C.P. Cavafy
"The Cavafy Publications 1891–1934" is a collection of work by C. P. Cavafy, a poet who was born in Alexandria in 1863 and died in the same city in 1933. The title's date range — from 1891 through 1934 — frames the record of his output as a writer and poet across his career.
Cavafy was born in Alexandria in 1863, and Alexandria remained his home until his death there in 1933. His citizenship connected him to Greece, Egypt, and the Ottoman Empire, a layered set of national ties that reflected the character of the city in which he lived. In his written life he worked across several languages: Modern Greek, French, and English all appear in the record of his linguistic practice.
Beyond his work as a poet and writer, Cavafy spent time employed as a civil servant and also worked as a journalist. These occupations ran alongside his literary activity. His writing in multiple languages placed him within a broader cultural world, and his connections to more than one country gave his life a quality that was difficult to reduce to a single national identity.
Cavafy died in Alexandria on April 29, 1933. "The Cavafy Publications 1891–1934," with its span beginning more than forty years before his death and extending to 1934, stands as the concrete record of his work as a poet. That collection, named in the FACTS as a notable work, is the primary documentary anchor of his literary life.
Quotes by C.P. Cavafy
The days of the future stand in front of us Like a line of candles all alight Golden and warm and lively little candles.
The frivolous can call me frivolous. I’ve always been most punctilious about important things. And I insist that no one knows better than I do the Holy Fathers, or the Scriptures, or the Canons of the Councils.
And from this marvellous pan-Hellenic expedition, triumphant, brilliant in every way, celebrated on all sides, glorified incomparable, we emerged: the great new Hellenic world.
Nero wasn’t worried at all when he heard the utterance of the Delphic Oracle: “Beware the age of seventy-three.” Plenty of time to enjoy himself still. He’s thirty. The deadline the god has given him is quite enough to cope with future dangers.
I’m practically broke and homeless. This fatal city, Antioch, has devoured all my money: this fatal city with its extravagant life.
A month passes by and brings another month. Easy to guess what lies ahead: all of yesterday’s boredom. And tomorrow ends up no longer like tomorrow.
Return often and take me, beloved sensation, return and take me – When memory of the body awakens, and old desire again runs through the blood; when the lips and skin remember, and the hands feel as if they touch again.
The holy Cross goes forward; it brings joy and consolation to every quarter where Christians live; and these God-fearing people, elated, stand in their doorways and greet it reverently, the strength, the salvation of the universe, the Cross.