Abstract
References to ancient myths – and of course mythological names –abound in the poetic work of Ghiannis Ritsos (1909-1990). Ritsos maintains an uninterrupted dialogue with the tradition of ancient Greece, using elements of classical mythology, which he adapts and modulates according to his own, twentieth-centur sensibility. Besides expressing Ritsos’s conception of the world, names acquire a particular value because, while they constitute a clear reference to almost universally known events, they express at the same time a critique and negation of the myth as just a ‘beautiful tale’. The names of Apollo and Athena are favourites in the category of names of deities, while names of heroes are obviously more numerous, especially those of Agamemnon’s family.