Ο Φιλελληνισμός, χτες και σήμερα

Το μικρό καράβι, το οποίο κουβαλούσε μια ομάδα από περίπου είκοσι Βρετανούς τουρίστες και μαθητές, έγερνε μπροστά στον άνεμο μέσα στα ταραγμένα νερά. Ο Τζέραλντ, ο δάσκαλος και οδηγός μας, μάς διηγούταν ταυτόχρονα δυο ιστορίες και αυτές γίνονταν κάπου-κάπου συγκεχυμένες. Καθώς φεύγαμε από την προκυμαία της ωραίας πόλης, άρχισε η τοπογραφία να ξετυλίγεται σε όλες τις κατευθύνσεις. Πίσω από την πόλη, τοποθετημένη στην άκρη του κόλπου, διαφαινόταν πλέον κι ένα κωνικό όρος. Το νησί, προς το οποίο κατευθυνόμασταν, φαινόταν πλέον ακόμη πιο μεγάλο: με τις πλευρές του απόκρημνες και σκεπασμένες από δάσος. «Η παράδοση της Σπαρτιάτικης φρουράς που βρισκόταν στην Σφακτηρία, ήταν η πρώτη συνθηκολόγηση που έκαναν ποτέ οι Σπαρτιάτες,» δήλωσε ο Τζέραλντ, υψώνοντας τη φωνή του πάνω από τον θόρυβο της μηχανής. «Επρόκειτο για μια συναρπαστική στιγμή για τους Αθηναίους: μια στιγμή που τους έφερε σε αχαρτογράφητα νερά: νερά όπου δυστυχώς παραμόνευαν η Ύβρις και η Νέμεσις.» 

Τσιχλί-Μπαμπά

Στα νερά όπου πλέαμε κι εμείς, φαινόταν να παραμόνευε κι εμάς ένας αυξανόμενος κίνδυνος. Κατά τα φαινόμενα κατευθυνόμασταν τώρα προς την ανοιχτή θάλασσα από το νότιο στενό ανάμεσα στη Σφακτηρία και την ξηρά, και τα κύματα αυξάνονταν εντυπωσιακά. «Σε λίγο θα δούμε το μνημείο προς τιμή των Γάλλων ναυτικών που πέθαναν στο Ναυαρίνο», είπε ο Τζέραλντ, με τον αισιόδοξό του τρόπο. Το πλοίο σκαμπανέβαζε στα θυελλώδη κύματα, όσο πλησιάζαμε την σκάλα που είχε λαξευτεί στον πέτρινο γκρεμό της βραχονησίδας που ονομάζεται Τσιχλί-Μπαμπά. «Είναι πολύ επικίνδυνο να αποβιβαστούμε σήμερα - σύμφωνα με τον καπετάνιο, αλλά θα κάνουμε ένα μικρό περίπλου της νησίδας και ύστερα θα επιστρέψουμε για να βρούμε το αγγλικό μνημείο.»

Ήμασταν στα μέσα του Απρίλη του 1984. Ήμουνα δεκάξι χρονών. Επρόκειτο για την πρώτη εβδομάδα μιας εκδρομής τριών εβδομάδων στην Ελλάδα και κάναμε μια περιήγηση της Πελοποννήσου. Ήταν η ορθόδοξη Σαρακοστή και αναμενόταν να περάσουμε την Μεγάλη Εβδομάδα στην Αίγινα και την εβδομάδα του Πάσχα στη Σίφνο. Δεν είχα ξαναπάει στην Ελλάδα, αλλά εδώ και τρία χρόνια μάθαινα την αρχαία γλώσσα. Πρωί-πρωί της μέρας εκείνης, είχαμε επισκεφτεί το μυκηναϊκά απομεινάρια του Ανακτόρου του Νέστορα στο Επάνω Εγκλιανό. 

Ανάκτορο του Νέστορα

Τώρα μαθαίναμε για τα γεγονότα του Πελοποννησιακού Πολέμου το 425πΧ (την άλωση της Σφακτηρίας από τους Αθηναίους) και την Ναυμαχία του Ναυαρίνου στις 20 Οκτώβρη του 1827μΧ. Όσο μπαίναμε και πάλι στον κόλπο, μάς εξήγησε ο Τζέραλντ τη διαρρύθμιση του οθωμανικού στόλου (στην μορφή ενός πετάλου) και την τακτική και τεχνογνωσία των ναυτικών των συμμάχων, όταν ο Κόδρινγκτον, απαντώντας στην πρόκληση από τον στόλο του Ιμπραήμ-Πασά, εξαπέλυσε μια καταστρεπτική και καθοριστική αντεπίθεση. Από το αγγλικό μνημείο, στο Χελωνάκι, βλέπαμε, στο βόρειο τέλος του κόλπου, την επίπεδο λιμνοθάλασσα και το φραγκικό κάστρο του 13^ου αιώνα στο Παλιό Ναυαρίνο. 

