Quotes by Giorgos Seferis

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The writer, the poet are engaged in what can be called humanity. The role and validity of a writer and the man who is this writer approach, merge.

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When I say ART, I don't understand the "art for art's sake" theory. This useless doctrine has come to denote the work of a powerless man who produces empty elegance in a sterilized room. I understand only the spiritual category made up of good works of art, past or present, those that serve as a model, those that will be exemplary... If we look at the consequences triggered by these works we will see that they are not at all alien to the struggles and passions of the time. "The great artist", it has been said, "does not belong to his time, he is his time" basically, the life of the poet, the complex of impressions, sensations, reactions that constitute the material of the work, are a part of the humanity that surrounds him; along with her anxieties, her pains, her greatness and her failures.