Lorentzos Mavilis

Lorentzos Mavilis (1860–1912) is one of the great masters of the sonnet in
the Greek language. Born in Ithaca in 1860 of Corfiot parents, he died in
1912 in the first Balkan War in action against the Turks at Driskos, where
his last sonnet was discovered in the pocket of his uniform. He was a
champion of the use of the demotic (spoken) version of the language as
opposed to the artificial (purified) form. He declared, “There are no vulgar
words, only vulgar people.”
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