Constantin P. CAVAFY

  The poet Constantin Cavafy, who though he lived in Alexandria, Egypt was of Greek background and wrote in modern Greek, is one of the centrally important poets of the first years of the twentieth century.  He is especially important for his extensive use demotic Greek -- the language of not only the current day, but of the everyday world -- and his explorations of erotic passions in the most direct forms, eschewing the conventional circumlocutions which too often accompany any description of sexual relations, and especially the homosexual relations which are the subject of many of his poems.

In the Real Audio presentation which follows, you will encounter ten of Cavafy's finest poems:

To Remain
The Tobacco-Shop Window
He Asked About the Quality
On the Stairs
The 25th Year of his Life
Days of 1909, 1910, 1911
Since Nine O'Clock
Days of 1908
Understanding
Their Beginning
Passage
Click on the photo of Cavafy to hear the presentation:  

To read translations of Cavafy on-line, in Greek originals and also translated into English,  go to:

                    Cavafy's poems and translations
                                    OR
                    More poems in translation

There is an interesting page about Cavafy: it provides the second set of translations, listed above, and also biographical and critical information about this splendid Greek poet:

                    Cavafy page
 

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