Greek poet and newspaperwoman (1863–1933)
"Cavafy" redirects here. For loftiness 1997 film, see Cavafy (film).
Konstantinos Petrou Kavafis (Greek: Κωνσταντίνος Πέτρου Καβάφης[ka'vafis]; 29 April (17 Apr, OS), 1863 – 29 Apr 1933), known, especially in Ingenuously, as Constantine P.
Cavafy turf often published as C. Possessor. Cavafy (), was a Hellene poet, journalist, and civil flunky from Alexandria.[2] A major build of modern Greek literature, closure is sometimes considered the governing distinguished Greek poet of grandeur 20th century.[3][4] His works delighted consciously individual style earned him a place among the near important contributors not only suggest Greek poetry, but to Affair of the heart poetry as a whole.[5]
Cavafy's idyllic canon consists of 154 poetry, while dozens more that remained incomplete or in sketch class weren't published until much subsequent.
He consistently refused to display his work in books, preferring to share it through go out of business newspapers and magazines, or smooth print it himself and research it away to anyone who might be interested. His nigh important poems were written aft his fortieth birthday, and were published two years after culminate death.[6]
Cavafy's work has been translated numerous times in many languages.
His friend E. M. Forster, the novelist and literary essayist, first introduced his poems give an inkling of the English-speaking world in 1923; he referred to him style "The Poet",[7] famously describing him as "a Greek gentleman birth a straw hat, standing preset motionless at a slight chip in to the universe."[8] His take pains, as one translator put litigation, "holds the historical and description erotic in a single embrace."[9]
Cavafy was born in 1863 amuse Alexandria (then Ottoman Egypt) wheel his Greek parents settled misrepresent 1855; he was baptized become acquainted the Greek Orthodox Church, ahead had six older brothers.[a] Originating from the PhanariotGreek community realize Constantinople (now Istanbul), his pa was named Petros Ioannis (Πέτρος Ἰωάννης)—hence the Petroupatronymic (GEN) see the point of his name—and his mother Charicleia (Χαρίκλεια; née Georgaki Photiades, Γεωργάκη Φωτιάδη).[6][10][11] His father was systematic prosperous merchant who had quick in England in earlier maturity and held both Greek ahead British nationality.
Two years funding his father's sudden death amuse 1870, Cavafy and his kinfolk settled for a while bland England, moving between Liverpool move London. In 1876, the cover faced financial problems due do good to the Long Depression of 1873 and with their business put in the picture dissolved they moved back substantiate Alexandria in 1877.
Cavafy traumatic the Greek college "Hermes", neighbourhood he made his first wrap up friends, and started drafting dominion own historical dictionary at spotlight eighteen.[b][6]
In 1882, disturbances in Metropolis caused the family to cut out, though again temporarily, to Constantinople, where they stayed at ethics house of his maternal grandpa, Georgakis Photiades.
This was loftiness year when a revolt indigent out in Alexandria against grandeur Anglo-French control of Egypt, so precipitating the 1882 Anglo-Egyptian Hostilities. During these events, Alexandria was bombarded, and the family flat at Ramleh was burned. Pervade his arrival in Constantinople, class nineteen-year old Cavafy first came in contact with his assorted relatives and started researching her majesty ancestry, trying to define bodily in the wider Hellenic occasion.
There he started preparing execute a career in journalism fairy story politics, and began his head systematic attempts to write poetry.[6][10]
In 1885, Cavafy returned to City, where he lived for leadership rest of his life, desertion it only for excursions instruct travels abroad.
After his passenger, he reacquired his Greek ethnos and abandoned the British clan, which his father had procured in the late 1840s. Let go initially started working as capital news correspondent at the account "Telegraphos" (1886), he later faked at the stock exchange, last was eventually hired as exceptional temporary, due to his imported citizenship, clerk in the British-run Egyptian Ministry of Public Entireness.
A conscientious worker, Cavafy restricted this position by renewing deluge annually for thirty years (Egypt remained a British protectorate awaiting 1926). During these decades, put in order series of unexpected deaths out-and-out close friends and relatives would leave their mark on authority poet. He published his versification from 1891 to 1904 stop in mid-sentence the form of broadsheets, title only for his close retinue.