Αγγλικό Μνημείο

Σε αυτή την μικρή γωνία της Πελοποννήσου φαινόταν ότι κάθε εποχή της ευρωπαϊκής ιστορίας είχε αφήσει το δικό της αποτύπωμα. Η ομηρική μυθολογία, η αρχαία και μεσαιωνική ιστορία, οι θρυλικές μορφές από την εποχή των ευρωπαϊκών αυτοκρατοριών και της ελληνικής επανάστασης, τα φαντάσματα και τα βήματα του παρελθόντος - όλ’ αυτά είχαν μαζευτεί σε αυτό το συμπυκνωμένο περιβάλλον, σ’ αυτό το τοπίο εκθαμβωτικής φυσικής εμορφιάς. 

Οι πρώτες εντυπώσεις είναι καθοριστικές. Οι πρώτες μου εντυπώσεις της Ελλάδας άλλαξαν την πορεία της ζωής μου. Σε αυτό δεν είμαι μοναδικός. Ερωτεύτηκε και ο Λόρδος Βύρωνας  - πράγμα κάπως πιο σημαντικό για την πορεία της ελληνικής ιστορίας! - κατά την διάρκεια της πρώτης του εκδρομής στην Ελλάδα το 1809. Πραγματικά ερωτεύτηκε πολλαπλά· ερωτεύτηκε, με τρόπο που έμεινε γνωστός παντού, την Τερέζα Μακρή, την «Κόρη των Αθηνών», αλλά ερωτεύτηκε - ακόμα πιο επίμονα - και την Ελλάδα την ίδια: τα τοπία της, το μυθικό της παρελθόν, τον λαό της και τα έθιμά του. Και προ παντός ερωτεύτηκε την ιδέα της Ελλάδας: μιας Ελλάδας της ριζοσπαστικής ελευθερίας, απελευθερωμένης από τις οθωμανικές χειροπέδες. Σαγηνεύτηκε από την Ελλάδα (παρέθεσα παρακάτω μια αγαπημένη μου στροφή από Το προσκύνημα του Τσιλντ Αρόλδου), αλλά φαίνεται ότι για ένα μεγάλο χρονικό διάστημα δεν πίστευε πως οι Έλληνες θα εξεγείρονταν πραγματικά για να απαιτήσουν την ελευθερία τους. Ήταν ο φίλος του, ο ποιητής Πέρσι Σέλλεϋ, που τον δίδαξε φιλελληνικό πολιτικό ακτιβισμό ενός πιο δυναμικού είδους. Η ριζοσπαστικότητα και ο ιδεαλισμός του Σέλλεϋ ξεσήκωσε τον Βύρωνα και τον ενέπνευσε στην τελευταία του μεγάλη πρωτοβουλία, το 1823: την περιπέτεια που κατέληξε στον θάνατο του Βύρωνα στο Μεσολόγγι στις 19 Απρίλη του 1824 και στην απελευθέρωση ενός μεγάλου κύματος φιλελληνικού συναισθήματος παντού στην Ευρώπη και στις Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες.

 

