Erotocritos Circa 1640 Ad

Vitsentzos Kornaros (1553 - 1617)-- Vitsentzos Kornaros is the greatest of all the Cretan poets and one of the most significant and influential figures in the entire course of Greek poetry. He was the son of a Venetian - Cretan aristocrat, and was born near Sitia, Crete in 1553. Later, when he married, he came to live Candia, where he joined the Accademia dei Stravaganti.Kornaros died in about 1617, and as can be seen from his dates was an exact contemporary of William Shakespeare. Among the Cretan archives now in Venice documents have been found written in Vitsentzos' own hand. Theyare in Greek but transcribed in the Latin alphabet so we must assume that the poet did not attend a Greek School and that his formal education was Italian, as would be expected of a Roman Catholic Venetian nobleman, even if linguistically Hellenized. The only Greek work we can attribute with certainty to Vitsentzos Kornaros is the «Erotocritos» which was written about 1587 and first published in Venice in 1713. The poem reflects the Cretan civilization and life of the time of the poet - its serenades, its amorous escapades, its admiration for courage, and the significance of virginal purity in woman. The «Erotocritos» sets great store by true love, friendship, courage and patriotism, and this is the reason for its later popularity among the Greeks. But, above all, it was a great source of inspiration for Solomos, who picked up from it the thread of a living Greek poetry and handed it over to the Greeks after the liberation of Greece from the Turks. How extensive the influence of Kornaros has been on subsequent modern Greek poetry can be seen from the works of poets as diverse as Palamas, Krystallis and George Seferis. Thus it is true to say that Vitsentzos Kornaros is a major landmark in the history of Greek poetry.