SOURCE: “Originality and Eroticism: Constantine Cavafy and the Alexandrian Epigram,” in Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, Vol. 6, 1980, pp. 131-55.

In the essay below, Caires compares and contrasts ideas in Cavafy's poetry with those typical in Hellenistic literature, revealing significant differences.

Although it has become generally accepted by critics that Constantine Cavafy (1863-1933) was influenced greatly by the Hellenistic epigram ‘in attitude, subject matter, and technique’,¹ a close comparison of that poetic tradition and Cavafy's poems reveals interesting differences as well as similarities. We know that Cavafy was familiar with Hellenistic literature and that he had a copy of J. W. Mackail's Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology² in his personal library. His reading, however, ‘was much more extensive than his library’.³ More significant than this is the evidence to be found in his poems, which range from an actual mention of ancient epigrams⁴ to obvious imitations of them...