Konstantinos Petrou Kavafis ( el, Κωνσταντίνος Πέτρου Καβάφης ; April 29 (April 17,
OS), 1863 – April 29, 1933), known, especially in English, as Constantine P. Cavafy and often published as C. P. Cavafy (), was a
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
poet,
journalist
A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...
, and
civil servant from
Alexandria
Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandri ...
. His work, as one translator put it, "holds the historical and the erotic in a single embrace."
Cavafy's friend
E. M. Forster
Edward Morgan Forster (1 January 1879 – 7 June 1970) was an English author, best known for his novels, particularly ''A Room with a View'' (1908), ''Howards End'' (1910), and ''A Passage to India'' (1924). He also wrote numerous short stori ...
, the novelist and literary critic, introduced his poems to the English-speaking world in 1923, famously describing him as "a Greek gentleman in a straw hat, standing absolutely motionless at a slight angle to the universe." Cavafy's consciously individual style earned him a place among the most important figures not only in
Greek poetry
Greek literature () dates back from the ancient Greek literature, beginning in 800 BC, to the modern Greek literature of today.
Ancient Greek literature was written in an Ancient Greek dialect, literature ranges from the oldest surviving writte ...
, but in
Western poetry as a whole.
Cavafy wrote 155 poems, while dozens more remained incomplete or in sketch form. During his lifetime, he consistently refused to formally publish his work and preferred to share it through local
newspaper
A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background.
Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as p ...
s and
magazines, or even print it out himself and give it away to anyone interested. His most important poems were written after his fortieth birthday, and officially published two years after his death.
Biography
Cavafy was born in 1863 in
Alexandria
Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandri ...
,
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...
, to
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
parents who originated from the
Greek community of Constantinople (Istanbul), and was baptized into the
Greek Orthodox Church
The term Greek Orthodox Church ( Greek: Ἑλληνορθόδοξη Ἐκκλησία, ''Ellinorthódoxi Ekklisía'', ) has two meanings. The broader meaning designates "the entire body of Orthodox (Chalcedonian) Christianity, sometimes also cal ...
. His father's name was , ''Petros Ioannēs''—hence the ''Petrou''
patronymic
A patronymic, or patronym, is a component of a personal name based on the given name of one's father, grandfather (avonymic), or an earlier male ancestor.
Patronymics are still in use, including mandatory use, in many countries worldwide, alt ...
(
GEN
Gen may refer to:
* ''Gen'' (film), 2006 Turkish horror film directed by Togan Gökbakar
* Gen (Street Fighter), a video game character from the ''Street Fighter'' series
* Gen Fu, a video game character from the ''Dead or Alive'' series
* Gen l ...
) in his name—and his mother's ''Charicleia'' (Greek: ; née , ''Georgakē Photiadē''). His father was a prosperous importer-exporter who had lived in
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
in earlier years and acquired
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
nationality. After his father died in 1870, Cavafy and his family settled for a while in
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...
. In 1876, his family faced financial problems due to the
Long Depression of 1873, so, by 1877, they had to move back to Alexandria.
In 1882, disturbances in Alexandria caused the family to move again, though temporarily, to
Constantinople
la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه
, alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya ( Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis ( ...
. This was the year when a revolt broke out in Alexandria against the Anglo-French control of Egypt, thus precipitating the
1882 Anglo-Egyptian War.
Alexandria was bombarded by a British fleet, and the family apartment at Ramleh was burned.
In 1885, Cavafy returned to Alexandria, where he lived for the rest of his life. His first work was as a journalist; then he took a position with the British-run Egyptian Ministry of Public Works for thirty years. (Egypt was a British
protectorate
A protectorate, in the context of international relations, is a state that is under protection by another state for defence against aggression and other violations of law. It is a dependent territory that enjoys autonomy over most of its int ...
until 1926.) He published his poetry from 1891 to 1904 in the form of broadsheets, and only for his close friends. Any acclaim he was to receive came mainly from within the Greek community of Alexandria. Eventually, in 1903, he was introduced to mainland-Greek literary circles through a favourable review by
Gregorios Xenopoulos
Gregorios Xenopoulos ( el, Γρηγόριος Ξενόπουλος; December 9, 1867 – 14 January 1951) was a novelist, journalist and playwright from Zakynthos. He was lead editor in the magazine ''The Education of Children'' (Η Διάπλασ ...
