Editing Constantine P. Cavafy (section)

==Biography==

Cavafy was born in 1863 in [[Alexandria]] (then [[Ottoman Egypt]]) where his [[Greek people|Greek]] parents settled in 1855; he was baptized into the [[Eastern Orthodox Church|Greek Orthodox Church]], and had six older brothers.{{efn|Two more elder siblings, a sole sister and a brother, had died in infancy.}} Originating from the [[Phanariots|Phanariot]] [[Rum Millet|Greek community of Constantinople]] (now [[Istanbul]]), his father was named Petros Ioannis ({{lang|el|Πέτρος Ἰωάννης}})—hence the ''Petrou'' [[patronymic]] (<small>[[Genitive case|GEN]]</small>) in his name—and his mother Charicleia ({{lang|el|Χαρίκλεια}}; née Georgaki Photiades, {{lang|el|Γεωργάκη Φωτιάδη}}).<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1">{{Cite web |date=11 August 2017 |title=Κ. Π. Καβάφης - Η Ζωή και το Εργο του |trans-title=C. P. Cavafy - His life and Work |url=http://cavafis.compupress.gr/bio3.htm |access-date=27 December 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170811000915/http://cavafis.compupress.gr/bio3.htm |archive-date=11 August 2017 |language=Greek}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Tsirkas |first=Stratis |title=Ο Καβάφης και η εποχή του |publisher=Kedros |year=1983 |isbn=978-960-04-0875-1 |pages=47–48 |language=Greek |trans-title=Cavafy and his era}}</ref> His father was a prosperous merchant who had lived in [[England]] in earlier years and held both Greek and [[UK|British]] nationality. Two years after his father's sudden death in 1870, Cavafy and his family settled for a while in England, moving between [[Liverpool]] and [[London]]. In 1876, the family faced financial problems due to the [[Panic of 1873|Long Depression of 1873]] and with their business now dissolved they moved back to Alexandria in 1877. Cavafy attended the Greek college "Hermes", where he made his first close friends, and started drafting his own historical dictionary at age eighteen.{{Efn|The dictionary was compiled with the help of books that Cavafy borrowed from public libraries; it eventually remained incomplete, stopping at the word "Alexandros".}}{{Sfn|Daskalopoulos|Stasinopoulou|2002|pp=17-22}}<ref name=":0" />

In 1882, disturbances in Alexandria caused the family to move, though again temporarily, to [[Constantinople]], where they stayed at the house of his maternal grandfather, Georgakis Photiades. This was the year when a revolt broke out in Alexandria against the Anglo-French control of Egypt, thus precipitating the [[1882 Anglo-Egyptian War]]. During these events, [[Bombardment of Alexandria (1882)|Alexandria was bombarded]], and the family apartment at Ramleh was burned. Upon his arrival in Constantinople, the nineteen-year old Cavafy first came in contact with his many relatives and started researching his ancestry, trying to define himself in the wider Hellenic context. There he started preparing for a career in journalism and politics, and began his first systematic attempts to write poetry.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" />

[[File:Constantine Cavafy with cane and hat in hand Photograph dated 1896 Alexandria Egypt.jpg|thumb|314x314px|Cavafy in 1896.]]
In 1885, Cavafy returned to Alexandria, where he lived for the rest of his life, leaving it only for excursions and travels abroad. After his arrival, he reacquired his Greek citizenship and abandoned the British citizenship, which his father had acquired in the late 1840s.{{Sfn|Daskalopoulos|Stasinopoulou|2002|pp=19, 26}} He initially started working as a news correspondent at the journal "Telegraphos" (1886), he later worked at the stock exchange, and was eventually hired as a temporary, due to his foreign citizenship, clerk in the British-run [[Egyptian Public Works|Egyptian Ministry of Public Works]]. A conscientious worker, Cavafy held this position by renewing it annually for thirty years (Egypt remained a British [[protectorate]] until 1926). During these decades, a series of unexpected deaths of close friends and relatives would leave their mark on the poet. He published his poetry from 1891 to 1904 in the form of [[Broadsheet|broadsheets]], and only for his close friends. Any acclaim he was to receive came mainly from within the Greek community of Alexandria. Eventually, in 1903, he was introduced to mainland-Greek literary circles through a favourable review by [[Gregorios Xenopoulos]]. He received little recognition because his style differed markedly from the then-mainstream Greek poetry. It was only twenty years later, after the Greek defeat in the [[Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922)]], that a new generation of almost [[nihilism|nihilist]] poets (e.g. [[Karyotakis]]) found inspiration in Cavafy's work.

A biographical note written by Cavafy reads as follows:

{{quote|I am from Constantinople by descent, but I was born in Alexandria—at a house on Seriph Street; I left very young, and spent much of my childhood in England. Subsequently I visited this country as an adult, but for a short period of time. I have also lived in France. During my adolescence I lived over two years in Constantinople. It has been many years since I last visited Greece. My last employment was as a clerk at a government office under the Ministry of Public Works of Egypt. I know [[English language|English]], [[French language|French]], and a little [[Italian language|Italian]].<ref>{{cite book
 | last =Woods
 | first =Gregory
 | title =A History of Gay Literature, the Male Tradition
 | publisher =Yale University Press
 | date = 1999
 | isbn =978-0-300-08088-9 }}</ref>
}}

In 1922, Cavafy quit his high-ranking position at the department of Public Works, an act that he characterized as liberation, and devoted himself to the completion of his poetic work. In 1926, the Greek state honoured Cavafy for his contribution to Greek letters by awarding him the Silver medal of the [[Order of the Phoenix (Greece)|Order of Phoenix]].<ref name=":1" /> He died of [[cancer of the larynx]] on 29 April 1933, his 70th birthday. Since his death, Cavafy's reputation has grown; his poetry is taught in school in [[Greece]] and [[Cyprus]], and in universities around the world.

[[E. M. Forster]] knew him personally and wrote a memoir of him, contained in his book ''Alexandria''. Forster, [[Arnold J. Toynbee]], and [[T. S. Eliot]] were among the earliest promoters of Cavafy in the English-speaking world before the Second World War.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Talalay |first1=Lauren |title=Cavafy's World |url=https://newsletters.kelsey.lsa.umich.edu/fall2001/cavafy.html |website=Kelsey Museum Newsletter |publisher=The Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, University of Michigan |access-date= 28 February 2022}}</ref> In 1966, [[David Hockney]] made a series of prints to illustrate a selection of Cavafy's poems, including ''[[In the dull village]]''.