Η ποιητική γλώσσα του Κάλβου, οι νεωτερισμοί των ρομαντικών και ένα άγνωστο αυτοσχόλιο στην εφημερίδα Le Globe

Abstract

Andreas Kalvos is considered one of the two greatest 19th-century Greek poets. By the time he published his two collections of Odes, in the 1820s, he had lived in Italy, London, Geneva and Paris. A pre-eminent Greek poet, he is also a great European romantic, formed in the cultural and revolutionary centres of western Europe. He was also a member of the secret society of the Carbonari and had an active role in the Italian revolution of 1820-1821. Kalvos's poetic and intellectual formation remains a mystery in Greek literary studies. The present essay focuses on the poetic language of the Odes and on the poet's intense linguistic consciousness. His archaic and highly diversified diction, combined with a very rich vocabulary, is considered within the strain of romanticism. Special references are included to the poetic diction as well as the linguistic theories of Coleridge and Byron. Kalvos had lived in London from 1816 to 1820. His indebtedness to the English Romanticism constitutes a major issue for the interpretation of his poetry. The obscure catechism and the symbolic vocabulary of the Carbonari are also taken into consideration in order to clarify the subject.