The Drama of Quality : Selected Essays

(New - will be sent to you direct from the publisher in Greece) Zissimos Lorenzatos (1915-2004) was considered to be the most important man of letters of his time in Greece. An essayist, poet and thinker, he was the last of his generation with a vision that was both deeply religious and humane. His profound knowledge of European literature and thought, and his familiarity with the writings and philosophy of the East, along with his thorough assimilation of the long Greek tradition, enabled him to explore, with unusual insight, the spirit both of Europe and of modern Greece. This second selection of his essays to be published in English includes his studies on the Greek writers Papadiamantis, Sikelianos and Capetanakis, and on the architect Dimitris Pikionis, and concludes with a penetrating discussion of the American poet Ezra Pound, who called himself the 'apostle of Europe', and who visited Greece and met Lorenzatos in 1965. 'The "full-ripened" grain of Lorenzatos's essays attests to the fertility of his tradition. No one who aspires to understand modern Greek culture should ignore them.' --David Ricks, University of London It is one of the few books of overtly Orthodox literary criticism available.