Cavafy Poems (English)

The poems of the Greek poet Constantine P. Cavafy (1863 – 1933). Includes English translations and Greek originals.


If you only need the Greek poems you can download the following application (smaller in size):

market://details?id=gr.hatzigeorgiu.cavafy

http://market.android.com/details?id=gr.hatzigeorgiu.cavafy


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 renowned Greek poet who lived in Alexandria and worked as a journalist and civil servant.

He is now considered one of the finest European and modern Greek poets. His poetry is taught at schools in mainland Greece and Cyprus, and at universities around the world.

E.M. Forster knew him personally and wrote a memoir of him, contained in his book "Alexandria". Forster, Arnold Toynbee, and T.S. Eliot were among the earliest promoters of Cavafy in the English-speaking world before the Second World War.

In the panorama of twentieth century poetry, Cavafis' work occupies a special place. Dark, lonely to the limit of self-segregation, but at the same time attracted by the Mediterranean vitality and openness, the neo-Hellenic poet refuses en block every aspect of his time, diving instead, with constant wonder, into the suggestions of mythological legends and ancient history.

The result of this literary operation is the continuous, desperate search for a mysterious and elusive Beauty, an evocation of hidden moments and loves sung now with violently sensual accents, now with heartfelt and nostalgic tones, mixed with a tragic vision of history as eternal struggle between men and destiny.