He wrote consistently but almost never published through traditional means. There is nothing more detrimental to art, he maintained, than succumbing to “how the public thinks and what it likes and what it will buy.” ... Whether Cavafy is describing an ancient political intrigue or an erotic encounter that occurred last week, his topic is the passage of time. ... Earlier translators have, to varying degrees, rightly emphasized the prosaic flatness of Cavafy’s language; the flatness is crucial to the emotional power of the poems, since it prevents their irony from seeming caustic, their longing from seeming nostalgic.
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James Longenbach , in "A Poet’s Progress" in The New York Times (17 April 2009)Constantine P. Cavafy
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Cavafy has three principal concerns: love, art, and politics in the original Greek sense. ... As a witness, Cavafy is exceptionally honest. He neither bowdlerizes nor glamorizes nor giggles. The erotic world he depicts is one of casual pickups and short-lived affairs. Love, there, is rarely more than physical passion, and when tenderer emotions exist, they are almost always one-sided. At the same time, he refuses to pretend that his memories of sensual pleasure are unhappy or spoiled by feelings of guilt.
Constantine P. Cavafy
Cavafy is intrigued by the comic possibilities created by the indirect relation of poets to the world. While the man of action requires the presence of others here and now, for without the public he cannot act, the poet fabricates his poem in solitude.
Constantine P. Cavafy
Cavafy's attitude toward the poetic vocation is an aristocratic one. His poets do not think of themselves as persons of great public importance and entitled to universal homage, but, rather, as citizens of a small republic in which one is judged by one's peers and the standard of judgment is strict.
Constantine P. Cavafy
In his poems about the relations between Christians and Pagans in the age of Constantine, Cavafy takes no sides. Roman Paganism was worldly in the sense that the aim of its ritual practices was to secure prosperity and peace for the state and its citizens. ... after Constantine, it was the Christian who had a better chance than the Pagan of getting on in the world, and the Pagan, even if not persecuted, who became the object of social ridicule.
Constantine P. Cavafy
If that impression does not remain on this intrepid and powerful people, into whose veins all nations pour their mingling blood, it will be our immense calamity. Public action, without it, will lose the dignity of consecration. Eloquence, without it, will miss what is loftiest, will give place to a careless and pulseless disquisition, or fall to the flatness of political slang. Life, without it, will lose its sacred and mystic charm. Society, without it, will fail of inspirations, and be drowned in an animalism whose rising tides will keep pace with its wealth.
Richard Salter Storrs
Cavafy, Constantine P.
Cavallero, Ugo
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