. He received little recognition because his style differed markedly from the then-mainstream Greek poetry. It was only twenty years later, after the Greek defeat in the
Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922), that a new generation of almost
nihilist
Nihilism (; ) is a philosophy, or family of views within philosophy, that rejects generally accepted or fundamental aspects of human existence, such as objective truth, knowledge, morality, values, or meaning. The term was popularized by Ivan ...
poets (e.g.
Karyotakis
Kostas Karyotakis ( el, Κώστας Καρυωτάκης, 11 November S October 30 1896 – 20 July 1928) is considered one of the most representative Greek poets of the 1920s and one of the first poets to use iconoclastic themes in Greece. Hi ...
) found inspiration in Cavafy's work.
A biographical note written by Cavafy reads as follows:
He died of
cancer of the larynx
Laryngeal cancers are mostly squamous-cell carcinomas, reflecting their origin from the epithelium of the larynx.
Cancer can develop in any part of the larynx. The prognosis is affected by the location of the tumour. For the purposes of staging ...
on April 29, 1933, his 70th birthday. Since his death, Cavafy's reputation has grown. His poetry is taught in school in
Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders ...
and
Cyprus
Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is ge ...
, and in universities around the world.
E. M. Forster
Edward Morgan Forster (1 January 1879 – 7 June 1970) was an English author, best known for his novels, particularly ''A Room with a View'' (1908), ''Howards End'' (1910), and ''A Passage to India'' (1924). He also wrote numerous short stori ...
knew him personally and wrote a memoir of him, contained in his book ''Alexandria''. Forster,
Arnold J. Toynbee, and
T. S. Eliot were among the earliest promoters of Cavafy in the English-speaking world before the Second World War. In 1966,
David Hockney
David Hockney (born 9 July 1937) is an English painter, draftsman, printmaker, stage designer, and photographer. As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considered one of the most influential British artists o ...
made a series of prints to illustrate a selection of Cavafy's poems, including ''
In the dull village''.
Work
![Kavafis](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/Kavafis.jpg)
Cavafy was instrumental in the revival and recognition of
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
poetry
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...
both at home and abroad. His poems are, typically, concise but intimate evocations of real or literary figures and ''milieux'' that have played roles in Greek culture. Uncertainty about the future, sensual pleasures, the moral character and
psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between ...
of individuals,
homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to pe ...
, and a fatalistic
existential
Existentialism ( ) is a form of philosophical inquiry that explores the problem of human existence and centers on human thinking, feeling, and acting. Existentialist thinkers frequently explore issues related to the meaning, purpose, and valu ...
nostalgia are some of the defining themes.
Besides his subjects, unconventional for the time, his poems also exhibit a skilled and versatile craftsmanship, which is extremely difficult to
translate
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transl ...
. Cavafy was a perfectionist, obsessively refining every single line of his poetry. His mature style was a free
iambic form, free in the sense that verses rarely
rhyme and are usually from 10 to 17
syllables. In his poems, the presence of rhyme usually implies
irony.
Cavafy drew his themes from personal experience, along with a deep and wide knowledge of history, especially of the
Hellenistic era
In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in 3 ...
. Many of his poems are pseudo-historical, or seemingly historical, or accurately but quirkily historical.
One of Cavafy's most important works is his 1904 poem "
Waiting for the Barbarians
''Waiting for the Barbarians'' is a novel by the South African writer J. M. Coetzee. First published in 1980, it was chosen by Penguin for its series '' Great Books of the 20th Century'' and won both the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and Geo ...
". The poem begins by describing a city-state in decline, whose population and legislators are waiting for the arrival of the barbarians. When night falls, the barbarians have not arrived. The poem ends: "What is to become of us without barbarians? Those people were a solution of a sort." The poem heavily influenced books like
The Tartar Steppe
''The Tartar Steppe'' ( it, Il deserto dei Tartari, ), also published as ''The Stronghold'' (''La fortezza''), is a novel by Italian author Dino Buzzati, published in 1940.
The novel tells the story of a young officer, Giovanni Drogo, and his li ...
,
Waiting for the Barbarians (Coetzee), and
The Opposing Shore
''The Opposing Shore'' (french: Le Rivage des Syrtes) is a 1951 novel by the French writer Julien Gracq. The story is set at the border between two fictional Mediterranean countries, Orsenna and Farghestan, which have been at war for 300 years. It ...
.
