Abstract
The views of modern Greek literature from within and from abroad are opposing ideas. In terms of poetry, the most famous modern Greek poets, Cavafy and Seferis, represent internationally a mythic vision in which they are the modern protagonists of a tradition that goes back to ancient times, capturing the imaginations of a range of international poets in this way. But this version of events ignores other literary developments in modern Greece. One of the most significant, the impact of Surrealism and French literature of the twentieth century, was a major influence for the 1979 Nobel Laureate Odysseus Elytis, for example, a poet read and studied avidly in Greece, but now forgotten internationally because his work, like so many others, falls into the gap between the national literature and the view from afar. These two recent anthologies, however, can be seen as attempts to close that gap, to resuscitate the international audience for Greek poetry by presenting alternatives to the presiding view.