Του Έρωτα καί των Πικρών Βασάνων: Μία Διακειμενική Ανάγνωση του Τρίπτυχου Ποιήματος «δός μου ορισμόν» του Μιχάλη Εφταγωνίτη

Abstract

The present study attempts a close analysis of a recent poem (1993) by the Cypriot poet Michalis Eftagonitis. In contrast to his previous work, Eftagonitis uses here elements of the learned Greek Cypriot dialest, as it is found in the 15th-century historian Leontios Machairas and the 16th-century collection of renaissaince verse by an anonymous poet. Eftagonitis' poem is written in verse and rhyme, but with a free handling of the traditional patterns. The first-person narraton —the poet's lyrican persona— presents the sufferings he is subjected to by his beloved, who is cruel and distand; at the end the poet asks to give him a decision (the renaissance word ορισμός) on what to do; he is about to leave but cannot distance himself emotionally from her.

The poem incorporates on a first level some obvious intertextual references, primarily to the poetry of Cavafy and Montis. However, on a deeper level Eftagonitis establishes a complex net of relations with the renaissance collection (erotic imagery of the Petrachan poets, vocabulary) and Machairas, as well as with Modern Greek Poetry on the mainland and Cyprus (Solomos, in Michailidis, Cavafy, Seferis, Pavlopoulos, Pastelas).

What appears at first glance as a lyrical poem of love, proves to be a text on poetics and parting from home: the beloved woman, holding in her hand the key (άνοιχτάρι) to her heart, is a metaphor for poetry and the poet's homeland, which he attempts to reach through the writing of poems. The bitter anguish expresses the unfulfilled desire (qua motivating force) of the poet, lover and wanderer in discovering an ideal woman, an ideal homeland and an ideal poem.