Constantine P. Cavafy

Cavafy, around 1900 in Alexandria, Egypt
Born:	April 29, 1863 Alexandria, Egypt
Died:	April 29, 1933 Alexandria, Egypt
Occupation:	Poet, journalist, civil servant

Constantine P. Cavafy, also known as Konstantin or Konstantinos Petrou Kavafis, or Kavaphes (Greek Κωνσταντίνος Π. Καβάφης) (April 29, 1863 – April 29, 1933) was a major Alexandrine poet who worked as a journalist and civil servant. He has been called a skeptic and a neo-pagan. In his poetry he examines critically some aspects of Christianity, patriotism, and homosexuality, though he was not always comfortable with his role as a nonconformist. He published 154 poems; dozens more remained incomplete or in sketch form. His most important poetry was written after his fortieth birthday. From http://cavafis. ... April 29 is the 119th day of the year (120th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1863 (MDCCCLXIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Saturday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... Image File history File links Egypt_flag_1882. ... Alexandria (Greek: , Coptic: , Arabic: , Egyptian Arabic: Iskindireyya), (population of 3. ... April 29 is the 119th day of the year (120th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1933 (MCMXXXIII) was a common year starting on Sunday. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Egypt_1922. ... Alexandria (Greek: , Coptic: , Arabic: , Egyptian Arabic: Iskindireyya), (population of 3. ... For the album by the Kaiser Chiefs see Employment (album) Employment is a contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. ... The poor poet A poet is a person who writes poetry. ... This does not cite any references or sources. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... April 29 is the 119th day of the year (120th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... // April 29 — Constantine P. Cavafy Greek poet George Essex Evans (Australia) Robert Fuller Murray Stuart Merrill (US) George Santayana Ernest Lawrence Thayer (US) Gamaliel Bradford (US) Clement Moore William Makepeace Thackeray Poetry List of years in poetry Schools of Poetry Categories: | ... April 29 is the 119th day of the year (120th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... // Black Mountain College founded as a progressive, experimental educational institution which attracted poets who became known as the Black Mountain School of poetry. ... An alexandrine is a line of poetic meter. ... This does not cite any references or sources. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... Skepticism (Commonwealth spelling: Scepticism) can mean: Philosophical skepticism - a philosophical position in which people choose to critically examine whether the knowledge and perceptions that they have are actually true, and whether or not one can ever be said to have absolutely true knowledge; or Scientific skepticism - a scientific, or practical... Look up pagan, heathen in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Christianity percentage by country, purple is highest, orange is lowest Topics in Christianity Movements · Denominations Ecumenism · Preaching · Prayer Music · Liturgy · Calendar Symbols · Art · Criticism Important figures Apostle Paul · Church Fathers Constantine · Athanasius · Augustine Anselm · Aquinas · Palamas · Wycliffe Tyndale · Luther · Calvin · Wesley Arius · Marcion of Sinope Pope · Archbishop of Canterbury Patriarch... This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims. ... Homosexuality refers to sexual interaction and / or romantic attraction between individuals of the same sex. ... A nonconformist is an English or Welsh Protestant of any non-Anglican denomination, chiefly advocating religious liberty. ...

Biography

Cavafy was born in 1863 in Alexandria, Egypt, to Greek parents, and was baptized into the Greek Orthodox Church. His father was a prosperous importer-exporter who had lived in England in earlier years and acquired British nationality. After his father died in 1870, Cavafy and his family settled, for a while, in Liverpool, UK; he moved back to Alexandria in 1877 after the financial problems the family had faced in the crash of 1876. Year 1863 (MDCCCLXIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Saturday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... Alexandria (Greek: , Coptic: , Arabic: , Egyptian Arabic: Iskindireyya), (population of 3. ... Greek Orthodox Church (Greek: Hellēnorthódoxē Ekklēsía) can refer to any of several hierarchical churches within the larger group of mutually recognizing Eastern Orthodox churches. ... 1870 (MDCCCLXX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Monday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. ... 1877 (MDCCCLXXVII) was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... Black Monday (1987) on the Dow Jones Industrial Average A stock market crash is a sudden dramatic decline of stock prices across a significant cross-section of a stock market. ...

