POETRY NEWSLETTER MAY 31st 2021
https://images.app.goo.gl/BqJyab3Kugvcoy7K8
Kate has kindly provided us with some notes about Cavafy.
Constantine Cavafy (1863 – 1933)
Background
Cavafy was born in Alexandria of Greek descent, lived there most of his life and died there. His father was an importer-exporter who lived in England part of the time and had British nationality. The family lived in Liverpool for a while when Cavafy was growing up, which was probably when he developed an interest in Shakespeare and Wilde. He also lived in France at one time, and as a consequence knew English and French as well as his native Greek.
He worked for 30 years for the British-run Egyptian Ministry of Public Works, starting out as a clerk and eventually becoming Assistant Director.
Poetry
His poetry is mostly either historical or linked to a historical incident or historical myth in some way, or it conjures up memories of the beautiful young men he had brief affairs with – 22 year olds with sensuous limbs and eyes and lips.
Auden wrote in the introduction to the 1961 Complete Poems that his was a world of “casual pickups and short lived affairs” and said, “He neither bowdlerizes, nor glamorizes, nor giggles.” Nor did he express guilt.
Homosexuality was presumably illegal in Egypt at the time and may have accounted for the fact that he chose not to publish much of his poetry during his lifetime, preferring to circulate it amongst friends. However this doesn’t account for why he chose not to publish the historical poems.
As well as Auden, T.S.Eliot was an early promoter of Cavafy’s poems. He knew E.M.Forster, who wrote a memoir of him. Hockney created a series of prints to illustrate a selection of his poems. However of the English writers, he is probably most associated with the novelist Lawrence Durrell.
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The Durrell Connection
Durrell’s set of novels, The Alexandria Quartet, published in the late 1950s, depicts an exotic, multi-ethnic and multi-cultural city which seemed both decadent and glamorous. It was something of a “must-read” at the time, being both a critical and a commercial success.
Durrell gave Cavafy a bit part as “the old poet of the city” frequenting the little cafes with one of his characters. He also appended his own versions of two of Cavafy’s poems to the first novel in the quartet: The City, and The God Abandons Antony (see below). In doing so he brought Cavafy to a new audience of English speakers.
Leonard Cohen may possibly have been one of them. He wrote a song Alexandra Leaving based on The God Abandons Antony. Cohen’s song reflects on the loss of a lover (Alexandra). Cavafy’s poem reflects on the loss of the city, Alexandria. Here Antony, having lost the Battle of Actium to Octavian (later the Emperor Augustus), flees to Egypt and Alexandria. But Octavian pursues him and is outside the gates. The city is about to fall …
(This is where I say a thank you to Paul for very kindly doing some research on the link between Durrell and Cavafy and supplying the text of the two poems that follow.)
The God Abandons Antony
When suddenly at darkest midnight heard,
The invisible company passing the clear voices,
Ravishing music of invisible choirs –
Your fortunes having failed you now,
Hope gone aground, a lifetime of desires
Turned into smoke. Ah do not agonise
At what is past deceiving
But like a man long since prepared
With courage say your last goodbye
To Alexandria as she is leaving.
Do not be tricked and never say
It was a dream or that your ears misled,
Leave cowards their entreaties and complaints,
Let all such useless hopes as these be shed
And like a man long since prepared,
Deliberately, with pride, with resignation
Befitting you and worthy of such a city
Turn to the open window and look down
To drink past all deceiving
Your last dark rapture from the mystical throng
And say farewell, farewell to Alexandria leaving.
Constantine Cavafy, translated by Lawrence Durrell
The City
You tell yourself: I’ll be gone
To some other land, some other sea
To a city lovelier far than this
Could ever have been or hoped to be –
Where every step now tightens the noose:
A heart in a body buried and out of use:
How long, how long must I be here
Confined among these dreary purlieus
Of the common mind? Wherever now I look
Black ruins of my life rise into view
So many years have I been here
Spending and squandering, and nothing gained.
There’s no new land, my friend no
New sea; for the city will follow you,
In the same streets, you’ll wander endlessly
The same mental suburbs slip from youth to age
In the same house go white at last –
The city is a cage.
No other places, always this
Your earthly landfall, and no ship exists
To take you from yourself. Ah! Don’t you see
Just as you’ve ruined your life in this
One plot of ground you’ve ruined its worth
Everywhere now – over the whole earth?
By Constantine Cavafy, translated by Lawrence Durrell
Many thanks to Kate and to Paul
I would add according to a 2013 survey by the Pew Research Centre, 95% of Egyptians believe that homosexuality should not be accepted by society. In the nineteenth century Egypt was internationally known for its tolerant attitudes towards male homosexuality. Contemporary Egyptian law does not explicitly criminalise homosexuality, but it does have several provisions that criminalise any behaviour or the expression of any idea that is deemed to be immoral, scandalous or offensive to the teachings of a recognized religious leader. These public morality and public order laws have been used against LGBT people.
Above is one of Hockney's illustrations. I have not included a link, because the site has one of those links that go on forever. However, if you enter Hockney illustrations to Cavafy into search you should be able to see them all.
I hope everyone is enjoying their Bank Holiday.
Elizabeth
Thanks, Elizabeth, for the information on 19th century Egyptian attitudes to homosexuality. Of course the British were in Egypt at the time and whether they looked upon it as a quaint local custom I don't know. However, the chances of any of them (Lawrence Durrell apart) reading Greek poetry was probably pretty slim.
ReplyDeleteI think changes in power in Africa and the Middle East and the rise of orthodox Islam has increased condemnation, and punitive attitudes. Fortunately, (almost certainly the wrong word but you know what I mean) the continued subjugation of women means no one has noticed what they might be up to.
ReplyDelete