15 May The Return of the Exiler
In 1938, Giorgos Seferis returns to Athens from Koritsa where he was assigned as a Consul of Greece in 1936. When the poet returns to his homeland he finds it with the well established dictatorial regime of Ioannis Metaxas (1936-1941) and he experiences dissapointment, not only for the illeberal regime, but also for his placement to the Foreign Press Directorate of the Deputy Press Office which he can not deny it because of his role of government employee. The poet is obligated to work for the military government and that makes him feel discomfort and difficulty to accept his new role.
The desire of the exile to return to his homeland, is more focused on the homeland of the poet before leaving her. The poem starts with the wording that the emigrant and the years that he was absent in another country away from the particular treaties of his homeland he had shaped his thoughts and expectations in the contexts of this other country. Everything has changed and they are not what he expected. When the emigrant returns he is looking for his old garden, the place that he had been growing up, but with an astonishment he finds that everything around him are more small that he remembered. He catches himself trapped in his own “home” (the shaped home in the illustration of the work, it can be translated as a family, as a homeland, as a situation, etc.), naked and unprotected as well as wounded.. In a “house” which it can not fit him… In a “house” that it looks like like a sheepfold. The mention of the sheepfold (the place where the shepherd is protecting his flock of sheep), with the combination of the kneeling people, it comes to uncover the feeling of the poet that everyone around him has been submitted, they have lowered their head to the new situation. The poet would want to find people ready to object to the deprivation of their freedom, he would like to see his fellow citizen be ready to strive and not to be submissive. The illustration of the trapped man gives also the feeling of an embryo which it states weakness…
The windswept tree is bending by the power of the wind..
But it resists..
Triantafyllos Vaitsis
This sculpture has been made for the exhibition “Giorgos Seferis – When the light dances, I speak just”. I have chose this poem because I believe that most of the people had felt his meaning in a degree, each person in his own unique way.
The Return of the Exile
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