Constantine Cavafis

Kostas Kavafis is a greek poet.

He was born 1863 in Alexandria Egypt and died 1933.

His family was an old noble family coming from Konstantinopel (today Instambul Turkey), which dealed with commerce in Alexandria.� His first years he spent in England where he learnt English before Greek. He traveled and stayed in Konstantinopel, Athens and Paris. He earnt his living as a civil servant, since his father managed to leave him no money behind.
He wrote his first poem in 1886. His active work began 1912 though, when he began publishing pages with his poems.

Kostas Kavafis is one of the few greek poets (along with
Seferis and Elytis) who are world wide known. He is especially loved by intellectuals due to his references to ancient Greece which attracts classicists and due to his modern style of writing (focusing on pictures and symbols instead of rime and compacting verses intead of expanding them)

The admiration for his work came late though. At his time in Greece there was little room for a modern poet, who didn't write in rimes and had a so much critisized personal life (he admired male beauty more than accepted).

Not only that but he was writing directly in modern greek, whereas intellectuals at that time prefered the classical greek language inhereted from ancient greek. He is a very self sarcastic poet, in a time where everyone was writing lyrics and romance, focused on critising his own personal passions and weeknesses. A modern poet one would say who lived about hundred years before his age.

Hope you appreciate him too...

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Introduction in Greek
Poems in English
Poems in Greek
Other vers constructions....
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