Editing Giorgos Seferis (section)

==Biography==
Seferis was born in [[Smyrna]]<ref>{{cite web| url=https://www.kathimerini.gr/culture/563504431/edo-itan-kapote-to-spiti-mas/|title= The Kathimerini (12.3.2025) – Giorgos Seferis – Εδώ ήταν κάποτε το σπίτι μας}}</ref> in [[Asia Minor]], in the [[Aidin Vilayet]] of the [[Ottoman Empire]] (now [[İzmir]], Turkey). His father, Stelios Seferiadis, was a [[lawyer]], and later a professor at the [[University of Athens]], as well as a poet and translator in his own right. He was also a staunch [[Venizelism|Venizelist]] and a supporter of the [[Modern Greek|demotic]] [[Greek language]] over the formal, official language ([[katharevousa]]). Both of these attitudes influenced his son. In 1914, the family moved to [[Athens]], where Seferis completed his secondary school education. He continued his studies in Paris from 1918 to 1925, studying law at the [[University of Paris|Sorbonne]]. While he was there, in September 1922, Smyrna/Izmir was taken by the Turkish Army after a two-year Greek military campaign on Anatolian soil. Many Greeks, including Seferis's family, fled from Asia Minor. Seferis would not visit Smyrna again until 1950; the sense of being an exile from his childhood home would inform much of Seferis's poetry, showing itself particularly in his interest in the story of [[Odysseus]]. Seferis was also greatly influenced by [[Constantine P. Cavafy|Kavafis]],<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Rexine|first=John E.|date=1987|title=The Diaries of George Seferis as a Revelation of His Art|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/40143001|journal=World Literature Today|volume=61|issue=2|pages=220–223|doi=10.2307/40143001|jstor=40143001 |issn=0196-3570|quote=...Seferis was almost obsessed with the study of Cavafy...}}</ref> [[T. S. Eliot]]<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Keeley|first=Edmund|date=1956|title=T. S. Eliot and the Poetry of George Seferis|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1768289|journal=Comparative Literature|volume=8|issue=3|pages=214–226|doi=10.2307/1768289|jstor=1768289 |issn=0010-4124}}</ref> and [[Ezra Pound]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Thaniel|first=George|date=1974|title=George Seferis' "Thrush" and the Poetry of Ezra Pound.|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40246210|journal=Comparative Literature Studies|volume=11 |issue=4 |pages=326–336|jstor=40246210}}</ref>

He returned to Athens in 1925 and was admitted to the Royal Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the following year. This was the beginning of a long and successful diplomatic career, during which he held posts in England (1931–1934) and [[Albania]] (1936–1938). He married Maria Zannou ('Maro') on April 10, 1941, on the eve of the German invasion of Greece. During the Second World War, Seferis accompanied the Free Greek Government in exile to [[Crete]], Egypt, South Africa, and [[Italy]], and returned to liberated Athens in 1944. He continued to serve in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and held diplomatic posts in [[Ankara, Turkey]] (1948–1950) and London (1951–1953). He was appointed minister to [[Lebanon]], Syria, [[Jordan]], and [[Iraq]] (1953–1956), and was Royal Greek Ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1961, the last post before his retirement in Athens. Seferis received many honours and prizes, among them honorary doctoral degrees from the universities of Cambridge (1960), Oxford (1964), Thessaloniki (1964), and Princeton (1965).

===Cyprus===
Seferis first visited [[Cyprus]] in November 1953. He immediately fell in love with the island, partly because of its resemblance, in its landscape, the mixture of populations, and in its traditions, to his childhood summer home in Skala (Urla). His book of poems ''Imerologio Katastromatos III'' was inspired by the island, and mostly written there, bringing to an end a period of six or seven years in which Seferis had not produced any poetry. Its original title ''Cyprus, where it was ordained for me...'' (a quotation from [[Euripides]]' ''[[Helen (play)|Helen]]'' in which [[Teucer]] states that [[Apollo]] has decreed that Cyprus shall be his home) made clear the optimistic sense of homecoming Seferis felt on discovering the island. Seferis changed the title in the 1959 edition of his poems.

Politically, Cyprus was entangled in the dispute between the UK, Greece and [[Turkey]] over its international status. Over the next few years, Seferis made use of his position in the diplomatic service to strive towards a resolution of the [[Cyprus dispute]], investing a great deal of personal effort and emotion. This was one of the few areas in his life in which he allowed the personal and the political to mix. Seferis described his political principles as "[[liberalism|liberal]] and democratic [or republican]."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Beaton |first1=Roderick |title=George Seferis: Waiting for the Angel |date=2003 |publisher=Yale University Press |page=456}}</ref>

===Nobel Prize===
{{main|1963 Nobel Prize in Literature}}
[[Image:Giorgos Seferis 1963.jpg|right|thumb|George Seferis in 1963]]
In 1963, Seferis was awarded the [[Nobel Prize]] for Literature "for his eminent lyrical writing, inspired by a deep feeling for the Hellenic world of culture."<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/1963/press.html |title=Nobel Prize in Literature 1963 – Presentation Speech |access-date=August 16, 2005 |archive-date=November 12, 2005 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051112014727/http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/1963/press.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> Seferis was nominated in total four times for the Nobel Prize. [[Romilly Jenkins]] nominated him in 1955, [[T. S. Eliot|T.S. Eliot]] nominated him in 1961, [[Eyvind Johnson]] and [[Athanasius Trypanis|Athanasius Trypanis Trypanis]] both nominated in 1962, and it was the 1963 nomination again by Eyvind Johnson that won him the prize.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Nomination Archive. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2024 |date=3 January 2024 |url=https://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/archive/show_people.php?id=12135}}</ref> Seferis was the first Greek to receive the prize (followed later by [[Odysseas Elytis]], who became a Nobel laureate in 1979). But in his acceptance speech, Seferis chose rather to emphasise his own humanist philosophy, concluding: "When on his way to Thebes Oedipus encountered the Sphinx, his answer to its riddle was: 'Man'. That simple word destroyed the monster. We have many monsters to destroy. Let us think of the answer of Oedipus."<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/1963/seferis-speech.html |title=Giorgos Seferis – Banquet Speech |access-date=August 16, 2005 |archive-date=January 8, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090108120402/http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/1963/seferis-speech.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> While Seferis has sometimes been considered a nationalist poet, his 'Hellenism' had more to do with his identifying a unifying strand of [[humanism]] in the continuity of [[Culture of Greece|Greek culture]] and [[Greek literature|literature]]. The other five finalists for the prize that year were [[W. H. Auden]], [[Pablo Neruda]] (1971 winner), [[Samuel Beckett]] (1969 winner), [[Yukio Mishima]] and [[Aksel Sandemose]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/literature/1963.html |title=Candidates for the 1963 Nobel Prize in Literature |publisher=Nobel Prize |year=2013 |access-date=January 3, 2014}}</ref>

===Later life===
In 1967, the repressive nationalist, right-wing [[Greek military junta of 1967–1974|Regime of the Colonels]] took power in Greece after a coup d'état. After two years marked by widespread censorship, political detentions and torture, Seferis took a stand against the regime. On March 28, 1969, he made a statement on the BBC World Service,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.protagon.gr/themata/misos-aiwnas-apo-to-istoriko-diaggelma-tou-seferi-sto-bbc-kata-tis-xountas-44341806928|title=Το πάντα επίκαιρο διάγγελμα του Σεφέρη κατά της χούντας|access-date=September 10, 2020}}</ref> with copies simultaneously distributed to every newspaper in Athens. In authoritative and absolute terms, he stated "This anomaly must end".

Seferis did not live to see the end of the junta in 1974 as a direct result of [[Turkey]]'s invasion of Cyprus, which had itself been prompted by the junta's attempt to overthrow Cyprus's president, Archbishop [[Makarios III]]. He died in Athens on September 20, 1971. The cause of death was reported to be pneumonia, aggravated by a stroke he had suffered after undergoing surgery for a bleeding ulcer about two months earlier.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1971/09/21/archives/george-fieieris-dies-at-71-poet-won-63-nobel-prize.html|title=George Seferis Dies at 71; Poet W on '63 Nobel Prize|date=1971-09-21|work=The New York Times|access-date=2019-02-04|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

At his funeral, huge crowds followed his coffin through the streets of Athens, singing [[Mikis Theodorakis]]' setting of Seferis's poem [[Denial (poem)|'Denial']] (then banned); he had become a popular hero for his resistance to the regime. He is buried at the [[First Cemetery of Athens]].