In 1911, Cavafy wrote "
Ithaca
Ithaca most commonly refers to:
*Homer's Ithaca, an island featured in Homer's ''Odyssey''
*Ithaca (island), an island in Greece, possibly Homer's Ithaca
*Ithaca, New York, a city, and home of Cornell University and Ithaca College
Ithaca, Ithaka ...
", inspired by the
Homer
Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...
ic return journey of
Odysseus to
his home island, as depicted in the ''
Odyssey
The ''Odyssey'' (; grc, Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia, ) is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Iliad'', th ...
''. The poem's theme is the destination which produces the journey of life: "Keep Ithaca always in your mind. / Arriving there is what you’re destined for". The traveller should set out with hope, and at the end you may find Ithaca has no more riches to give you, but "Ithaca gave you the marvelous journey".
Almost all of Cavafy's work was in Greek; yet, his poetry remained unrecognized and underestimated in Greece, until after the publication of the first anthology in 1935 by Heracles Apostolidis (father of
Renos Apostolidis). His unique style and language (which was a mixture of
Katharevousa
Katharevousa ( el, Καθαρεύουσα, , literally "purifying anguage) is a conservative form of the Modern Greek language conceived in the late 18th century as both a literary language and a compromise between Ancient Greek and the contempor ...
and
Demotic Greek) had attracted the criticism of
Kostis Palamas
Kostis Palamas ( el, Κωστής Παλαμάς; – 27 February 1943) was a Greek poet who wrote the words to the Olympic Hymn. He was a central figure of the Greek literary generation of the 1880s and one of the cofounders of the so-called Ne ...
, the greatest poet of his era in mainland Greece, and his followers, who were in favour of the simplest form of
Demotic Greek.
He is known for his prosaic use of metaphors, his brilliant use of historical imagery, and his aesthetic perfectionism. These attributes, amongst others, have assured him an enduring place in the literary pantheon of the Western World.
Historical poems
Cavafy wrote over a dozen historical poems about famous historical figures and regular people. He was mainly inspired by the
Hellenistic era
In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in 3 ...
with
Alexandria
Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandri ...
at primary focus. Other poems originate from
Helleno-romaic antiquity and the
Byzantine era
The Byzantine calendar, also called the Roman calendar, the Creation Era of Constantinople or the Era of the World ( grc, Ἔτη Γενέσεως Κόσμου κατὰ Ῥωμαίους, also or , abbreviated as ε.Κ.; literal translation of ...
. Mythological references are also present. The periods chosen are mostly of decline and decadence (e.g. Trojans); his heroes facing the final end. His historical poems include: "The Glory of the Ptolemies", "In Sparta", "Come, O King of Lacedaemonians", "The First Step", "In the Year 200 B.C.", "If Only They Had Seen to It", "The Displeasure of Seleucid", "Theodotus", "Alexandrian Kings", "In Alexandria, 31 B.C.", "The God Forsakes Antony", "In a Township of Asia Minor", "Caesarion", "The Potentate from Western Libya", "Of the Hebrews (A.D. 50)", "Tomb of Eurion", "Tomb of Lanes", "Myres: Alexandrian A.D. 340", "Perilous Things", "From the School of the Renowned Philosopher", "A Priest of the Serapeum", "Kleitos Illness", "If Dead Indeed", "In the Month of Athyr", "Tomb of Ignatius", "From Ammones Who Died Aged 29 in 610", "Aemilianus Monae", "Alexandrian, A.D. 628-655", "In Church", "Morning Sea" (a few poems about Alexandria were left unfinished due to his death).
Homoerotic poems
Cavafy's sensual poems are filled with the lyricism and emotion of
same-sex love
Homoeroticism is sexual attraction between members of the same sex, either male–male or female–female. The concept differs from the concept of homosexuality: it refers specifically to the desire itself, which can be temporary, whereas "homose ...
, inspired by recollection and remembrance. The past and former actions, sometimes along with the vision for the future underlie the muse of Cavafy in writing these poems. As poet George Kalogeris observes:
He is perhaps most popular today for his erotic verse, in which the Alexandrian youth in his poems seem to have stepped right out of the Greek Anthology, and into a less accepting world that makes them vulnerable, and often keeps them in poverty, though the same Hellenic amber immures their beautiful bodies. The subjects of his poems often have a provocative glamour to them even in barest outline: the homoerotic one night stand that is remembered for a lifetime, the oracular pronouncement unheeded, the talented youth prone to self destruction, the offhand remark that indicates a crack in the imperial façade.
