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The Language of Irony (Towards a Definition of the Poetry of Cavafy)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2016

Nasos Vayenas
Nasos Vayenas*
Affiliation:
King’s College, Cambridge
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Extract

The first time André Gide heard the name of Cavafy was during his visit to Greece, in April 1939. He was talking to Dimaras, Theotokas and Seferis when the conversation turned to the poet of Alexandria. Gide asked what kind of poetry Cavafy wrote. ‘Lyrique’, Dimaras replied. ‘Didactique’, corrected Seferis. Later on Dimaras read ‘The City’ to the group. After the end of the reading Gide turned to Seferis and said: ‘Je comprends maintenant ce que vous vouliez dire par le mot didactique…’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies , Volume 5 , 1979 , pp. 43 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 1979

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References

1. George Seferis, (Athens, 1977), p. 116.

2. Tellos Agras, XIV (1933), 759-63.

3. D. Nikolareizis, (Athens, 1962), pp. 173-8.

4. Yannis Dallas, (Athens, 1974), pp. 129-30.

5. George Seferis, 3rd ed., I (Athens, 1974), p. 403.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid., p. 330.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid., p. 62.

10. Ibid., p. 209.

11. Ibid., pp. 403-4.

12. Ibid., p. 347.

13. Ibid., p. 38.

14. Ibid., p. 376.

15. Eliot, T. S., Selected Essays (London, 1972), p. 145.Google Scholar

16. I, p. 197.

17. Ibid., pp. 348-9.

18. Ibid., p. 344.

19. Ibid., p. 377.

20. Ibid., p. 431.

21. Ibid., p. 442.

22. Ibid., p. 38.

23. Ibid., II, pp. 261-2.

24. Ibid., I, p. 347.

25. Ibid., p. 342.

26. Selected Essays, p. 286. The italics are mine.

27. Ibid., p. 287.

28. The Sacred Wood (London, 1972), p. 129.

29. Cleanth Brooks believes that all poetry is ironic for the simple reason that every element in a poem undergoes a modification of meaning as a result of the pressure of its context. See his ‘Irony as a Principle of Structure’, in Zabel, Morton, ed., Literary Opinion in America (New York, 1951), pp. 729-41.Google Scholar

30. Selected Essays, p. 288.

31. ‘We took it, the holy relic, and carried it elsewhere. / We took it, we carried it in love and in honour.’ C. P. Cavafy, Collected Poems, tr. E. Keeley and P. Sherrard (London, 1975), p. 152.

32. I, p. 454.

33. ‘For most pious Jovian let us give our prayers’. Collected Poems, p. 101.

34. I, p. 454.

35. Cavafy’s feelings about Christianity seem to have been so complicated that any unambiguous answer to the question of whether or not he was a Christian would be simplistic. For a survey of the problem, see G. P. Savvidis, K. Π. (Athens, 1963), and in Savvidis, (Athens, 1973), pp. 115-20.

36. I, p. 456.

37. Ibid., p. 360.

38. Ibid., p. 359.