Constantine Athanasius Trypanis (; 22 January 1909 – 18 January 1993) was a Greek

classicist Classics, also classical studies or Ancient Greek and Roman studies, is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, ''classics'' traditionally refers to the study of Ancient Greek literature, Ancient Greek and Roman literature and ...

, literary critic, translator and poet.

Biography

Born in

Chios Chios (; , traditionally known as Scio in English) is the fifth largest Greece, Greek list of islands of Greece, island, situated in the northern Aegean Sea, and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, tenth largest island in the Medi ...

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

, Trypanis received his education at The Classical Gymnasium, Chios and the Universities of

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

and

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

.Trypanis, C. A. ''The Glass Adonis''. New York: Chilmark Press, 1972. He received a doctorate from the

University of Athens The National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA; , ''Ethnikó kai Kapodistriakó Panepistímio Athinón''), usually referred to simply as the University of Athens (UoA), is a public university in Athens, Greece, with various campuses alo ...

in 1937.Trypanis papers
at the University of Reading Library From 1939 to 1945 he taught at the University of Athens and, in 1947, moved to

Britain Britain most often refers to: * Great Britain, a large island comprising the countries of England, Scotland and Wales * The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, a sovereign state in Europe comprising Great Britain and the north-eas ...

where he began teaching at Exeter College in Oxford as the Bywater and Sotheby professor of Byzantine and Modern Greek. It was also in England that Trypanis' met and befriended the poet Ian Fletcher, whom Trypanis afterwards referred to as "the master," with Trypanis himself "as the pupil". In 1968 Trypanis relocated to

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

, after acting as a visiting professor at various other American universities, where he taught Classical Literature until 1974. In 1974 he returned to his native Greece, serving as Minister for Culture and Sciences until 1977. He remained in Greece until his death. He died in Athens in 1993. Though his poetry has since fallen into obscurity, his writings received some critical acclaim in his time, with two of his collections, ''The Stones of Troy'' and ''The Cocks of Hades'' receiving, respectively, the choice of the Poetry Book Society and the Heinemann Award of the

Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820 by King George IV to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the RSL has about 800 Fellows, elect ...

. His poetry was also acclaimed by the likes of

Theodore Roethke Theodore Huebner Roethke ( ; May 25, 1908 – August 1, 1963) was an American poet. He is regarded as one of the most accomplished and influential poets of his generation, having won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1954 for his book '' The ...

W. H. Auden Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry is noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, ...

and John Wain. His poetry was first published while he was living in England, and it was also while in England that he began to develop a poetic circle of his own; he wrote his poetry (at least that portion which was published) in English, his second language, which perhaps opens the door to comparisons to the likes of

Joseph Conrad Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, ; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Poles in the United Kingdom#19th century, Polish-British novelist and story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the Eng ...

and

Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov ( ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian and American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Born in Imperial Russia in 1899, Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Rus ...

, both of whom wrote in English, despite being native speakers of Polish and Russian, respectively. Much of Trypanis' poetic writings were centered on the artifacts, history and mythology of antiquity, especially that of

Classical Greece Classical Greece was a period of around 200 years (the 5th and 4th centuries BC) in ancient Greece,The "Classical Age" is "the modern designation of the period from about 500 B.C. to the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C." ( Thomas R. Mar ...

and

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

, though others of his poems centered on aspects and events of his contemporary world.

Bibliography

Poetry collections

*''Pedasus: Twenty-four Poems'' (1955) (Limited to 150 copies) *''The Stones of Troy'' (1957) *''The Cocks of Hades'' (1958) *''Pompeian Dog'' (1964) *''Grooves in the Wind'' (1964) (Reprints selections from ''The Stones of Troy'' and ''The Cocks of Hades,'' and one new poem) *''The Elegies of a Glass Adonis'' (1967) (Limited to 450 numbered copies, each signed by Trypanis) *''The Glass Adonis'' (1972) (Includes the contents of ''Elegies of a Glass Adonis'')

Translations

*''Fourteen Early Byzantine Cantica'' (1968) *

Callimachus Callimachus (; ; ) was an ancient Greek poet, scholar, and librarian who was active in Alexandria during the 3rd century BC. A representative of Ancient Greek literature of the Hellenistic period, he wrote over 800 literary works, most of which ...

, ''Aetia, Iambi, lyric poems, Hecale, minor epic and elegiac poems, and other fragments'' (1975). *''Sophocles, the Three Theban Plays'' (1986)

Criticism

*''Medieval and Modern Greek Poetry'' (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1951) * Romanus, ''Sancti Romani Melodi Cantica. I: Cantica genuina'' (1963) (Editor, in collaboration with Paul Maas) * Romanus, ''Sancti Romani Melodi Cantica. II: Cantica dubia'' (1970) (Editor, in collaboration with Paul Maas) *''The Penguin Book of Greek Verse'' (1971) (Editor) *''The Homeric Epics'' (1977) *''Greek Poetry, from Homer to Seferis'' (1981)

Biography

Bibliography

Poetry collections

Translations

Criticism

References

Further reading