Cavafy, Constantine - Valeria A. Caires (essay date 1980)
Valeria A. Caires (essay date 1980)
SOURCE: “Originality and Eroticism: Constantine Cavafy and the Alexandrian Epigram,” in Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, Vol. 6, 1980, pp. 131-55.
[In the essay below, Caires compares and contrasts ideas in Cavafy's poetry with those typical in Hellenistic literature, revealing significant differences.]
Although it has become generally accepted by critics that Constantine Cavafy (1863-1933) was influenced greatly by the Hellenistic epigram ‘in attitude, subject matter, and technique’,1 a close comparison of that poetic tradition and Cavafy's poems reveals interesting differences as well as similarities. We know that Cavafy was familiar with Hellenistic literature and that he had a copy of J. W. Mackail's Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology2 in his personal library. His reading, however, ‘was much more extensive than his library’.3 More...
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