Philosophical poems
Also called instructive poems, they are divided into poems with consultations to poets, and poems that deal with other situations such as isolation (for example, "The walls"), duty (for example, "Thermopylae"), and human dignity (for example, "
The God Abandons Antony "The God Abandons Antony" ( gr, Ἀπολείπειν ὁ θεὸς Ἀντώνιον) can also be translated as "The God Forsakes Antony" is a poem by Constantine P. Cavafy, published in 1911.
Story
The God Abandons Antony refers to Plutarch's sto ...
").
The poem "Thermopylae" reminds us of the famous
battle of Thermopylae where the 300 Spartans and their allies fought against the greater numbers of Persians, although they knew that they would be defeated. There are some principles in our lives that we should live by, and Thermopylae is the ground of duty. We stay there fighting although we know that there is the potential for failure. (At the end the traitor
Ephialtes
Ephialtes ( grc-gre, Ἐφιάλτης, ''Ephialtēs'') was an ancient Athenian politician and an early leader of the democratic movement there. In the late 460s BC, he oversaw reforms that diminished the power of the Areopagus, a traditional ba ...
will appear, leading the Persians through the secret trail).
In another poem, "In the Year 200 B.C.", he comments on the historical epigram “Alexander, son of Philip, and the Greeks, except of Lacedaemonians,...”, from the donation of Alexander to Athens after the
Battle of the Granicus
The Battle of the Granicus in May 334 BC was the first of three major battles fought between Alexander the Great of Macedon and the Persian Achaemenid Empire. The battle took place on the road from Abydus to Dascylium, at the crossing of the Gr ...
. Cavafy praises the
Hellenistic era
In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in 3 ...
and idea, so condemning the closed-mind and localistic ideas about Hellenism. However, in other poems, his stance displays ambiguity between the
Classical ideal and the Hellenistic era (which is sometimes described with a tone of decadence).
Another poem is the Epitaph of a Greek trader from
Samos
Samos (, also ; el, Σάμος ) is a Greece, Greek island in the eastern Aegean Sea, south of Chios, north of Patmos and the Dodecanese, and off the coast of western Turkey, from which it is separated by the -wide Mycale Strait. It is also a se ...
who was sold into slavery in
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
and dies on the shores of the
Ganges
The Ganges ( ) (in India: Ganga ( ); in Bangladesh: Padma ( )). "The Ganges Basin, known in India as the Ganga and in Bangladesh as the Padma, is an international river to which India, Bangladesh, Nepal and China are the riparian states." is ...
: regretting the greed for riches which led him to sail so far away and end up "among utter barbarians", expressing his deep longing for his homeland and his wish to die as "In
Hades I would be surrounded by Greeks".
Museum
Cavafy's Alexandria apartment has since been converted into a museum. The museum holds several of Cavafy's sketches and original manuscripts as well as containing several pictures and portraits of and by Cavafy.
Bibliography
Selections of Cavafy's poems appeared only in pamphlets, privately printed booklets and broadsheets during his lifetime. The first publication in book form was "Ποιήματα" (''Poiēmata'', "Poems"), published posthumously in Alexandria, 1935.
Volumes with translations of Cavafy's poetry in English
* ''Poems by C. P. Cavafy'', translated by John Mavrogordato (London: Chatto & Windus, 1978, first edition in 1951)
* ''The Complete Poems of Cavafy'', translated by
Rae Dalven
Rachel Dalven (25 April 1904, Preveza, Janina Vilayet, Ottoman Empire – 27 July 1992, New York City), also known as Rae Dalven, was a Romaniote writer who came to the United States as a child. She is best known for her translations of Cavafy's ...
, introduction by
W. H. Auden
Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in ...
(New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1961)
* ''The Greek Poems of C.P. Cavafy As Translated by Memas Kolaitis'', two volumes (New York: Aristide D. Caratzas, Publisher, 1989)
* ''Complete Poems by C P Cavafy'', translated by
Daniel Mendelsohn, (
Harper Press
HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News C ...
