Sikelianos, Angelos

Sikelianos, Angelos (sēkelēä`nōs), 1884–1951, Greek poet and playwright. One of Greece's most important 20th-century lyric poets, he emphasized national history, religious symbolism, and universal harmony in poems such as "The Light-Shadowed," "Prologue to Life," "Mother of God," and "Delphic Utterance." His plays include Sibylla, Daedalus in Crete, Christ in Rome, The Death of Digenis, and Asklepius.

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Sikelianos, Angelos 

Born Mar. 28, 1884, on the island of Leukas (now Levkás); died Apr. 19, 1951, in Athens. Greek poet.

Sikelianos’ first collection was The Clairvoyant (1907). His poems of the 1920’s and 1930’s are permeated with pagan worship of life’s beauty. On the eve of the Italo-Greek War he wrote the drama The Sibyl (1940), whose theme was the capture of Hellas by the Romans; this drama may be considered the beginning of Greek Resistance literature. Sikelianos later wrote the dramas Christ in Rome (1946) and The Death of Digenis (1947).

WORKS

Thymélé, vols. 1–3. [Athens] 1950–55.

REFERENCE

Mochos, la. Kostas Varnalis i literatura grecheskogo Soprotivleniia. Moscow, 1968. (See the chapter “Novogrecheskaia poeziia na boevom postu.”)