Selected Poems by C.P. Cavafy

C. P. Cavafy, Edmund Keeley, Philip Sherrard, Edmund Keeley, Philip Sherrard

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN:
  9780691619385
  9780691646282
• eBook ISBN:
  9781400872923
• Topic: Littérature
• Subtopic: Poésie européenne

C.P. Cavafy (1863-1933) is now considered by many to be the most original and influential Greek poet of this century. The qualities of his poetry that were unfashionable during his lifetime are the very ones that make his work endure: his sparing use of metaphor; his evocation of spoken rhythms and colloquialisms; his use of epigrammatic and dramatic modes; his aesthetic perfectionism; his frank treatment of homosexual themes; his brilliantly alive sense of history; and his commitment to Hellenism, coupled with an astute cynicism about politics.

The translations in Selected Poems are completely new. Realizing that Cavafy's language is closer to the spoken idiom than that of other leading Greek poets of his time, and that earlier translations have failed to capture the immediate, colloquial qualities of Cavafy's voice, Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard have rendered his most significant and characteristic poems in a style and rhythm as natural and apt in English as the poet's is in Greek.

Originally published in 1972.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• The Poems
• Che Fece . . . Il Gran Rifiuto
• Thermopylae
• Growing in Spirit
• Waiting for the Barbarians
• Trojans
• King Dimitrios
• Antony's Ending
• The Footsteps
• The City
• The Satrapy
• The Ides of March
• Things Fulfilled
• The God Abandons Antony
• Ionic
• Ithaka
• Philhellene
• Alexandrian Kings
• Very Seldom
• As Much as You Can
• Returning from Greece
• Exiles
• Theodotos
• He Swears
• Morning Sea
• Orophernis
• The Battle of Magnesia
• Manuel Komninos
• The Distress of Selefkidis
• For Ammonis, Who Died at 29 , in 610
• One of Their Gods
• Half an Hour
• Kaisarion
• Body, Remember . . .
• Nero's Respite
• Envoys from Alexandria
• Aimilianos Monai, Alexandrian, A.D. 628 - 655
• The Afternoon Sun
• Of the Jews (A.D. 50)
• Of Dimitrios Sotir (162 - 150 B.C.)
• If Actually Dead
• Young Men of Sidon (A.D. 400)
• Dareios
• Anna Komnina
• An Exiled Byzantine Nobleman Who Composes Verses
• Alexander Valas' Favorite
• Dimaratos
• From the School of the Renowned Philosopher
• Julian Seeing Contempt
• Epitaph of Antiochos, King of Kommagini
• In Alexandria, 31 B.C.
• John Kantakuzinos Triumphs
• Of Colored Glass
• The Twenty-Fifth Year of His Life
• Kleitos' Illness
• In a Township of Asia Minor
• A Great Procession of Priests and Laymen
• Julian and the Antiochians
• Two Young Men, 23 to 24 Years Old
• A Young Poet in His Twenty-Fourth Year
• In Sparta
• In a Large Greek Colony, 200 B.C.
• A Prince from Western Libya
• Myris: Alexandria, A.D. 340
• Alexander Jannaios and Alexandra
• Come, O King of the Lacedaimonians
• He Asked About the Quality
• To Have Taken the Trouble
• In the Year 200 B.C.
• On the Outskirts of Antioch
• Notes
• Biographical Note
• Bibliographical Note