, 2013)
*''Passions and Ancient Days - 21 New Poems'', Selected and translated by
Edmund Keeley
Edmund Leroy "Mike" Keeley (February 5, 1928 – February 23, 2022) was an American novelist, translator, and essayist, a poet, and Charles Barnwell Straut Professor of English at Princeton University. He was a noted expert on the Greek poets C. ...
and George Savidis (London: The Hogarth Press, 1972)
* ''Poems by Constantine Cavafy'', translated by George Khairallah (Beirut: privately printed, 1979)
* ''C. P. Cavafy, Collected Poems'', translated by Edmund Keeley and
Philip Sherrard
Philip Owen Arnould Sherrard (23 September 1922 – 30 May 1995) was a British author and translator. His work includes translations of Modern Greek poets, and books on Modern Greek literature and culture, metaphysics, theology, art and aesthet ...
, edited by George Savidis, Revised edition (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992)
* ''Selected Poems of C. P. Cavafy'', translated by Desmond O'Grady (Dublin: Dedalus, 1998)
* ''Before Time Could Change Them: The Complete Poems of Constantine P. Cavafy'', translated by Theoharis C. Theoharis, foreword by
Gore Vidal
Eugene Luther Gore Vidal (; born Eugene Louis Vidal, October 3, 1925 – July 31, 2012) was an American writer and public intellectual known for his epigrammatic wit, erudition, and patrician manner. Vidal was bisexual, and in his novels and e ...
(New York: Harcourt, 2001)
* ''Poems by C. P. Cavafy'', translated by J.C. Cavafy (Athens: Ikaros, 2003)
* ''I've Gazed So Much by C. P. Cavafy'', translated by George Economou (London: Stop Press, 2003)
* ''C. P. Cavafy, The Canon'', translated by Stratis Haviaras, foreword by
Seamus Heaney
Seamus Justin Heaney (; 13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013) was an Irish poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. (Athens: Hermes Publishing, 2004)
* ''The Collected Poems'', translated by Evangelos Sachperoglou, edited by Anthony Hirst and with an introduction by Peter Mackridge (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007)
* ''The Collected Poems of C. P. Cavafy: A New Translation'', translated by Aliki Barnstone, Introduction by
Gerald Stern
Gerald Daniel Stern (February 22, 1925 – October 27, 2022) was an American poet, essayist, and educator. The author of twenty collections of poetry and four books of essays, he taught literature and creative writing at Temple University, Indi ...
(New York: W.W. Norton, 2007)
* ''C. P. Cavafy, Selected Poems'', translated with an introduction by
Avi Sharon (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2008)
* ''Cavafy: 166 Poems'', translated by Alan L Boegehold (Axios Press, 2008)
* ''C. P. Cavafy, Collected Poems'', translated by Daniel Mendelsohn (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009)
*''C. P. Cavafy, Poems: The Canon,'' translated by John Chioles, edited by Dimitrios Yatromanolakis (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Early Modern and Modern Greek Library, , 2011)
* "C.P. Cavafy, Selected Poems", translated by David Connolly, Aiora Press, Athens 2013
* '' Clearing the Ground: C.P. Cavafy, Poetry and Prose, 1902-1911'', translations and essay by Martin McKinsey (Chapel Hill: Laertes, 2015)
Translations of Cavafy's poems are also included in
*
Lawrence Durrell
Lawrence George Durrell (; 27 February 1912 – 7 November 1990) was an expatriate British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer. He was the eldest brother of naturalist and writer Gerald Durrell.
Born in India to British colonial p ...
, ''
Justine'' (London, UK: Faber & Faber, 1957)
* ''Modern Greek Poetry'', edited by
Kimon Friar
Kimon Friar (April 8, 1911 – May 25, 1993) was a Greek-American poet and translator of Greek poetry.
Youth and education
Friar was born in 1911 in İmralı, Ottoman Empire, to a Greek father and a Greek mother. In 1915, the family moved to th ...
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973)
* Memas Kolaitis, ''Cavafy as I knew him'' (Santa Barbara, CA: Kolaitis Dictionaries, 1980)
*
James Merrill
James Ingram Merrill (March 3, 1926 – February 6, 1995) was an American poet. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1977 for ''Divine Comedies.'' His poetry falls into two distinct bodies of work: the polished and formalist lyri ...
, ''Collected Poems'' (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002)
*
David Ferry, ''Bewilderment'' (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012)
*
Don Paterson
Donald Paterson (born 1963) is a Scottish poet, writer and musician.
Background
Don Paterson was born in Dundee, Scotland, in 1963. He won an Eric Gregory Award in 1990 and his poem "A Private Bottling" won the Arvon Foundation International ...