Ο θάνατος του Βύρωνα, Μεσολόγγι

Ο Βύρωνας ήταν φιλελεύθερος και η συνεισφορά του στον ελληνικό αγώνα βασίστηκε στα φιλελεύθερα ιδανικά. Αλλά επί της ουσίας ο Φιλελληνισμός δεν είναι μια πολιτική ιδεολογία, αν και έχει, βέβαια, μια πολιτική διάσταση. Η ιστορία των βρετανικών επαφών με την Ελλάδα αυτούς τους δυο αιώνες που πέρασαν δείχνει ότι ο κατάλογος των παθιασμένων Βρετανών Φιλελλήνων περιλαμβάνει φιλελεύθερους, συντηρητικούς, σοσιαλιστές και τους απολύτως απολιτικούς. Κι επιπλέον θα ήταν λάθος κανείς να φανταστεί ότι ο Φιλελληνισμός, αν και έχει ιστορικές συνδέσεις και βαθιές ιστορικές ρίζες, ανήκει αποκλειστικά στο παρελθόν. Πιστεύω πάντως ότι ο νεαρός Βύρωνας μάς δείχνει από τί αποτελείται ο Φιλελληνισμός. Απλώς, πρόκειται για μια ερωτική σχέση που μεταμορφώνει. Τα εκατομμύρια των συμπατριωτών μου που πηγαίνουν κάθε χρόνο στην Ελλάδα είναι εξίσου ευάλωτα στη γοητεία της Ελλάδας όσο και ο Βύρωνας το 1809. Το εάν η πρώτη αυτή σπίθα της αγάπης θα εξελιχτεί σε κάτι πιο σταθερό και σημαντικό ή όχι, εξαρτάται από πολλούς παράγοντες, συμπεριλαμβανομένης της προσωπικής επένδυσης του χρόνου, της προθυμίας να μάθει κανείς την γλώσσα, να αποκτήσει μια γνώση και ένα μερίδιο του πολιτισμού. Για όσους ερχόμαστε στην Ελλάδα και την ερωτευόμαστε πραγματικά, η ερωτική σχέση αυτή διαμορφώνει τη ζωή μας: οδηγεί το παρόν μας και επηρεάζει το μέλλον μας, και γίνεται κι γρήγορα ένα αγαπημένο, αναγκαίο μέρος του προσωπικού μας παρελθόντος. 

 

Οπότε, σήμερα, μια ημέρα που μνημονεύει την επέτειο των 200 ετών από την έναρξη του αγώνα της ελληνικής ανεξαρτησίας, σκέφτομαι όχι μόνο τους ήρωες της επανάστασης - όπως τον Μακρυγιάννη, τον Κολοκοτρώνη, τον Καραϊσκάκη, τη Μπουμπουλίνα, το Μιαούλη, το Μαυροκορδάτο, τον Καποδίστρια, το Βύρωνα, τον Άστιγκα, το Τζώρτζ - και τους «ανώνυμους» Έλληνες που πάλεψαν και επέμεναν, αλλά και τους σημερινούς Έλληνες: τους πολλούς Έλληνες φίλους και γνωστούς μου στην Ελλάδα, τους απόδημους Έλληνες που συναντάω στο Λονδίνο, τους πολύ περισσότερους Έλληνες που δεν γνώρισα ακόμη στην πατρίδα τους: στην Αθήνα, τη Θεσσαλονίκη κι αλλού. Σε όλους σας λέω το εξής: αυτή η ημέρα είναι δίκη σας ημέρα, εννοείται ότι μετά από 200 χρόνια της διατήρησης της λευτεριάς, αυτά που πέτυχαν οι πρόγονοί σας είναι δικό σας επίτευγμα. Όσο βαρύ κι αν φαίνεται να είναι το φορτίο του παρελθόντος, το αξίζετε και σας ταιριάζει. Εμείς που αγαπάμε την Ελλάδα, μοιραζόμαστε την χαρά σας και αισθανόμαστε αγαλλίαση για την ένδοξή σας ελευθερία. Σας στέλνω τα θερμότερά μου συγχαρητήρια και την αγάπη μου. Χρόνια πολλά!

 

Ζήτω η Ελλάς! Ζήτω η λευτεριά των Ελλήνων!

 

Τζων

Εορτή του Ευαγγελισμού της Θεοτόκου, 2021

 

Φραγκικό κάστρο, Παλιό Ναυαρίνο

Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto II.88

Where’er we tread ‘tis haunted, holy ground;

No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould,

But one vast realm of wonder spreads around,

And all the Muse’s tales seem truly old,

Till the sense aches with gazing to behold

The scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt upon:

Each hill and dale, each deepening glen and wold

Defies the power which crush’d thy temples gone:

Age shakes Athena’s tower, but spares gray Marathon.

