Love, War and the Self in Renaissance and Modern Cypriot Poetry

“I never cease wanting to suffer love for you”: The profile of the lover in Cypriot Renaissance Poetry

Dr Marina Rodosthenous-Balafa discusses Cypriot Renaissance poetry and the representation of the lover poet who experiences unrequited love.

Focusing on the anonymous Cypriot Petrarchan poetic Collection of the sixteenth century, her lecture will analyse the representation of the lover-poet, who experiences unrequited love for his idealized beloved. Through particular figures of speech, such as metaphors, antitheses and paradoxes, the Sisyphean archetype will emerge and reveal connections with the Neoplatonic philosophy and theory of human perfectibility of the time.

Dr Kakkoufa will discuss the ways in which gender and sexuality have not been examined after the Invasion and the centrality of language in encoding and highlighting these aspects.

In collaboration with the Society for Modern Greek Studies and the A. G. Leventis Foundation.