, ''Landing Light'' (London, UK: Faber & Faber, 2003)
*
Derek Mahon
Derek Mahon (23 November 1941 – 1 October 2020) was an Irish poet. He was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland but lived in a number of cities around the world. At his death it was noted that his, "influence in the Irish poetry community, lit ...
, ''Adaptations'' (Loughcrew, Ireland: The Gallery Press, 2006)
*
A.E. Stallings, ''Hapax'' (Evanston, Illinois: Triquarterly Books, 2006)
*
Don Paterson
Donald Paterson (born 1963) is a Scottish poet, writer and musician.
Background
Don Paterson was born in Dundee, Scotland, in 1963. He won an Eric Gregory Award in 1990 and his poem "A Private Bottling" won the Arvon Foundation International ...
, ''Rain'' (London, UK: Faber & Faber, 2009)
*
John Ash, ''In the Wake of the Day'' (Manchester, UK: Carcanet Press, 2010)
*
David Harsent
David Harsent (born in Devon) is an English poet who for some time earned his living as a TV scriptwriter and crime novelist.
Background
During his early career he was part of a circle of poets centred on Ian Hamilton and forming something of a ...
, ''Night'' (London, UK: Faber & Faber, 2011)
* ''Selected Prose Works, C.P. Cavafy'', edited and translated by Peter Jeffreys (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2010)
Other works
* Panagiotis Roilos, ''C. P. Cavafy: The Economics of Metonymy'', Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009.
* Panagiotis Roilos (ed.), ''Imagination and Logos: Essays on C. P. Cavafy'', Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 2010 ().
*
Robert Liddell, ''Cavafy: A Critical Biography'' (London: Duckworth, 1974). A widely acclaimed biography of Cavafy. This biography has also been translated in Greek (Ikaros, 1980) and Spanish (Ediciones Paidos Iberica, 2004).
* P. Bien, ''Constantine Cavafy'' (1964)
*
Edmund Keeley
Edmund Leroy "Mike" Keeley (February 5, 1928 – February 23, 2022) was an American novelist, translator, and essayist, a poet, and Charles Barnwell Straut Professor of English at Princeton University. He was a noted expert on the Greek poets C. ...
, ''Cavafy's Alexandria'' (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995). An extensive analysis of Cavafy's works.
* Michael Haag, ''Alexandria: City of Memory'' (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005). Provides a portrait of the city during the first half of the 20th century and a biographical account of Cavafy and his influence on
E. M. Forster
Edward Morgan Forster (1 January 1879 – 7 June 1970) was an English author, best known for his novels, particularly ''A Room with a View'' (1908), ''Howards End'' (1910), and ''A Passage to India'' (1924). He also wrote numerous short stori ...
and
Lawrence Durrell
Lawrence George Durrell (; 27 February 1912 – 7 November 1990) was an expatriate British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer. He was the eldest brother of naturalist and writer Gerald Durrell.
Born in India to British colonial p ...
.
* Michael Haag, ''Vintage Alexandria: Photographs of the City 1860–1960'' (New York and Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2008). A photographic record of the cosmopolitan city as it was known to Cavafy. It includes photographs of Cavafy, E. M. Forster, Lawrence Durrell, and people they knew in Alexandria.
* Martin McKinsey, ''Hellenism and the Postcolonial Imagination: Yeats, Cavafy, Walcott'' (Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2010). First book to approach Cavafy's work from a postcolonial perspective.
Filmography
* ''Cavafy'', a biographical film was directed by
Iannis Smaragdis in 1996 with music by
Vangelis
Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou ( el, Ευάγγελος Οδυσσέας Παπαθανασίου ; 29 March 1943 – 17 May 2022), known professionally as Vangelis ( ; el, Βαγγέλης, links=no ), was a Greek composer and arranger of ...
. A literary form of the script of the film was also published in book form by Smaragdis.
Other references
* C. P. Cavafy appears as a character in the ''
Alexandria Quartet
''The Alexandria Quartet'' is a tetralogy of novels by British writer Lawrence Durrell, published between 1957 and 1960. A critical and commercial success, the first three books present three perspectives on a single set of events and character ...
'' of
Lawrence Durrell
Lawrence George Durrell (; 27 February 1912 – 7 November 1990) was an expatriate British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer. He was the eldest brother of naturalist and writer Gerald Durrell.
Born in India to British colonial p ...
.
