Complete Poems of Cavafy

An extraordinary literary event. The collected works-including the previously unpublished final poems-of the greatest modern Greek poet, translated by the renowned critic, classicist, and award-winning author of The Lost, and published simultaneously in two handsome volumes. No modern poet brought so vividly to life the history and culture of Mediterranean antiquity; no writer dared break with such exquisite lyricism the early-twentieth-century taboos surrounding homoerotic desire; no poet before or since has so gracefully melded elegy and irony as the Alexandrian Greek poet Constantine P. Cavafy (1863-1933). Now, after more than a decade of work and study, and with the exclusive cooperation of the Cavafy Archive in Athens, Daniel Mendelsohn is uniquely positioned to reveal the full extent of Cavafy's genius. Here at last is the remarkable music of his poetry, and the rhymes, assonances, and rhythms of the original Greek that have eluded previous translators. The more than 250 works in Collected Poems cover the vast sweep of Hellenic civilization from the Trojan War through Cavafy's own lifetime. Powerfully moving, searching, and wise, Cavafy's poetry and the stories he tells-whether advising Odysseus as he sets out for Ithaca, or portraying a doomed Marc Antony on the night of his death-brilliantly make the historical personal. He also explores, with striking universality, longing and loneliness, fate and loss, memory and identity, all with a profound, humane sympathy. Including an in-depth introduction by Mendelsohn and extensive commentary that situates the work in a rich historical, literary, andbiographical context, the Collected Poems is also a revelatory window into classics and classical history. Equally exciting is the publication of The Unfinished Poems-thirty nearly complete drafts that Cavafy left behind at the time of his death, which languished in the Cavafy Archive for six decades and have never before been translated into English. These astonishing texts-as evocative and lyrical as Cavafy's finished work-and the introduction and commentary that augment them, provide a fascinating glimpse into the poet's creative process and allow the reader to take part in a major literary discovery. These splendid translations will stand as definitive, firmly establishing Cavafy's place in the pantheon of the finest artists of the modern era.Cavafy, C. P. is the author of 'Complete Poems of Cavafy' with ISBN 9780156198202 and ISBN 0156198207.