Nikos Gatsos' Amorgos,topography and the poetics of modernism

Abstract

Nikos Gatsos' Amorgos is approached here as a polyphonic poem that synthesizes elements of the Greek literary tradition into an intertextual palimpsest of fragments, in the vein of the modernist 'long poem'. The surrealist poet maintains a fine balance between tradition and radical innovation, shaping Amorgos as a place where poetry is created as an interaction of opposing tendencies. The topical character of the poem is underscored by its title: the sea-and-land imagery evokes the island as a literary topos of seclusion and self-sufficiency that lends its characteristics to the composition itself: a 'compendium' of poetic writing and avant-garde aesthetics.