Melissanthi (c. 1907–c. 1991)

Greek poet whose writings evolved from an assumption of divine presence to an existentialist point of view. Name variations: Eve Chougia; Hebe Chougia; Ivi Chougia; Eve Koúyia or Kouyia; Hebe Koúyia; Ivi Koúyia; Ivi Skandalakes; Ivi Skandhalaki; Ivi Koughia-Skandalaki; Skandalákis. Born Ivi Koughia (also seen as Kouyia) in Athens, Greece, on April 7, 1907 (some sources cite 1910); died in Athens, Greece, on November 9, 1991 (some sources cite 1990); married Ioánnis (Giannes) Skandalákis, in 1932.

Won numerous prizes, including the Kostis Palamas Award, the National Poetry Award, and the Gold Cross of the Order of Deeds of Merit.

In her long, productive life, Greek poet Melissanthi explored a range of intellectual interests that were reflected in her work. She was born in Athens in 1907 into a family whose roots are in the Peloponnesus. Melissanthi studied foreign languages (English, French, and German), music and journalism, and also developed an interest in painting. After graduation, she began a career as a secondary schoolteacher of French and took on some journalistic assignments. In 1932, she married Ioánnis Skandalákis, a lawyer and politician from Lakonia who also authored a number of philosophical works.

Her talent for poetry had been discerned at an early age. She began to practice the translation of poetry with the encouragement of Octave Merlier of the French Institute of Athens. Melissanthi published her first collection of poems, Insect Voices, in 1930. The next year, her Prophecies caused a sensation with a small but select group of readers, establishing her as the first Greek woman poet to explore in modern terms some of the metaphysical dimensions of human existence. Attracted to the psychology of Carl Jung, she was one of the first authors in Greece to accept the idea that many of the recurring images in her work were anchored in the realm of archetypes.

From 1930 through 1986, Melissanthi was remarkably productive, publishing fifteen books of verse, a book of criticism, two books of translations of foreign poets (Pierre Garnier and Emily Dickinson ), and two children's books. She also published translations of many other foreign authors including Claudel, Péguy, and Verlaine from the French, Rainer Maria Rilke and Nelly Sachs from the German, and Durrell, Wilde, Yeats, and Eliot (Mary Anne Evans ) from the English. She translated the entire Longfellow Song of Hiawatha into Greek in manuscript form, although only fragments have been published to date. Robert Frost was among the modern American poets whose works appeared in her translations.

An essentially lyrical poet, Melissanthi underwent a religious crisis that led to a rethinking of her life and work. In the 1930s, when she was a member of a generation of writers who gave to Greece a profusion of poetic inspiration, her poems took on a deeper hue. Ending in a world war that would bring tragedy to the Greek people, that decade led to significant changes in Greek literature and brought to a close a long but exhausted tradition of expression. In her explorations of traditional classical concepts, Melissanthi attempted to substitute emotion and intuition for reason in her verse.

She won many awards and prizes starting in 1936, when her despairing Return of the Prodigal received the Athens Academy of Arts and Sciences Award for Poetry. Her poems have appeared in over two dozen anthologies in numerous foreign languages, and individual poems of Melissanthi's have been translated into English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Polish, Rumanian, Bulgarian, and Serbo-Croatian.

The publication of her collected poems in 1974 reaffirmed her important role in modern Greek poetic expression. A master of the art of translation, Melissanthi, writes Andréas Angelákis, "proves that translation can be re-creation," and her "existential agony and metaphysical interiority" are said to remain relevant; in one of Melissanthi's last works, Itinerary (1986), she lamented the loss of a sense of the sacred in the modern world, which she saw as destroyed by the march of utilitarian pragmatism. She did not, however, abandon all hope. "Learning again to see things and each other with the eyes of the poet," she noted, "man can perhaps restore the world to its original beauty and sanctity."

sources:

Antzaka, Sophia. He Pnevmatiki kai Poiitiki Poreia tis Melissanthis: Meleti. Athens, Greece: Antinea, 1974.

Dalven, Rae, ed. and trans. Modern Greek Poetry. 2nd ed. NY: Russell & Russell, 1971.

Fríar, Kimon, ed. Modern Greek Poetry. NY: Simon and Schuster, 1973.

Gianos, Mary P., ed. Introduction to Modern Greek Literature: An Anthology of Fiction, Drama, and Poetry. Translations by Mary P. Gianos and Kimon Fríar. NY: Twayne, 1969.

Melissanthi. Hailing the Ascending Morn: Selected Poems. Translated and introduced by Maria Voelker-Kamainea. Athens, Greece: Prosperos, 1987.

——. Nyexis: kai ekdoches. Athens, Greece: "Prosperos," 1990.

"Melissanthi," in Modern Poetry in Translation. No. 34. Summer 1978, pp. 8–9.

Robinson, Christopher. "'Helen or Penelope?' Women Writers, Myth and the Problem of Gender Roles," in Peter Mackridge, ed. Ancient Greek Myth in Modern Greek Poetry: Essays in Memory of C.A. Trypanis. Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1996, pp. 109–120.

Ta poiimata tis Melissanthis (1930–1974). Athens, Greece: Philon, 1975.

John Haag , Associate Professor of History, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia