+ |N Y Times 25:237 My 9 ’20 650w |Wis Lib Bul 16:195 N ’20 50w
PALAMAS, KOSTÈS. Life immovable. *$2 Harvard univ. press 889
19–19666
“A volume of translations is ‘Life immovable,’ from the modern Greek of Kostes Palamas by Professor Aristides Phoutrides, a former instructor at Harvard. Kostes Palamas, secretary to the University of Athens, was one of the first writers of contemporary Greece to gain recognition outside his own country, and Professor Phoutrides has the courage to call him ‘a new world-poet.’” (Bookm) “The translator furnishes a sketch of the poet and his work, and an analysis of the poems in this volume.” (Booklist)
“It is reasonable to suppose that the unsatisfactory effect of the book before us cannot be entirely attributed to the defects either of the poet or the translator. It is tiresome to read these poems, where images rise and clash and fade in confusion, and to feel that in the original there may have existed harmony and emotional coherence where we are now oppressed by meaningless glitter and noise. Our annoyance is accentuated by the translator’s harsh and clumsy rhythms, and by an insensitiveness to word-values in the language into which he is translating, exemplified by the title ‘Life immovable.’” F. W. S.
− Ath p140 Jl 30 ’19 760w
“Too much of the symbolic, philosophical and mythological enter these pages to invite interest from any but the scholarly thinker.”
+ Booklist 16:162 F ’20
Reviewed by H: A. Lappin