The use of history in Constantine Cavafy’s poetry

Future prospects remain inextricably bound up with the past on both an individual and collective level. As we examine our past in terms of the questions new and old and issues current and chronic which the present requires us to reframe and discuss anew, people, events and interpretations shed light on the past from unexpected viewpoints, making our relationship with History more creative and alive.

The use of history in Constantine Cavafy’s poetry

A number of commentators have attributed the enormous popularity enjoyed by Constantine Cavafy’s poetry today to the fact that we are living in an era of decline which chimes with the poetic world of the Alexandrian poet. Is that really the case? Why is Cavafy so impassioned by history and what drove him to include it in his poetry? And how can we explain his marked preference for the Hellenistic—or Graeco-Roman—era and Byzantine over the contemporary?