* The
Weddings Parties Anything
Weddings, Parties, Anything. was an Australian folk rock band formed in 1984 in Melbourne and continuing until 1999. Their name came from The Clash song "Revolution Rock". Musicologist Billy Pinnell described their first album as the best Austr ...
song "The Afternoon Sun" is based on the Cavafy poem of the same title.
* The American poet
Mark Doty
Mark Doty (born August 10, 1953) is an American poet and memoirist best known for his work ''My Alexandria.'' He was the winner of the National Book Award for Poetry in 2008.
Early life
Mark Doty was born in Maryville, Tennessee to Lawrence an ...
's book ''My Alexandria'' uses the place and imagery of Cavafy to create a comparable contemporary landscape.
* The Canadian poet and singer-songwriter
Leonard Cohen
Leonard Norman Cohen (September 21, 1934November 7, 2016) was a Canadian singer-songwriter, poet and novelist. His work explored religion, politics, isolation, depression, sexuality, loss, death, and romantic relationships. He was inducted in ...
transformed Cavafy's poem "
The God Abandons Antony "The God Abandons Antony" ( gr, Ἀπολείπειν ὁ θεὸς Ἀντώνιον) can also be translated as "The God Forsakes Antony" is a poem by Constantine P. Cavafy, published in 1911.
Story
The God Abandons Antony refers to Plutarch's sto ...
", based on Mark Antony's loss of the city of Alexandria and his empire, into "Alexandra Leaving", a song around lost love.
* Scottish songwriter
Donovan featured one of Cavafy's poems in his 1970 film ''
There is an Ocean''.
* The Nobel Prize-winning Turkish novelist
Orhan Pamuk
Ferit Orhan Pamuk (born 7 June 1952) is a Turkish novelist, screenwriter, academic, and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature. One of Turkey's most prominent novelists, his work has sold over thirteen million books in sixty-three lan ...
, in an extended essay published in ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'', writes about how Cavafy's poetry, particularly his poem "
The City", has changed the way Pamuk looks at, and thinks about, the city of
Istanbul
)
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code = 34000 to 34990
, area_code = +90 212 (European side) +90 216 (Asian side)
, registration_plate = 34
, blank_name_sec2 = GeoTLD
, blank_i ...
, a city that remains central to Pamuk's own writing.
*
Frank H. T. Rhodes' last commencement speech given at
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...
in 1995 was based on Cavafy's poem "Ithaca".
* Greek director Stelios Haralambopoulos's documentary ''The Night Fernando Pessoa Met Constantine Cavafy'' imagined Cavafy met with Portuguese poet
Fernando Pessoa
Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa (; 13 June 1888 – 30 November 1935) was a Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher, and philosopher, described as one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century and ...
on a transatlantic ocean liner.
References
External links
''C. P. Cavafy - The official website of the Cavafy Archive''(in English)
"The official website of the Cavafy Archive"(in Greek)
*
ttp://www.ellopos.net/blog/?p=65 ''Cavafy in English and Greek, Select Online Resources''Audio introduction to Cavafy's poemsIn English, with examination of ten of his finest poems
*
ttps://web.archive.org/web/19970616001743/http://users.hol.gr/~barbanis/cavafy/ ''Extensive collection of poems, in English & Greek & audio''Ithaki.netA search engine named in honor of the poem "Ithaki"
'As Good as Great Poetry Gets' Daniel Mendelsohn article on Cavafy from ''
The New York Review of Books
''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...
''
"Of the Jews (A.D. 50)" by C. P. Cavafy* Audio
Cavafy's poem ''Ithaka'' read by Edmund Keeley"In the dull village", a painting by David Hockney inspired by Cavafy, now in the British Museum* Babis Koulouras recites Cavafy's poems by heart. The orchestra o
"K.P.Kavafis"team of Culture Club of Ano Syros plays Cavafy's songs (in Greek)
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cavafy, Constantine P.
1863 births
1933 deaths
British people of Greek descent
Egyptian people of Greek descent
Writers from Alexandria
Modern Greek poets
Greek journalists
19th-century Greek poets
20th-century Greek poets
Greek LGBT poets
Egyptian journalists
LGBT journalists
19th-century Egyptian poets
LGBT people from Egypt
20th-century Egyptian poets
Egyptian male poets
19th-century male writers
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Deaths from laryngeal cancer
Greeks from the Ottoman Empire
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Poets from Liverpool