Emmanuel Valeriou Stais was born in 1817 at the castle in Chora. His family belonged to the island’s nobility and was of Venetian descent. In 1836, after graduating from the Ionian Gymnasium, he went to Pisa, Italy, to study law. He spoke English, French, Italian, and German, and was also fluent in Ancient Greek and Latin. Intellectual life in Italy was flourishing at that time and captivated the poet, inspiring him to pursue literature and poetry. After studying law, he practiced as a lawyer.
Writing
In 1840, he returned to the Ionian State and met the poet Dionysios Solomos. The families of the two poets were on good terms. Stais published his first work in 1853. It was a literary essay titled «Critique: Solomos’s “Lambros.”» This is an essay in which the poet strongly advocates for the dominance of the vernacular form of the Greek language as the national language. He translated various foreign plays into Greek. He subsequently turned his attention to other studies, focusing primarily on the literary works of Solomos and the Solomian–Heptanese school. However, over time, the poet Stais appears to have turned away from the demotic and shifted to the use of archaic Greek.
Emmanuel Stais died in 1895 on Kythira. Emmanuel Stais served as prefect of Kythira and as a senator of the Ionian State. Due to its value and usefulness in Solomonic studies, his work was republished in 1980.
