Cavafy, C. P.

From Philosopedia

Cavafy, C. P. (1863—1933) Cavafy was regarded by literary historian C. A. Trypanis as “the most original of all the modern Greek poets.” A recluse whose work was never commercial during his lifetime, he lived in the Greek community of Alexandria and worked as a petty bureaucrat. Adept at investing in the stock exchange, he eventually retired from the Ministry of Irrigation. His major themes were philosophy, history, and hedonism, and his work was critical of patriotism, heterosexuality, and Christianity. To E. M. Forster, Cavafy was poet at a “slight angle to the universe.” To Lawrence Durrell, he was the likely character of the presiding poet in The Alexandria Quartet. W. H. Auden and Marguerite Yourcenar wrote about him, some of his work was translated by Stephen Spender and James Merrill, he inspired etchings by David Hockney (1966) and photographs of males nudes by Duane Michals (1978). Peter Christensen of Marquette University described Cavafy as one who deliberately rejected Classical Greece in favor of a decadent Hellenism. Cavafy was also inspired by the last days of the Ptolemies, Cleopatra, and her lover Marc Antony. In Anekdota Peza (Unpublished Prose), he indicates a love for Alexander Mavroudis (Alex Madis), a minor poet and Parisian playwright. In “Bandaged Shoulder,” in which he takes the bloody rag of a wounded soldier to his lips, he writes homoerotically as he implies that the blood confirms his love for the injured man. His other work with sexual overtones, often describing one-night stands in seedy places and published two decades after his death, seldom describes a mutual love or a long-term relationship. A freethinker, Cavafy died of throat cancer. {GL}