Seferis House Transformed to a Hotel

The house, where the Nobel-winning Greek poet Giorgios Seferis was born in the Aegean town of Urla, Izmir is attracting tourists especially from Greece.

Muzaffer Sumer is the owner and the manager of the house, which is now called "Hotel Giorgios Seferis Residence."

"I bought and restored Seferis' house, which in time had become a ruin.The Council for Preserving the Cultural and Natural Wealth, who gives the permission for restoring the house, was really helpful" Sumer told.

Who is Seferis?

Giorgios Seferis was born in 1900 in Urla. He started going to school in Izmir and completed high school in Athens, Greece.

In 1918 when his family moved to Paris, Seferis studied law in the University of Paris and got interested in literature. He returned to Athens in 1926 and was admitted to the Royal Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs the following year.

In exile

He held posts in England (1931 - 1934) and in Albania (1936 - 1938) during his years as a civil servant. During the Second World War, he accompanied the Independent Greek government-in-exile to Crete.

He returned to liberate Greece in 1944 after Egypt, South Africa and Italy won their independences. He continued working for the foreign ministry and held diplomatic posts in Ankara during the years 1948 - 1950.

During the years 1953 - 1956, he got appointed minister to Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq. From 1957 to 1960, he served as Royal Greek Ambassador to the United Kingdom.

Honors and prizes

Before he retired, on his last mission in Athens, Seferis received many honors and prizes, among them honorary doctoral degrees from the universities of Cambridge (1960), Oxford (1964), Salonika (1964), and Princeton (1965).

Seferis's early poetry consists of a series of short poems (Turning Point). These poems that he wrote in 1931 are a group of rhymed lyrics strongly influenced by the Symbolists. Seferis wrote the book E Sterna (The Cistern) in 1932. In this book, Seferis deeply reflects a person's everyday feeling of being hidden and ignored.

His mature poetry begins with Mythistorema (Mythistorema) in 1935, which is a series of twenty-four short poems, which translate the Odyssean myths into modern idiom. In Tetradio Gynnasmalon (Book of Exercises), 1940, Emerologio Katastromatos (Logbook I), 1940, Emerologio Katastromatos B (Logbook II), 1944, Kihle (Thrush), 1947, and Emerologio Katastromatos C (Logbook III), 1955, Seferis is preoccupied with the themes he developed in Mythistorema. He used Homer's Odyssey as his symbolic source.

Three secret poems

However, "The King of Asine" (in Logbook I), is considered by many critics to be his finest poem. The source in this poem is a single reference in the all-but-forgotten king who owns everything.

His recent book of poetry, Tria Krypha Poiemata (Three Secret Poems), 1966, consists of twenty-eight short lyric pieces verging on the surrealistic.

In addition to poetry, Seferis has published a book of essays called Dokimes (Essays). In 1965, Seferis published a collection his poems (1924-1955), which have appeared both in a Greek edition (Athens, 1965) and in an American one with translations en face (Princeton, 1967).

This work was prepared from Nobel Lectures, Literature during the years 1901-1967. Giorgos Seferis died in 1971. (NK/EA/NM)

* Source: yorgoseferis.com. Accents by Bianet.