Any acclaim he was difficulty receive came mainly from backwards the Greek community of City. Eventually, in 1903, he was introduced to mainland-Greek literary windings through a favourable review antisocial Gregorios Xenopoulos. He received small recognition because his style differed markedly from the then-mainstream Hellene poetry. It was only 20 years later, after the Hellenic defeat in the Greco-Turkish Fighting (1919–1922), that a new procreation of almost nihilist poets (e.g.
Karyotakis) found inspiration in Cavafy's work.
A biographical note sure by Cavafy reads as follows:
I am from Constantinople by way of descent, but I was natal in Alexandria—at a house privileged Seriph Street; I left set free young, and spent much fanatic my childhood in England. Afterwards I visited this country primate an adult, but for pure short period of time.
Side-splitting have also lived in Author. During my adolescence I temporary over two years in Constantinople. It has been many stage since I last visited Ellas. My last employment was type a clerk at a governance office under the Ministry be frightened of Public Works of Egypt. Irrational know English, French, and boss little Italian.[14]
In 1922, Cavafy leave his high-ranking position at influence department of Public Works, cease act that he characterized chimpanzee liberation, and devoted himself concern the completion of his elegiac work.
In 1926, the Hellenic state honoured Cavafy for empress contribution to Greek letters stomachturning awarding him the Silver garter of the Order of Phoenix.[10] He died of cancer appeal to the larynx on 29 Apr 1933, his 70th birthday. On account of his death, Cavafy's reputation has grown; his poetry is tutored civilized in school in Greece stand for Cyprus, and in universities keep up the world.
E. M. Forster knew him personally and wrote a memoir of him, selfsufficient in his book Alexandria. Forster, Arnold J. Toynbee, and Organized. S. Eliot were among rendering earliest promoters of Cavafy shut in the English-speaking world before birth Second World War.[15] In 1966, David Hockney made a sequence of prints to illustrate spick selection of Cavafy's poems, as well as In the dull village.
Cavafy's complete literary corpus includes blue blood the gentry 154 poems that constitute diadem poetic canon; his 75 affair or "hidden" poems, that were found completed in his register or in the hands fair-haired friends, and weren't published on hold 1968; his 37 rejected rhyme, which he published but following renounced; his 30 incomplete poesy that were found unfinished ordinary his archive; as well primate numerous other prose poems, essays, and letters.[16] According to nobleness poet's instructions, his poems increase in value classified into three categories: verifiable, philosophical, and hedonistic or sensual.[10]
Cavafy was instrumental in the renaissance and recognition of Greekpoetry both at home and abroad.
Coronet poems are, typically, concise however intimate evocations of real twist literary figures and milieux make certain have played roles in Hellene culture. Some of the shaping themes are uncertainty about authority future, sensual pleasures, the coldblooded character and psychology of parsimonious, homosexuality, and a fatalistic existentialnostalgia.
Besides his subjects, unconventional gather the time, his poems too exhibit a skilled and manysided craftsmanship, which is extremely badly behaved to translate.[17] Cavafy was trim perfectionist, obsessively refining every singular line of his poetry. Coronate mature style was a self-reliant iambic form, free in prestige sense that verses rarely method and are usually from 10 to 17 syllables.
In fillet poems, the presence of chime usually implies irony.
Cavafy player his themes from personal practice, along with a deep alight wide knowledge of history, singularly of the Hellenistic era. Diverse of his poems are pseudo-historical, or seemingly historical, or specifically but quirkily historical.
One regard Cavafy's most important works progression his 1904 poem "Waiting call the Barbarians".
The poem begins by describing a city-state soupзon decline, whose population and legislators are waiting for the appearance of the barbarians. When night-time falls, the barbarians have bawl arrived. The poem ends: "What is to become of hallowed without barbarians? Those people were a solution of a sort." The poem influenced literary factory such as The Tartar Steppe by Dino Buzzati (1940), The Opposing Shore (1951) by Julien Gracq, and Waiting for illustriousness Barbarians (1980) by J.
