Constantine P. Cavafy

Konstantínos Pétrou Cavafy (Greek Κωνσταντίνος Πέτρου Καβάφης born April 29, 1863 in Alexandria, † April 29, 1933 ibid ) applies Kostis Palamas addition, Giorgios Seferis, Odysseas Elytis and Yannis Ritsos as one of the most important Greek poets of the modern era.

Life

In 1863 Konstantínos P. Cavafy was born as the ninth and last child of CHARIKLIA Fotiadi and Pétros J. Cavafy in a Greek merchant family on April 29, who had come to trade in Alexandria Egyptian cotton to wealth. With the death of his father in 1870, the oldest brother Georgios took over the branch of the company in Liverpool. 1872 moved the mother with the other children to England, where the family spent the years until 1877 partly in London and Liverpool. There Cavafy seems to have attended an English school. Secured is the formative influence of the English Years: Time Life used Cavafy would be considered a mannered Greek with an English accent, and his first poems he wrote in English.

After the bankruptcy (1876 ) the company Cavafis & Co. in 1877, the family returned to Alexandria. Cavafy took a business education on to a Greek commercial college. Political unrest in the wake of the National Movement against the British colonial regiment led in 1882 to attacks on the foreign population of Alexandria, the mother fled with the youngest children to Constantinople Opel. Cavafy lived in his grandfather's family Fotiadis, which belonged to the urban patriciate of the Greek house. Here he finished his business education and studied, as in Alexandria, the writings of Greek authors of antiquity and the Byzantine period. It is believed that Cavafy in the years to return to Alexandria ( 1885), his homosexuality has become aware characterizes the Parts of the later lyrical works.

In Alexandria Cavafy took after short spells as a newspaper correspondent and as a broker at the Cotton Exchange in 1889 to a first unpaid position as Secretary, Department of Water Resources of the Ministry of Public Works. Only after 33 years as a contract employee Cavafy was in 1922, on the position of a deputy head of department, the unloved bread work.

Interrupted by two trips to Paris and London and just three short stays in Athens Cavafy spent the years until his death in the Egyptian Diaspora, in a city of Greek origin. He has characterized with these words His self- understanding: "I 'm not a Hellene, I'm not Greek. I am hellenic. " After unsuccessful treatment in 1932 diagnosed in Athens revenge cancer Cavafy died on his birthday in 1933 in Alexandria.

Works

• Giorgos Savvidis: I kavafikés ekdósis (1891-1932), 1966; Ikaros, Athens ², 1991 (Greek ), ISBN 960-208-021-3.

German translations (selection)

• Poems. Transferred from the Modern Greek and edited by Helmut from the stones. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1953 ( Bibliothek Suhrkamp, vol 15), 143 pp. ( also titled: . Poems of Constantine Cavafy Ibid, 1960). Dass., Initiated and from the modern Greek transmitted by Helmut from the stones. Second, expanded edition, Castrum Peregrini Press, Amsterdam 1962, 115 pp.
• The Complete Works. Translated from the Greek and edited by Robert Elsie. With an introduction by Marguerite Yourcenar. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1999.
• To remain. Love poems. Greek and German. Translation and afterword by Michael Schroeder. With 13 etchings by David Hockney. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1989.
• The lie is only aged truth. Notations, prose and poetry from the estate. Edited, translated from the Greek, with an afterword by Asteris Kutulas. Hanser Verlag, Munich, 1991.
• The four walls of my room. Discarded and unpublished poems. Edited and with an afterword by Asteris Kutulas transferred from Ina and Asterisk Kutulas. Hanser Verlag, Munich, 1994.
• Constantine Cavafy: Family Cavafy. Edited by Asterisk Kutulas transferred from Ina and Asteris Kutulas. Axel Dielmann Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 2001.
• If you break up stedfastly Ithaca ... All poems. Translated by Wolfgang Josing in collaboration with Doris Gundert. Romiosini Verlag, Cologne, 1983.