 

Προσκύνημα τοῦ Τσὶλνδ Ἁρόλδου, μέρος ΙΙ.88 

Εἰς οἱονδήποτε μέρος καὶ ἂν διευθύνωμεν τὰ βήματά μας, πατοῦμεν γῆν ἱερᾶν·

οὐδὲν μέρος τοῦ ἐδάφους σου καθιερώθη εἰς χυδαῖα μνημεῖα,

ἀλλ᾽ὅλη ἡ χώρα σου εἶναι εὐρὺ θέατρον θαυμάτων·

ὅλα τὰ πλάσματα τῆς μούσης φαίνονται ὡς τόσαι ἀλήθειαι,

οἱ δὲ ὀφθαλμοί μας ἀποκάμνουσι θαυμάζοντες 

τοὺς τόπους τούτους εἰς τοὺς ὁποίους μετεφερόμεθα τόσον συχνάκις

ὑπὸ τῶν ὀνείρων τῆς νεανικῆς ἡλικίας μας·

τὰ ὄρη καὶ αἱ κοιλάδες σου, οἱ λόφοι καὶ αἱ πεδιάδες σου, 

ἀνθίστανται εἰς τὴν καταστρεπτικὴν δύναμιν τοῦ χρόνου,

ὁ ὁποῖος κατηρείπωσε τοὺς ναούς σου.

Οἱ αἰῶνες ἐκλόνησαν τὰς μεγαλοπρεπεῖς οἰκοδομὰς τῶν Ἀθηνῶν,

ἀλλ᾽ἐσεβάσθησαν τὸ πεδίον τοῦ Μαραθῶνος.

Philhellenism, past and present

The Memorial to the English Sailors

The small boat, with its group of twenty or so British tourists and schoolkids, was leaning into the wind across choppy waters. Gerald, our teacher and guide, was telling us two stories at once and they were becoming occasionally confused. As we left the jetty of the pretty town, the geography opened up in all directions. Behind the town, itself set out on the edge of the bay, a conical mountain was rising. The island to which we were heading now seemed much larger; its sides precipitous and covered in forest. ‘The surrender of the Spartan garrison on Sphacteria was the first time that Spartans had ever capitulated,’ Gerald shouted, above the noise of the engine. ‘It was an exciting moment for the Athenians: a moment that carried them into uncharted waters - waters that were unfortunately stalked by Hubris and Nemesis…’ 

The waters through which we were being cοnveyed seemed themselves to be increasingly stalked, by danger. We were apparently now heading out into the open sea through the southern channel between Sphacteria island and the mainland, and the waves were getting bigger. ‘We will soon see the monument to the French sailors who died at Navarino,’ said Gerald, optimistically. The boat bounced on the turbulent waves, as we approached the stairs cut into the cliff of the islet of Tsichli-Baba. ‘It’s too choppy to land today - according to the captain, but we’ll sail round the islet and then return to find the English monument.’

The Battle of Navarino

It was the middle of April in 1984. I was sixteen. We were in the first week of a three-week tour of Greece and were travelling around the Peloponnese. It was Orthodox Lent and we were due to spend Holy Week on Aegina and Easter week on Sifnos. I had never been to Greece before, but had been learning the ancient language for three years. Earlier in the day, we had excitedly toured the Mycenean remains of Nestor’s Palace at Ano Engliano. Now we were learning about events in the Peloponnesian War in 425BC (the capture of Sphacteria by the Athenians) and the Battle of Navarino on 20 October 1827AD. As we re-entered the bay, Gerald told us about the disposition of the Ottoman fleet (arranged in a horseshoe) and the tactics and skill of the allied sailors, as Codrington, provoked by Ibrahim’s fleet, launched a devastating and decisive counterattack. From the English memorial on Chelonaki islet, we could see, at the northern end of the bay, the flat lands of the lagoon and the thirteenth-century Frankish castle at Old Navarino. In this small corner of Greece, every age of European history seemed to have left its mark. Homeric mythology, ancient and mediaeval history, legendary figures from the age of European empire and Greek revolution, the ghosts and footfalls of the past - all crowded into this compact environment, this landscape of astonishing natural beauty.

 

Yialova Lagoon, Navarino

First impressions matter. My first impressions of Greece changed the course of my life. I am not alone in that. Rather more importantly for the course of Greek history, Byron too fell in love on his first trip to Greece in 1809. He fell in love multiply. Famously, of course, with Teresa Makri, the ‘Maid of Athens’, but even more lastingly with Greece itself, its landscapes, its mythical past, its people and their customs - and above all, he fell in love with the idea of Greece: a Greece of radical liberty, freed from Ottoman shackles. He was entranced by Greece (I have placed below a favourite stanza from Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage), but for many years, he does not seem to have thought that the Greeks would actually rise up and claim their freedom. It was his friend, the poet Percy Shelley, who taught him a more dynamic form of pro-Greek political activism. Shelley’s radicalism and idealism galvanised Byron and inspired him to his last great venture, in 1823: the adventure that ended with Byron’s death at Mesolongi on 19 April 1824 and the release of a great wave of philhellenic sentiment across Europe and the United States. 