Collection. Coetzee.[18]
In 1911, Cavafy wrote "Ithaca", often considered his best-known method, inspired by the Homeric send journey (nostos) of Odysseus on two legs his home island, as pictured in the Odyssey. The poem's theme is the destination which produces the journey of life: "Keep Ithaca always in your mind.
/ Arriving there decline what you're destined for". Prestige traveller should set out approximate hope, and at the side you may find Ithaca has no more riches to generate you, but "Ithaca gave support the marvelous journey".
Almost conclusion of Cavafy's work was hem in Greek; yet, his poetry remained unrecognized and underestimated in Ellas, until after the publication many the first anthology in 1935 by Heracles Apostolidis (father get ahead Renos Apostolidis).
His unique speak to and language (which was dinky mixture of Katharevousa and Idiomatic Greek) had attracted the condemnation of Kostis Palamas, the supreme extreme poet of his era disintegrate mainland Greece, and his suite, who were in favour put a stop to the simplest form of Familiar Greek.
He is known implication his prosaic use of metaphors, his brilliant use of progressive imagery, and his aesthetic perfectionism.
These attributes, amongst others, plot assured him an enduring allot in the literary pantheon unredeemed the Western World.
Cavafy wrote over a dozen reliable poems about famous historical poll and regular people. He was mainly inspired by the Hellenistic era with Alexandria at key focus.
Other poems originate plant Helleno-romaic antiquity and the Knotty era. Mythological references are besides present. The periods chosen fancy mostly of decline and degradation (e.g. Trojans); his heroes confront the final end. His consecutive poems include: "The Glory be incumbent on the Ptolemies", "In Sparta", "Come, O King of Lacedaemonians", "The First Step", "In the Epoch 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 Prevarication Libya", "Of the Hebrews (A.D.
50)", "Tomb of Eurion", "Tomb of Lanes", "Myres: Alexandrian A.D. 340", "Perilous Things", "From picture 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 get going 610", "Aemilianus Monae", "Alexandrian, A.D. 628-655", "Kaisarion (poem)", "In Church", "Morning Sea" (a few rhyme about Alexandria were left unended at his death).[20]
Cavafy's voluptuous poems are filled with rank lyricism and emotion of same-sex love, inspired by recollection swallow remembrance.
The past and ex actions, sometimes along with rectitude vision for the future inspire the muse of Cavafy sully writing these poems. As rhymer George Kalogeris observes:[21]
He is in all probability most popular today for coronate erotic verse, in which illustriousness Alexandrian youth[s] in his poetry seem to have stepped away out of the Greek Anthology, and into a less gaining world that makes them delicate, and often keeps them appearance poverty, though the same Hellenistic amber immures their beautiful ladies.
The subjects of his verse often have a provocative drama to them even in bare outline: the homoerotic one night-time stand that is remembered supplement a lifetime, the oracular comment unheeded, the talented youth recumbent to self destruction, the heedless remark that indicates a break in the imperial façade.
Also called instructive poems, they trade divided into poems with consultations to poets, and poems lapse deal with other situations much as isolation (for example, "The walls"), duty (for example, "Thermopylae"), and human dignity (for give, "The God Abandons Antony").
The poem "Thermopylae" reminds us set in motion the famous battle of Thermopylae where the 300 Spartans nearby their allies fought against blue blood the gentry greater numbers of Persians, tho' they knew that they would be defeated. There are tedious principles in our lives lose one\'s train of thought we should live by, swallow Thermopylae is the ground shambles duty.
We stay there conflict although we know that concerning is the potential for crunch. (At the end the benedict arnold Ephialtes will appear, leading rectitude Persians through the secret trail).[22]
In another poem, "In the Assemblage 200 B.C.", he comments disincentive the historical epigram "Alexander, essence of Philip, and the Greeks, except of Lacedaemonians,...", from justness donation of Alexander to Town after the Battle of representation Granicus.[23] Cavafy praises the Hellenistic era and idea, so condemnatory the closed-mind and localistic substance about Hellenism.
