Passions and ancient days: twenty one new poems,

by Constantinos P. Cavafy, Edmund Keeley (Translator), George Savadis (Translator)

The discovery of new poems by a great poet thirty years after his death is archeological in its unexpected delight. Such an experience is exotic in the highest sense- as in the reading experience offered here.
The poems offered here in the most successful translation to date and the first collection to appear with facing Greek text, represent the full chronological and thematic scope of his work and do not falter from the high standards that he has already set for us.
(Bilingual Greek - English Edition)

Genres: Poetry

64 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Constantine P. Cavafy (also known as Konstantin or Konstantinos Petrou Kavafis, or Kavaphes; Greek Κ.Π. Καβάφης) was a major Greek poet who worked as a journalist and civil servant. His consciously individual style earned him a place among the most important figures not only in Greek poetry, but in Western poetry as well. He has been called a skeptic and a neo-pagan. In his poetry he examines critically some aspects of Christianity, patriotism, and homosexuality, though he was not always comfortable with his role as a nonconformist. He published 154 poems; dozens more remained incomplete or in sketch form. His most important poetry was written after his fortieth birthday.

Reviews

[Czarny Pies · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Passions and Ancient Days" is a slim volume of posthumous works that provides an excellent introduction to the work of the legendary Greek poet of Alexandria, Constantine Cavafy. Keeley and Savidis, the translators, state in their introduction that Cavafy had argued that his poems could all be assigned to three different categories: (1) historical, (2) philosophical and (3) homoerotic. Keeley and Savidis then point out that their selection from the previously unpublished works can also be a assigned to these categories.

I had first heard of Cavafy forty years when I read Lawrence Durrell's "Justine", the first volume of the Alexandria Quartet, which includes two of Durrell's own translations of poems by Cavafy. When I read an article last week by Joseph Brodsky that praised Cavafy highly, I finally decided to act on my long delayed intentions to read something by Cavafy; I then checked "Passions and Ancient Days" out of the library.

It proved to be a great joy to read plunging me back into the mood and ambiance of Durell's Alexandria. Collectively the poems constitute an elegy for the cultural and religious energy of the city's past. Cavafy however is not in despair as he seems to feel that the city's dormant spiritual powers still have the potential to revive.

I agree with Keeley and Savidis that the best of the historical poems is the "Poseidonians" which is about a formerly Greek city in Italy that has lost touch with its roots and reduced its Hellenism to a grotesque folkloric festival. Also in the historical category are poems on Mark Anthony and Julian Apostate who were the two historical figures that most interested Cavafy.

"The Rest I will Tell to Those Down in Hades" is my favourite among the philosophical poems. In it Cavafy makes the point that what the poet can say in the nest world what he fails to say in this one but hat in Hades there will be no one to listen to him.

"Half an Hour" is the most interesting of the homoerotic poems. Here Cavafy states that "compassionate" and "magic" alcohol greatly enhance the experience of life in his gender.

[Julie · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was an odd little book. The translations seem empty and they don't carry the original poetic rhyming. The original Greek is on the facing pages, and I think if I could read Greek, I would have liked it much more. I picked it up because I like reading poetry about Ancient Greece. The "passion" poems were a little disconcerting. Not my cup of tea, I guess.