‘My Verses Are the Children of My Blood’: Autobiography in the Poetry of Kostas Karyotakis

Abstract

Kostas Karyotakis (1896-1928) is one of the most important Modern Greek poets. His poetry not only influenced several other poets, but it also attracted critics’ interest. Former critics dealt with Karyotakis’ poetry and spoke about the relation between life and work in his poems. Nevertheless, they did not analyse extensively certain poems, which reflect clearly the poet’s personal experience. In addition, other critics attempted to analyse and see Karyotakis’ poems as independent entities, isolated from the poet’s life. While the results of such an approach were interesting, indeed, in fact they do not show the real meaning of the poems. Although such theories are useful and productive, when reading poets who made their life an important part of their poetry, biography is a key element for the interpretation of their works; thus a New Historicism approach is preferred.  My purpose in this paper is to show the close relation between life and work in Karyotakis’ poetry through a parallel focus on life and poetry. Going beyond the results of previous critique, I intend to show how Karyotakis’ poetry alludes to his personal experience.