Dionysios Solomos

Dionysios Solomos was a Greek poet who is considered to be the national poet of Greece. He was born in Zakynthos in 1798, as the illegitimate son of a wealthy count and his housekeeper. He studied law and literature in Italy, where he wrote his first poems in Italian. He returned to Zakynthos in 1818 and decided to write in Greek, inspired by the Greek War of Independence. His most famous work is the Hymn to Liberty, which consists of 158 stanzas and expresses the ideals and aspirations of the Greek revolutionaries. The first two stanzas of the poem were set to music by Nikolaos Mantzaros and became the national anthem of Greece and Cyprus. Solomos also wrote other notable poems, such as The Cretan, The Free Besieged, and The Woman of Zakynthos. He was the central figure of the Heptanese School of poetry, which flourished in the Ionian Islands under British rule. He influenced many later Greek poets, such as Kostis Palamas, Angelos Sikelianos, and Giorgos Seferis. Solomos suffered from a series of strokes in his later years and died in Corfu in 1857. His remains were transferred to Zakynthos in 1865 and are interred in a mausoleum in Solomos Square.