After his father's death, count Dionysios Messalas gained Solomos' custody, whereas his mother married Manolis Leontarakis on 15 August 1807.

This was a difficult task for the young poet, since his education was classical and in Italian, but also because there did not exist any poetic works written in the demotic dialect that could have served as models.

Poems dating to that period of time are I Xanthoula — The little blond girl, I Agnoristi — The Unrecognizable, Ta dyo aderfia — The two brothers and I trelli mana — The mad mother.

This period resulted in the Odi eis to thanato tou Lordou Byron — Ode to the death of Lord Byron, a poem having many things in common with the Hymn but also many weaknesses, I Katastrofi ton Psaron — Psara's Destruction, O Dialogos — The Dialogue (referring to the language) and I Gynaika tis Zakynthos — The Woman from Zakynthos.

It is alleged that Solomos could hear the cannon firing from Zakynthos during the Greek War of Independence, which inspired him to write his most famous works.

After frictions and economic disputes with his brother Dimitrios concerning legacy matters, Solomos move to Corfu, the most important intellectual center of the Ionian islands in those years.

On Corfu, Solomos soon found himself at the admirers' and poets' center of attention, a group of well educated intellectuals with liberal and progressive ideas, a deep knowledge of art and with austere artistic pretensions.

Polylas, Typaldos and Markoras were Solomos' students, constituting the circle referred to as the "solomian poets" (σολωμικοί ποιητές), which signifies Greek's poetry flourishing, several decades before the appearance of the New Athenian School, a second poetical renaissance inspired by Kostis Palamas.

Solomos' first poems written on Zakynthos were influenced by Italian poetry of that era, in line with the Academy of Arcadia movement (e.g. O thanatos tou voskou-The shepherd's death, Evrikomi) and by early romanticism (I trelli mana-The mad mother).

Solomos was exposed to the cultural and political ferment of the Enlightenment and the ideas of the French Revolution, and he identified with Italian national sentiments for unification and liberation from the Habsburgs.

Of particular interest to non-Greeks are references to all the great powers of the time, which include the "heartfelt joy of Washington's land" that "remembered the irons that bound her as well", and a savage dig at the Austrian Eagle "that feeds on the entrails of the Italians to grow wings and talons" and does his best to harm Liberty.

His arguments are based on the French Age of Enlightenment on the subject of the use of national languages and on examples of Italian poetry, by which he tries to prove that no word is vulgar in itself but gets its meaning by the poem's context.

She is described as the 'goddess' and reads in his heart the story of his heroic and ultimately futile struggles against the Turks in his native island which all but charms him out of his mortal body.

David Ricks writes with respect to her identity, "we must hold in balance the soul of the expiring fiancée, the kindly presence of the Motherland and a recollection of our Lady".

[8] Between 1833 and 1844, Solomos edited the second draft of The Free Besieged, a poem inspired by the Third Siege of Missolonghi and the heroic exodus of its inhabitants, written in a rhyming fifteen-syllable verse.

The fragmented poems Lampros and Porfyras show the romantic impulse of Solomos (melancholy, gothic and supernatural, influenced by both Byron and Leopardi).

Our virgins dance beneath the shade – I see their glorious black eyes shine; But gazing on each glowing maid, My own the burning tear-drop laves,

To think such breasts must suckle slaves.Solomos also wrote translations of Italian poetry and Desdemona's song from Shakespeare's Othello, epigrams, other miscellaneous verse, satirical poems in Zakynthian dialect, and two prose works, including the tragic/mystical The Woman of Zakynthos.

The most important representatives of the First Athenian School admired Solomos' works even though they expressed their objections about the language used by the poet.

In 1827, Iakovos Rizos Neroulos wrote in the Cours de la littérature grecque moderne: "Dionysios Solomos' poems... have the value of a strong and fascinating inspiration, a fantasy full of courage and fertility".

[9] Alexandros Soutsos in the poem Letter to King Otto described Solomos (and Andreas Kalvos) as a great maker of odes who, however, neglected the beauties of the language and presented rich ideas poorly clad.

The magazine Pandora wrote: "one of the finest poets of Greece and of Europe, the author of the dithyramb to Liberty, Dionysios Solomos from Zakynthos died at a thriving age".

[11] The funeral orations of Solomos' students were of course more essential and referred to the poet's unpublished works, many of which they had heard their teacher reciting.

His epigram on the destruction of Psara, an event of the Greek War of Independence, influenced by classical forms, is a marvel of rhythm and brevity in six lines of anapaest.

The only works published during Solomos' lifetime were the Hymn to Liberty (1825), an extract from Lampros ("Maria's prayer") (1834), the Ode to the Nun (1829) and the epigram To Francisca Fraser (1849).

Solomos was constantly editing his works and was striving towards total perfection of form, making efforts to get rid of anything excessive that destroyed their essential lyrical substance.

It is highly fragmented, however, this adds to the tormented atmosphere of the dramatic monologue because the speaker is a beggar whose life has been torn apart and who is in emotional turmoil, his entire family killed by the Turks.

A faithful student of Solomos, Iakovos Polylas, affronted many difficulties when he undertook the publication of his "teacher's" work (that was long-awaited, not only in the Ionian Islands but also the rest of Greece).

After that, he had to arrange the scattered material (written in the poet's difficult to decipher handwriting) so as to present an as much as possible complete and coherent work.

[17] From 1920 to 1930, an issue arose concerning the publication of works that were not included in Iakovos Polylas' edition such as The Woman of Zakynthos, the satirical The Gallows and several Italian sonnets that were published by K. Kairofylas in 1927.