William Palmer
Our Man In London
George Seferis: Waiting for the Angel
By Roderick Beaton
Yale University Press 512pp £25 order from our bookshop
Evgeny Zamyatin that 'real literature can be created only by madmen, hermits, heretics, dreamers, rebels, and sceptics, not by diligent and trustworthy functionaries'. Discuss - as they say - with reference to the life of George Seferis, the Greek poet.
A hard question. For many, the image of the poet is still fixed - nostalgically, and in the face of present evidence - as that of a free spirit who spurns convention and risks all for poetry and life. In his kork Seferis could indeed be passionate, evoking Greek history,
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
From the archive: Kenneth Rose on the life of Princess Alice of Battenberg
https://literaryreview.co.uk/she-trumped-them-all
'The trick of a successful mercenary ... was somehow to get on almost as well with your enemies as your allies, since those two positions could be reversed at dizzying speed.'
Sarah Dunant on the life of Federico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/scholar-in-arms
'McDormand has come closer to Lady Macbeth in some of her previous grimly comic performances ... Here she can convey only the banality of evil, as when she fussily curtails the banquet after Macbeth’s hallucination.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/come-thick-night