The image of Greece:

Staff photo by Rose Lincoln

At a Nov. 6 lecture, Helen Vendler, Arthur Kingsley Porter University Professor (seated front row), spoke on the image of Greece in the poetry of James Merrill. Vendler explored the polyvalent presence of modern Greece in the poetry of one of the most influential contemporary American poets. This lecture continues the series of lectures by eminent scholars and intellectuals organized by the Modern Greek Studies Program in the Department of the Classics. The series, organized by Professor Panagiotis Roilos, was inaugurated two years ago with the ‘Homage to Seferis’ by Seamus Heaney (Nobel Laureate in literature in 1995), followed, among others, by Nanos Valaoritis’s ‘The Irish Connections of George Seferis,’ and a two-day international conference on ‘Ritual in Greece: Interdisciplinary Perspectives.’