2014 Articles

Forms of Cosmopolitanism: C. P. Cavafy at 150 years.

Van Dyck, Karen

What is it, I wonder, about our increasingly cosmopolitan, multicultural and multilingual cities, whether New York or Athens, that needs a poet like Constantine P. Cavafy? What are the best ways to learn and go on learning from his poetry? How can we reconcile public legacies with the privateness of literature? As we mark the 150th anniversary of this seminal Alexandrian poet, I want to consider what is missing from accounts of Cavafy and cosmopolitanism that focus on public history, rather than the more private experience of reading poems.