This booklet is divided into two parts: the predictable one; the unpredictable the other.

The first part consists of six studies, two of which are published here for the first time. Three of them focus on issues of method, direction, and ideology in the poetry of Giannis Ritsos, while the other two concentrate on his named ancient mythological compositions: the `Philoctetes` and the `Tiresias`. In between are the `Small Homeric`: deviant, short poems that defend vulnerable forms and actions of the Homeric epics and the epic cycle.

The unpredictable Appendix recalls (fragmentarily) that pioneering `Polycritique` on Giannis Ritsos, published in the first issue of the magazine `Continuity` (1973), which also includes two original self-comments by the poet, specifically regarding the collections `Mirror` and `Viewing Room`, and candidly confess the ironic transformation of the tragic element into a `grotesque paradox`, in order to relieve from their objective weight the pain and fear of people today.

[Excerpt from the text on the back cover of the edition]