Dionysios Solomos

Born Apr. 8, 1798, on the island of Zante (Zakinthos); died Feb. 9,1857, in Kerkira. Greek poet.

Solomos graduated from the faculty of law at the University of Pavia. He wrote his first poems in Italian. In 1821 he joined the underground revolutionary organization Philike Hetairia. His first important work written in the Greek vernacular was Hymn to Liberty (1823). The people’s fight for freedom was the theme of the narrative poem Ode on the Death of Byron (1825) and of the lyric and philosophical narrative poem Free Besieged, on which the poet worked throughout his life. Solomos’ late works, including The Greek Ship and Sappho, were written in Italian, but they contain motifs from Greek folklore. Solomos favored the use of the Greek vernacular, or demotic Greek. The first stanzas of the Hymn to Liberty became the Greek national anthem in 1869.