Dodekalogos tou Gyftou of 1907, a landmark in the poetic output of Kostis Palamas and of Greek letters at large,

was the fruit of the bitterness following the 1897 defeat but also of the demand for revival. With its epic-lyrical composition, Palamas's work, like the refuser and visionary gypsy of the poem, envisions a national renaissance after the collapse, the building of a new world after the dismantling of the old. The persona of the gypsy combines, as Mario Vitti observes, elements 'from the oriental deity of the gypsy and the criticism of society of the bohemian', common subjects of the period, whereas the pattern of atonement and redemption formed a point of departure for many younger poets, such as Angelos Sikelianos, Kostas Varnalis and Nikos Kazantzakis. Dodekalogos tou Gyftou is the culmination of Palamas's poetry both as concerns the issues it raised and its aesthetic achievement.