Disturbances there in 1882 caused the family again temporarily to move, this time to Istanbul. The fleets of England and France interfered with Egypt, and when Alexandria was bombarded by an English battleship, the family apartment at Ramli was burned. In 1885 Cavafy returned to Alexandria, where he lived for the rest of his life. He worked first as a journalist, then for the British-run Egyptian Ministry of Public Works for thirty years. (Egypt was a British protectorate until 1926.) From 1891 to 1904 he published his poetry in broadsheet form, only for his close friends, receiving whatever acclaim mainly within the Greek community in Alexandria. He was introduced to mainland-Greek literary circles through a favourable review by Xenopoulos in 1903, but got little recognition, his style being very different from then-mainstream Greek poetry. Only 20 years later, after the Greek defeat in the Greco-Turkish War, a new generation of almost nihilist poets (e.g. Karyotakis) would find inspiration in Cavafy's work. He died of cancer of the larynx on April 29, 1933, his 70th birthday. Year 1882 (MDCCCLXXXII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... Istanbul (Turkish: , Greek: , historically Byzantium and later Constantinople; see other names) is Turkeys most populous city, and its cultural and financial center. ... This article is about states protected and/or dominated by a foreign power. ... The name Greco-Turkish War is given to two armed conflicts between Greece and Turkey or its predecessor the Ottoman Empire: The Greco-Turkish War of 1897 (also called the Thirty Days War) The Greco-Turkish War of 1919-1922 (also called the War in Asia Minor, and in Turkey... Kostas Karyotakis (Greek: Κώστας Καρυωτάκης) (October 30, 1896 – July 20, 1928) is considered one of the most representative Greek poets of the 1920s and one of the first poets to use modernist themes in Greece. ... Cancer of the larynx also may be called laryngeal cancer. ... April 29 is the 119th day of the year (120th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1933 (MCMXXXIII) was a common year starting on Sunday. ... . ...

A biographical note written by Cavafy reads as follows: "I am from Constantinople by descent, but I was born in Alexandria — at a house on Seriph Street; I left very young, and spent much of my childhood in England. Subsequently I visited this country as an adult, but for a short period of time. I have also lived in France. During my adolescence I lived over two years in Constantinople. It has been many years since I last visited Greece. My last employment was as a clerk at a government office under the Ministry of Public Works of Egypt. I know English, French, and a little Italian." The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

Cavafy was homosexual. His most well known relationship was with Alexander Singopoulos.

Since his death, Cavafy's reputation has grown. He is now considered one of the finest modern Greek poets. His poetry is now taught at schools in mainland Greece.

Work

Cavafy has been instrumental in the revival and recognition of Greek poetry both at home and abroad. His poems are, typically, concise but intimate evocations of real or literary figures and milieux that have played a role in Greek culture. Uncertainty about the future, sensual pleasures, the moral character and psychology of individuals, homosexuality, and a fatalistic existential nostalgia are some of the defining themes. The Chinese poem Quatrain on Heavenly Mountain by Emperor Gaozong (Song Dynasty) Poetry (from the Greek , poiesis, a making or creating) is a form of art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its ostensible meaning. ... Psychology (from Greek: ψυχή, psukhē, spirit, soul; and λόγος, logos, knowledge) is an academic / applied discipline involving the scientific study of mental processes and behavior of humans and animals. ... Homosexuality refers to sexual interaction and / or romantic attraction between individuals of the same sex. ... One may feel nostalgic for the familiar routine of school, conveniently forgetting the painful experiences such as bullying. ...

Besides his subjects, unconventional for the time, his poems also exhibit a skilled and versatile craftsmanship, which is almost completely lost in translation. 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. Look up translate in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... An iamb is a metrical foot used in formal poetry. ... A rhyme is a repetition of identical or similar terminal sounds in two or more different words (i. ... A syllable (Ancient Greek: ) is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. ... Irony is a literary or rhetorical device, in which there is a gap or incongruity between what a speaker or a writer says and what is generally understood (either at the time, or in the later context of history). ...

Cavafy drew his themes from personal experience, along with an enormous knowledge of history, especially of the Hellenistic era. Many of his poems are either pseudo-historical, or seemingly historical, or accurately, but quirkily, historical. The term Hellenistic (established by the German historian Johann Gustav Droysen) in the history of the ancient world is used to refer to the shift from a culture dominated by ethnic Greeks, however scattered geographically, to a culture dominated by Greek-speakers of whatever ethnicity, and from the political dominance...

One of Cavafy's most important works is his 1904 poem "Waiting for the Barbarians". The work has since been used to signify the invisible foes that we must face in life. He also wrote in 1911 "Ithaca" that covers the voyage to return to the famous island that was depicted in Homer's Odyssey. Its main theme is the enjoyment of the journey over the destination and that maturity of the soul is all one can ask for. // Nobel Prize in Literature is shared by French poet Frédéric Mistral and Spanish dramatist José Echegaray y Eizaguirre. ... // Britain establishes six copyright libraries to which copies of all books published in the country must be sent: Bodleian Library (Oxford); British Library (London); National Library of Scotland (Edinburgh); National Library of Wales (Aberystwyth); Trinity College, Dublin; and Cambridge University Library. ...

