death% 22% 20apocalypse & f = false

↑ Review: The First Death (Poena Damni) by Dimitris Lyacos. By Nicholas Alexander Hayes. Your Impossible Voice, Fall 2018. http://www.yourimpossiblevoice.com/review-the-first-death-poena-damni-by-dimitris-lyacos/

↑ NonFiction . The writing disorder. Retrieved July 27, 2013.

^ The First Death, Poena Damni, Translated by Shorsha Sullivan, Shoestring Press, Nottingham 2000, page 32.

^ The Journal of Modern Greek Studies, Volume 19, 2001 / Johns Hopkins University Press. Robert Zaller - Recent Translations from Shoestring Press. Tassos Denegris, Dimitris Lyacos, Dionysios Solomos.

^ Section XII, line 7. Dimitris Lyacos. The first death. First Edition, Translated by Shorsha Sullivan. Shoestring Press, Nottingham 2000

^ Bruce Lincoln , Death, War, and Sacrifice: Studies in Ideology and Practice (University of Chicago Press, 1991), p. 186.