Discovering the New Athenian School through EKT's digital portals

Both the life and work of Kostis Palamas, the leading representative of the New Athenian School, and the other exponents of modern Greek poetry, unfold through thousands of scientific and cultural records available through EKT search portals.

Take a journey back in time via the digital content portals of the National Documentation Centre (EKT) and discover the life and work of the main representatives of the New Athenian School, the poets who expressed the spirit of the country after 1880, a leading figure of which was Kostis Palamas. The poets of this generation, influenced by the movements of Parnassianism and Symbolism that were flourishing in Western Europe at that time, criticised the renewal of Romanticism by the First Athenian School and aimed to establish the use of Demotic Greek in poetry.

At the scientific content portal OpenArchives.gr, you can find information on Romanticism, Parnassianism and Symbolism, styles that originate in the 19th century in Western Europe and especially in France. At the same time, you can search for articles both about the poets of the First Athenian School who made their appearance in the intellectual life of the country after 1830, and the poets of the 1880s Generation.

In addition, in the bibliographic database of BIBLIONET you can locate biographical data and information about the writings of Kostis Palamas, the leading representative of the New Athenian School. You can also find information about the life and work of Georgios Drosinis, Ioannis Polemis, Aristomenis Proveleggios and Georgios Souris. Finally, in the collections of the digital cultural content aggregator SearchCulture.gr you will find photos, engravings, books and handwritten notes of Lambros Porphyras, Jean Moréas, Costas Krystallis, Argyris Eftaliotis, Ioannis Gryparis and other important representatives of the 1880s Generation. 

The most important change brought about by the poets of the New Athenian School was the introduction of the use of the vernacular in poetry. But in addition to the change in language, they also kick-started a rebirth of poetic discourse. They moved away from the pompous style and outbursts of Athenian romanticism and turned to more familiar and everyday subjects.

More information about the New Athenian School and its representatives can be found on EKT's digital content portals: SearchCulture.gr, Openarchives.gr and BIBLIONET, which offer access to more than 1,300,000 scientific and cultural records.