Cavafy divides his own work into three categories:

Historical poems

These poems are mainly inspired by the Hellenistic era with Alexandria at primary focus. Other poems originate from Helleno-romaic antiquity and the Byzantine era. Mythological references are also present. The periods chosen are mostly of decline and decadence (eg Trojans); his heroes facing the final end. The term Hellenistic (derived from Héllēn, the Greeks traditional self-described ethnic name) was established by the German historian Johann Gustav Droysen to refer to the spreading of Greek culture over the non-Greek people that were conquered by Alexander the Great. ... Alexandria (Greek: , Coptic: , Arabic: , Egyptian Arabic: Iskindireyya), (population of 3. ... Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, which begins roughly with the earliest-recorded Greek poetry of Homer (7th century BC), and continues through the rise of Christianity and the fall of the Western Roman Empire (5th century AD... It has been suggested that Eastern Roman Empire be merged into this article or section. ...

Sensual poems

The sensual poems are filled with lyricism and emotion; inspired by recollection and remembrance. The past and former actions, sometimes along with the vision for the future consist the muse of Cavafy in writing these poems.

Philosophical poems

Also called instructive poems they are divided into poems with consultations to poets and poems that deal with other situations such as closure (for example, "The walls"), debt (for example, "Thermopylae"), and human dignity (for example, "The God Abandons Antony"). The God Abandons Anthony is a poem by Constantine P. Cavafy, published in 1911. ...

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 (Piimata, or Poems of C.P. Cavafy) published in Alexandria, 1935. // George Oppen joins the Communist Party, where his organizing work will increasingly take precedence over his poetry; he writes no more verse until 1958. ...

• The Complete Poems of Cavafy translated by Rae Dalven
• C. P. Cavafy: Collected Poems translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard, edited by George Savidis
• Before Time Could Change Them: The Complete Poems of Constantine P.Cavafy translated by Theoharis C. Theoharis
• Cavafy's Alexandria by Edmund Keeley
• Cavafy: A Critical Biography by Robert Liddell
• "Alexandria: City of Memory" by Michael Haag (published by Yale University Press, London and New Haven, 2004) provides a portrait of the city during the first half of the twentieth century and a biographical account of Cavafy and his influence on E.M. Forster and Lawrence Durrell.
• Cavafy a literary form of the script of «Cavafy» the film, by Iannis Smaragdis

C.P. Cavafy appears as a character in the Alexandria Quartet of Lawrence Durrell. Some of the Jewish people that still live in Todays Istanbul are the descendants of the Byzantine Jews, also known as Romaniotes. ... Edmund Leroy Keeley (born February 5, 1928 in Damascus, Syria) is an author, translator, and Charles Barnwell Straut Professor Emeritus of English at Princeton University. ... Edmund Leroy Keeley (born February 5, 1928 in Damascus, Syria) is an author, translator, and Charles Barnwell Straut Professor Emeritus of English at Princeton University. ... John (Jock) Robert Liddell (born 1908) is a British writer, best known for his criticism of the novel, and for his biography of the poet Cavafy. ... Yannis Smaragdis is a Greek film director. ... The Alexandria Quartet is a tetralogy of novels by British writer Lawrence Durrell, published between 1957 and 1960. ... Lawrence George Durrell (February 27, 1912 – November 7, 1990) was a British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer, though he resisted affiliation with Britain and preferred to be considered cosmopolitan. ...

• The Weddings Parties Anything song 'The Afternoon Sun' is based on the Cavafy poem of the same title.

Notes

External links

• C.P. Cavafy - The official website of the Cavafy Archive (in English)
• "The official website of the Cavafy Archive" (in Greek)
• A comprehensive website, including a biography, a gallery, bibliography, news and extensive selections of poetry in English and Greek
• Cavafy in English and Greek, Select Online Resources
• W. H. Auden's Introduction to Cavafy's poems
• Audio introduction to Cavafy's poems In English, with examination of ten of his finest poems
• The Cavafy Museum in Alexandria
• Cavafy: surviving immortality
• "Artificial Flowers" — translations by Peter J. King & Andrea Christofidou
• Extensive collection of poems, in English & Greek & audio
• Ithaki.net A search engine named in honor of the poem "Ithaki"