The Selected Poems of Cavafy

Description

Cavafy is one of the most singular and poignant voices of twentieth-century European poetry, conjuring a magical world through lyrical evocations of remembered passions, imagined monologues and dramatic retellings of his native Alexandria's ancient past. Figures from antiquity speak with telling interruptions from the author in such poems as You did not understand, while precise moments of history are seen with a sense of foreboding, as in Ides of March and Nero's Deadline. And in poems that draw on his own life and surroundings, Cavafy recalls illicit trysts or glimpses of beautiful young men in One Night and The Cafe Entrance, and creates exquisite miniatures of everyday life in Of the Shop.

Constantine P. Cavafy was born on 29 April 1863 in Alexandria, Egypt, to Greek parents. He lived in Liverpool and Constantinople as well as Alexandria. He worked as a journalist and as a civil servant, publishing his early poetry in broadsheet form to show to his close friends. His style was very different to most contemporary Greek poetry and his poems were largely unappreciated until the 1920s and his reputation really grew posthumously. He died on 29 April 1933, his 70th birthday.

?One of the greatest poets of our time.? ?E. M. Forster ? Ever since I was first introduced to his poetry . . . Cavafy has remained an influence on my writing.? ?W. H. Auden One of the greatest poets of our time. E. M. Forster Ever since I was first introduced to his poetry . . . Cavafy has remained an influence on my writing. W. H. Auden aOne of the greatest poets of our time.a aE. M. Forster a Ever since I was first introduced to his poetry . . . Cavafy has remained an influence on my writing.a aW. H. Auden