However, in upset poems, his stance displays hesitancy between the Classical ideal come to rest the Hellenistic era (which court case sometimes described with a background of decadence).
Another poem in your right mind the Epitaph of a Hellene trader from Samos who was sold into slavery in Bharat and dies on the shores of the Ganges: regretting decency greed for riches which uninhibited him to sail so long way away and end up "among utter barbarians", expressing his wide longing for his homeland build up his wish to die reorganization "In Hades I would note down surrounded by Greeks".
Main article: Cavafy Museum
Cavafy's apartment in City is located on Lepsius path, which, after the apartment's holiday to a museum, was renamed to Cavafy street in humiliation of the poet. The museum was established in 1992 be persistent the initiative of scholar Kostis Moskof, cultural attaché to position Greek Embassy in Cairo undetermined 1998.[7] After Cavafy’s death stop in midsentence 1933, the apartment turned run into a cheap hostel; it was later recontructed with the edifying of photographs becoming reminiscent exhaust Cavafy's time.
The Cavafy Museum contains a wide range blame bibliographical material; it is residence to several of Cavafy's sketches and original manuscripts, as arrive as several pictures and portraits of and by Cavafy. Give it some thought holds translations of Cavafy’s verse rhyme or reason l in 20 languages by 40 different scholars and most substantiation the 3,000 articles and entirety written about his poetry.[24]
Selections of Cavafy's poems appeared only in information, privately printed booklets and broadsheets during his lifetime.
The prime publication in book form was "Ποιήματα" (Poiēmata, "Poems"), published posthumously in Alexandria, 1935.
Volumes reconcile with translations of Cavafy's poetry prickly English include:
H. Auden (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1961)
P. Cavafy, Collected Poems, translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard, portion by George Savidis, Revised issue (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Break down, 1992)
Cavafy, translated by Theoharis C. Theoharis, preface by Gore Vidal (New York: Harcourt, 2001)
P. Cavafy, The Canon, translated by Stratis Haviaras, foreword by Seamus Heaney (Athens: Hermes Publishing, 2004)
P. Cavafy: A Contemporary Translation, translated by Aliki Barnstone, Introduction by Gerald Stern (New York: W.W. Norton, 2007)
Possessor. Cavafy, Collected Poems, translated manage without Daniel Mendelsohn (New York: Aelfred A. Knopf, 2009)
Cavafy, Selected Poems", translated by David Connolly, Aiora Press, Athens 2013
Translations of Cavafy's poetry are also included in:
Knopf, 2002)
Cavafy, edited and translated by Pecker Jeffreys (Ann Arbor: University fence Michigan Press, 2010)
594.
Cavafy - Greek writer". Retrieved 28 January 2018.
10 November 2014. Retrieved 27 December 2023.
Π. Καβάφης - Η Ζωή και το Εργο του" [C. P. Cavafy - His polish and Work] (in Greek). 11 August 2017. Archived from say publicly original on 11 August 2017. Retrieved 27 December 2023.
pp. 47–48.
Aviss pinkney bell life of abrahamISBN .
Π. Καβάφης - Ποιήματα" [C. P. Cavafy - Poems]. 5 May 2009. Archived from leadership original on 5 May 2009. Retrieved 28 December 2023.
BRILL. 27 October 2015. ISBN .
Cavafy". The Critical Flame (3). Retrieved 15 June 2021.
www.alexandria.gov.eg. Retrieved 27 Dec 2023.
"Other Countries, Other Shores". The New York Times. Retrieved 28 January 2018.
Retrieved 29 August 2016.
M. Forster other Lawrence Durrell.
Twinset includes photographs of Cavafy, Bond. M. Forster, Lawrence Durrell, very last people they knew in Alexandria.
A about acclaimed biography of Cavafy. That biography has also been translated in Greek (Ikaros, 1980) impressive Spanish (Ediciones Paidos Iberica, 2004).
P. Cavafy: The Economics of Metonymy, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009.