Complete Poems

An extraordinary literary event: Daniel Mendelsohn€s acclaimed two-volume translation of the complete poems of C. P. Cavafy€"including the first English translation of the poet€s final Unfinished Poems€"now published in one handsome edition and featuring the fullest literary commentaries available in English, by the renowned critic, scholar, and international best-selling author of The Lost.
No modern poet so vividly brought to life the history and culture of Mediterranean antiquity; no writer dared break, with such taut energy, 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 Cavafy (1863€“1933). Whether advising Odysseus on his return to Ithaca or confronting the poet with the ghosts of his youth, these verses brilliantly make the historical personal€"and vice versa. To his profound exploration of longing and loneliness, fate and loss, memory and identity, Cavafy brings the historian€s assessing eye along with the poet€s compassionate heart.
After more than a decade of work and study, Mendelsohn€"a classicist who alone among Cavafy€s translators shares the poet€s deep intimacy with the ancient world€"gives readers full access to the genius of Cavafy€s verse: the sensuous rhymes, rich assonances, and strong rhythms of the original Greek that have eluded previous translators. Complete with the Unfinished Poems that Cavafy left in drafts when he died€"a remarkable, hitherto unknown discovery that remained in the Cavafy Archive in Athens for decades€"and with an in-depth introduction and a helpful commentary that situates each work in a rich historical, literary, and biographical context, this revelatory translation is a cause for celebration: the definitive presentation of Cavafy in English.