This year marks the 200th anniversary of the death of John Keats (London, 1795 – Rome, 1821). He died at the age of 25 from tuberculosis, the scourge of the time. However, the work he left behind, impressively extensive and varied, made him one of the most important as well as the most popular poets of the English language and of European Romanticism. Greek poetry also paid special attention to this, especially Cavafy and Sikelianos.

In a few days, Gutenberg editions will be releasing a large number of Keats’ poems, many of which have been translated into Greek for the first time, and others are places where many of our translators have been tested. The bilingual edition entitled “Selections from the Works of John Keats” includes a selection of some short poems (with special attention also to well-known poems with Greek themes), all the long odes, which are considered the culmination of his work, and, finally, an unfinished, but especially interesting, epilyrical work, published after his death under the title “The Fall of Hyperion”. It is accompanied by commentaries and an extensive study of the translator as a generalization, which contains many excerpts from the letters of Keats, which today are considered excellent examples of English prose.

“K” preliminarily publishes excerpts from the epimeter of the translator G. Varsos and a poem from the little-published “Elections”.

Postromanticism? Keats was the son of a complex and very popular city, such as London was in the early 19th century. Although he does not break radically from romantic routines, nevertheless, he seems to persistently upset them. It’s like he’s constantly tearing the carpet out from under their feet – but also his feet or our romantic stilts. Of course, Keats also has a central idea of ​​romanticism, and perhaps lyricism in general: the present, with its current life, is weakly or inadequately controlled. However, at the same time, his poetry seeks forms or escape routes within this life, not in an ideal friend, past or future. He reveals the cracks inherent in the here and now of every human condition, while recognizing the terms that define it in all its irritating variety. And he insists on the reward of life in all its manifestations – friendship and love, contemplation and tenderness, abstract beauty and sensual pleasures. To such a life he draws the light of the ancient Greek myths and images that captivate him, as well as the charm of the nature of the British Isles, where he often takes refuge. (…)

Translation test: when translating, you must of course follow closely. And fidelity means freedom imposed by the very text you are translating. Somewhere you will blindly imitate, and somewhere it is dangerous to mutate, somewhere you will echo a foreign language, and somewhere you will immerse yourself in your own history, somewhere you will flow effortlessly, and somewhere you will stumble sharply. And you will not hesitate to accompany the original neither in his travels and flights, nor in his misadventures and darkness. This will give you text that will continue to weave and unravel its fabric. This is a risk: nothing – neither the spirit of the writer nor the strategy of the translator – guarantees that you will achieve that “apocalyptic paradox” that George Steiner so aptly and mysteriously speaks of in his Babylon.

In any case, the translation of a poem wants, first of all, to give a poem, that is, something that must be judged according to appropriate strict criteria. In this case, the poem that follows Keats unties him, as we said in childhood, a poem that, by its hesitation, will perhaps open cracks in the soil of our language and its lyrical tradition. Which is also the main reason why, among other things, in this translation a sample of metered and rhymed verse, moderately liberated, was chosen.

Ode to the Greek Hydra

“Do not grieve: even if you are never happy, she will always be beautiful, and you will be romantic.”

Sweet song you hear but don’t hear

sweeter; and say it, say it to yourself,

flutes soft, not hearing, but loving

the spirit and melody of tonic music;

the trees will not wither;

you never stop singing and kiss

you will never give it away, lover; come over

your valiant desire will remain – but not

you mourn: never, even if you are not happy, forever

she will be beautiful, and you will be amorous.