ABSTRACT

The classic moment was followed by a period covering the interwar and immediate postwar decades, which witnessed the mature flowering of Cypriot poetry. Inevitably, the focus of the following remarks will be on poetry, which, in terms of volume of production in successive historical periods and in terms of expressive significance as an outlet of collective yearnings and aspirations typical of Cypriot culture, has been unquestionably the most important form of literary expression. Actually, the end of the first moment in the modern tradition of Cypriot poetry and the beginning of the second, the moment of the classics, was marked by the publication of the early romantic poetry of Vassilis Michaelidis and Dimitris Lipertis. The linguistic achievement is all the more significant for Cypriot self-consciousness in that it showed that what was considered a peripheral and indeed semibarbaric Greek dialect possessed remarkable poetic powers and could provide a medium for great art.