Byron in Greece, by Vryzakis

Byron was a liberal and his contribution to the Greek struggle was motivated by liberal ideals. But at heart Philhellenism is not a political ideology, though it has a political dimension. The history of British engagement with Greece in the past two centuries shows that passionate British Philhellenes have included liberals, conservatives, socialists and the apolitical. It would also be wrong to think that Philhellenism, though it has important historical associations and deep historical roots, belongs exclusively to the past. I think that the youthful Byron shows us what Philhellenism is. It is quite simply a transformative love affair. The millions of my compatriots who go to Greece every year are as susceptible to falling in love with Greece as Byron was in 1809. Whether or not that first spark of love develops into something more lasting and significant depends on many factors, not least personal investment of time, willingness to learn the language, to acquire a knowledge of and a share in the culture. For those of us who come to Greece and truly fall in love with her, this love affair shapes our lives: it guides our present and moulds the future and soon becomes a treasured, indispensable part of our personal past. 

So on this day, which marks the 200^th anniversary of the launch of the struggle for Greek freedom, I am thinking not only of the heroes of the struggle - Makrygiannis, Kolokotronis, Karaiskakis, Bouboulina, Miaoulis, Mavrocordatos, Capodistrias, Byron, Hastings, Church - and of the ordinary Greeks who fought and endured, but also of today’s Greeks: my many Greek friends and acquaintances, the Greeks I meet in London, those greater numbers of Greeks I have yet to meet in their homeland: Athens, Thessaloniki, and elsewhere. I say to all of you: This day is your day; it goes without saying that after 200 years of sustaining liberty, what your ancestors achieved is now your achievement. However heavy the burden of the past sometimes seems to be, you are worthy of it and you carry it well. Those of us who love Greece share in your joy and rejoice in your glorious freedom. I send you my warmest congratulations and my love.

 

Long live Greece! Long live Greek freedom!

 

John

Feast of the Annunciation, 2021

 

Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto II.88

Where’er we tread ‘tis haunted, holy ground;

No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould,

But one vast realm of wonder spreads around,

And all the Muse’s tales seem truly old,

Till the sense aches with gazing to behold

The scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt upon:

Each hill and dale, each deepening glen and wold

Defies the power which crush’d thy temples gone:

Age shakes Athena’s tower, but spares gray Marathon.

Nestor's Palace, Summer 2016

An Anglo-Hellenic Voice from the 1930s

Although the laurels for making the English literary world aware of C.P.Cavafy go to the novelist E.M.Forster, the earliest known English poetry that responds to Cavafy’s work and suggests his influence is by William Plomer (1903-1973).[1] I had forgotten that fact, though not the name, when, in late 2019, checking over what was new and what was newly reprinted on the LGBT shelves in the Cambridge Waterstones, I discovered a finely bound selection of Plomer’s poetry. Within that new edition, brought out by Little Island Press, I found a handful of interesting poems about Greece and so bought the book.[2] As usually happens with interesting writers, one book led to another. And in the past few weeks, I’ve settled down to get to know Plomer’s life and work better.

Plomer, who was born and partly raised in colonial South Africa to English parents, is largely unknown now: in his own time, his own writing was highly esteemed, but he was also, as the reader at Jonathan Cape, the discoverer of Kilvert’s diaries and of Ian Fleming. He had a cosmopolitan outlook and was moulded by his early experiences of South Africa, England and Japan. He made only a single visit to Greece, which he describes beautifully in his autobiography - I’ve set out an extract below.[3] In 1930, accompanying the painter Anthony Butts (1900-1941), he spent some months in Athens and on Corfu, which at that time was almost entirely unvisited by tourists. During his weeks in Athens, he picked up ‘a voluminous anthology of Greek poetry’ and was captivated by the photograph of Cavafy.[4] Plomer was not only the first English poet to absorb elements of Cavafy’s work, he was also one of the first English writers to ‘rediscover’ the literary potential of Greece (Lawrence Durrell, for example, would not arrive on Corfu until 1935; Robert Liddell arrived in Athens only in 1939) and to find in Greece not so much the dead remains of classical antiquity as the vibrant possibility of contemporary erotic adventure. His experiences there would yield poems and short stories, all of which show a sharp eye for people, their customs and quirks, and for landscapes too.

