C. P. Cavafy (1863-1933) lived in relative obscurity in Alexandria, and
a collected edition of his poems was not published until after his
death. Now, however, he is regarded as the most important figure in
twentieth-century Greek poetry, and his poems are considered among the
most powerful in modern European literature.
This revised bilingual edition of Collected Poems offers the reader
the original Greek texts facing what are now recognized as the standard
English translations of Cavafy's poetry. It is this translation that
best captures the poet's mixture of formal and idiomatic language and
that preserves the immediacy of his increasingly frank treatment of
homosexual eroticism, his brilliant re-creation of history, and his
astute political ironies. This new bilingual edition also features the
notes of editor George Savidis and a new foreword by Robert Pinsky.