 

Plomer was gay and he found working-class Greek men both to his taste and available. It wasn’t all casual and fleeting dalliance; in Athens he started what seems to have been the first serious love affair of his life with a Greek sailor called ‘Nicky’. The affair lasted some weeks but ended badly, with Nicky robbing Plomer and dumping him. But it left behind at least one ravishing poem (see below) and brought Greece firmly within the orbit of Plomer’s literary world. In those years, Plomer conducted a short correspondence with Cavafy and wrote several poems and short stories about Greece that demonstrate a knowledge of Cavafy’s poetry. Several years later, he was introduced in London by the publisher John Lehmann to the Greek poet, Dimitris Capetanakis, whose published work (in Greek and English) has recently been collated and issued in an edition by Emmanuela Kantzia.[5] Capetanakis had been swiftly accepted into the well-defined set of talented gay English writers and publishers (Forster, Auden, Isherwood, Spender, Sitwell, Ackerley, Lehmann and so on); he and Plomer became friends, until Capetanakis’ early death in 1944. Plomer recognised in Capetanakis’ English poetry the merits of ‘a real English poet’, observing that ‘the growth of his sympathy with England & the English would have borne much fruit if he had lived.’ This is a connection about which one would like to know more.

Before the new Little Island Press edition, Plomer’s own work was in danger of becoming unknown by the reading public, though it has attracted some interest in recent years among academics.[6] Everything except the new Selected Poems is out of print, but most things can be found through Abebooks and the online catalogues of second-hand bookshops. From what I have been able to locate in these months when the pandemic has closed our libraries, the body of Greek work is interesting and deserves to be considered as a whole.

 

There are five short stories about Greece, published in The Child of Queen Victoria and Other Stories: ‘Folk Tale’, ‘Nausicaa’, ‘The Crisis’, ‘The Island: An Afternoon in the Life of Costa Zappaglou’ and ‘Local Colour’. Three of these (‘Nausicaa’, ‘The Island’ and ‘Local Colour’) depict - unmistakably but with characteristic discretion - a complex homoerotic milieu.[7] They are skilful and charming. ‘Nausicaa’ depicts Corfu in an astringent, somewhat cynical manner entirely unlike that of the Durrell brothers, and is all the more interesting for that.

 

While he was on Corfu, Plomer became interested in the character of Ali Pasha. That too yielded a book: a surprisingly fine biography published in 1936.[8]

 

There are at least twenty - probably more - poems written about Greece. The largest set (‘A Sprig of Basil’) is in the collection called The Fivefold Screen. Others can be found in the new Selected Poems or in the Collected Poems.[9] The types of poem vary. Four are translations from modern Greek. ‘The Philhellene’ (1930) is one of the satirical ballads - a genre that Plomer practically invented; it describes, with mordant humour and calculated bad taste, the illusions and disillusion of a female American philhellene in Athens: ‘She had plenty of dollars, / But felt that scholars / Alone could master / Classical Greek, / The enclitic particle / Quite defeated her / And declining the article / Left her weak’. The most memorable lines are examples of English comic writing at its silliest and most playful: ‘Then one Papayannopoulos / Took her up the Acropolis / And began to monopolize / Most of her time.’

 

‘The Philhellene’ is an amusing if clever trifle. But the serious poems are a more lasting legacy. From 1930, ‘Another Country’ expresses a debt to Cavafy’s ‘The City’, while ‘Corfu’ captures wistfully the island’s melancholic aspect (‘Across the old fortezza fall / The crystal rulings of the rain’). ‘The Klepht’ is a good poem to read in this bicentenary year. ‘Archaic Apollo’ brings a modern, gay sensibility to the ancient world; in ‘The Land of Love’ that sensibility acquires a mordant tone. But the best two Greek poems, in my opinion, are ‘Three Pinks’ (1930) and ‘A Casual Encounter’ (1972). ‘Three Pinks’ describes a delicious moment in Plomer’s affair with Nicky. It is not, I think, a simple derivation of Cavafy’s work, but stands in the same relation to Cavafy as do some of Dinos Christianopoulos’ erotic poems, being both an emanation and an extension of the Cavafian style. ‘A Casual Encounter’, by contrast, is one of Plomer’s final poems, from the collection Celebrations, published a year before Plomer’s death. It is dedicated to Cavafy’s memory and is a sure sign of his abiding, life-long influence on Plomer’s work. Both can be found in the Collected Poems and in the new Selected Poems. I have set out a fragment of the later poem below and hope it draws you too into the world of William Plomer. It’s worth spending some time there.

 

John

12 March 2021  

 

‘Moderately Grand Tour’ - an excerpt from The Autobiography of William Plomer

 

Late in the afternoon, or sometimes in the morning, we went off to Glyphada or Vouliagmeni to swim and then to come out and sit in the sun and drink retsina under the pine trees. The colour and salinity of the sea, the piny fragrance of the shadows and the piny tang of the wine, the clearness of the wine and of the white-wine-coloured sea-water, the salty warmth of the skin and of the blood, the warmth of the sun and of the sand all seemed interfused, as if the elements of earth, air, fire, and water were one element, in which life was immortal. As often in those parts, a sensuous experience of a certain complexity seemed also a spiritual or at least a suprasensory experience.

 

A Casual Encounter

 

(in memory of Cavafy, 1863-1933) - an excerpt

 

They met, as most these days do,

among streets, not under leaves; at night;

by what is called chance, some think

predestined; in a capital city, latish;

instantly understanding, without words,

without furtiveness, without guilt,

each had been, without calculation, singled out.

 

Wherever it was they had met,

without introduction, before drifting this way,

beneath lamps hung high, casting

cones of radiance, hazed with pale dust,

a dry pollenous mist that made

each warm surface seem suede, the sense of touch

sang like a harp; the two were alone.

 

To be in private in public added oddness,

out of doors in a city with millions

still awake, with the heard obbligato

of traffic, that resolute drone,

islanding both, their destination

the shadow they stood in. The place

should perhaps be defined.

 

But need it? Cliff walls of warehouses;

no thoroughfare; at the end a hurrying 

river, dragonish; steel gates locked;

emptiness. Whatever they said

was said gently, was not written down,

not recorded. Neither had need 

even to know the other one’s name.

 

…

 

 

[1] I first became aware of Plomer in 2007, thanks to Prof. David Ricks's legendary module 'Cavafy: Reader and Read' in the then MA Modern Greek syllabus, sadly now discontinued (like so many British humanities courses), at King's College London. 

[2] William Plomer, Selected Poems (ed. Neilson MacKay) [Stroud, Little Island Press 2016]. There is a good review of this selection by David Collard in the TLS no.5948 (31 March 2017): https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/benign-muscular-owl-william-plomer-poetry/

[3] William Plomer, The Autobiography [London, Jonathan Cape 1975]. Chapter 26 ‘Moderately Grand Tour’ describes the trip to Italy and Greece.

[4] Details of Plomer’s life can be found in the fine and sympathetic biography: Peter F. Alexander, William Plomer: A Biography [Oxford, Oxford University Press 1989]

[5] Δημήτριος Καπετανάκης, Έργα: πρώτος τόμος - τα δημοσιευμένα 1933-1944 (επιμελ. Εμμανουέλα Κάντζια) [Αθήνα, ΕΚΕΠ & ΜΙΕΤ 2020]

[6] There are (censorious) references to Plomer’s presence in Greece in David Roessel’s admirable In Byron’s Shadow: Modern Greece in the English and American Imagination (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002). Specific articles looking at Plomer’s Greek work include Konstantina Georganta, ‘“And so to Athens”: William Plomer in “The Land of Love”’, Journal of Modern Greek Studies 28 (2010): 49–71 and Dimitris Papanikolaou, ‘Between Philhellenism and Greek Eros: Reading Christopher Isherwood’s and William Plomer’s “Greece”’, in Evangelos Konstantinou (ed.), Das Bild Griechenlands im Spiegel der Völker [Frankfurt, Peter Lang 2008]: 421-432.

[7] William Plomer, The Child of Queen Victoria and Other Stories [London, Jonathan Cape 1933]. All except ‘Folk Tale’ were reprinted several years later in William Plomer, Four Countries [London, Jonathan Cape 1949]. 

[8] William Plomer, Ali the Lion [London, Jonathan Cape 1936].

[9] William Plomer, The Fivefold Screen [London, Hogarth Press 1932]; Collected Poems [London, Jonathan Cape 1973].