Originality and Eroticism: Constantine Cavafy and the Alexandrian Epigram

Abstract

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’, 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 Anthology in his personal library. His reading, however, ‘was much more extensive than his library’. More significant than this is the evidence to be found in his poems, which range from an actual mention of ancient epigrams to obvious imitations of them. Cavafy's poems for the most part, however, are quite original in their tone and erotic stance when compared directly to the Alexandrian epigrams.     

‘New Art History’ vs. ‘Old History’: writing art history

Abstract

The three strange poems in English which constitute the section ‘Foreign Language Verse’ in Cavafy's Unpublished Poems present problems of authorship, interpretation and preservation. Who wrote them? What are they about? Why did Cavafy, who destroyed so much, trouble to keep them? The purpose of the present note is to provide plausible, if not definitive, answers to these three questions. The poems under discussion are, ‘Leaving Therápia’, ‘Darkness and Shadows’ and the untitled poem that begins, ‘More happy thou, performing Member’.     

'[…;] all poetry is difficult […]: the limitations of Seferis' modernist poetics

Abstract

In Greece, as in several other countries in the period between the two World Wars, one of the serious charges frequently made against Modernism was that it was impossibly bad mannered towards the reader – that it made no effort at all to communicate and that modernist poetry was ‘difficult’ or ‘obscure’. For example, as early as 1931, Kostis Palamas – the poet who had had an enormous impact on Greek literary affairs in the first half of this century – in a charming if not somewhat condescending letter addressed to George Seferis, noted that the poems of <inline-graphic href="splitsection4_in1.tif"/>were ‘cryptographic’ and stated that he was personally unable to find the ‘key’ that was needed for deciphering such difficult poetry (Palamas 1931). A few years earlier, Seferis himself had noted in his journals that whenever he tried to read Valery's poems to Palamas and his circle, they had reacted by saying that they did not have time to solve ‘puzzles’ (1975: 62).     

Book reviews

Abstract

On 29 April 1933 Cavafy died in Alexandria, the city in which he was born. There is some reason for satisfaction in this. Visitors to his apartment on the second floor of 10 Rue Lepsius knew how self-contained Cavafy's small and familiar world in Alexandria was. Rue Lepsius was home for the last twenty-six years of Cavafy's life: ‘Below, the brothel caters for the flesh. And there is the church [St. Savvas's] which forgives sin. And there is the hospital where we die.’ The first floor of 10 Rue Lepsius never catered to Cavafy's flesh, but the church forgave his sins, and he died in the hospital. He could have died in an hospital in Athens where he had gone the year before for treatment of cancer of the throat. He stayed there for a time at the Hûtel Cosmopolite, and from Kifissiá he found the sight of Hymettos and the mountains to the north ‘boring’. He returned home to die, ‘an Alexandrian of the Alexandrians’, an epitaph he very nearly composed for himself.     

Dünya Giizeli: Cavafy's folkloric Odalisque

Abstract

Cavafy's overlooked poem ‘Dünya Güzeli’ reflects the seminal influence of folklore on the early writings of the poet, an influence which significantly shaped the contours of the Cavafy canon. The poem is a sophisticated attempt to synthesize the flourishing discourse of λαoγρα??α with the fashionable literary and painterly trends of Orientalism. It thus warrants a fuller appreciation as a complex text that documents Cavafy's emerging craft and anticipates his poetic hybridisation of East and West which finds its fullest expression in Cavafy's Orientalising Hellenism.     

Cavafy's Sensual City: A Question

Abstract

In his perceptive book, Cavafy's Alexandria (Cambridge, Mass., 1976), Edmund Keeley describes how Cavafy's major poetic preoccupation during the years 1911 to 1921 was the delineation of a mythical city called Alexandria and of the Greek, or Hellenic, way oflife it represents. An essential element in this way of life is its erotic style, which is explicitly homosexual; and it is through his poems on erotic themes that Cavafy slowly and deliberately builds his image of Alexandria as the Sensual City. His method of doing this is particular. In depicting other features of his mythical city Cavafy locates his poems in that ancient Hellenistic world of which Alexandria was the centre. Most of his erotic poetry, on the other hand, speaks of episodes and relationships in contemporary Alexandria, the city in which Cavafy actually lived. Indeed, all the poetry which Cavafy wrote that is located in contemporary Alexandria deals with erotic themes to the exclusion of all others. And it is with the help of this poetry that Cavafy builds up his image.     

The Dark Philosopher and the postmodern turn: Heraclitus in the poetry of Seferis,Elytis and Fostieris

Abstract

Σ?ρμα ε?κ? κεχυμ?νων ? κ?λλιστο? κ?σμο?.

The fairest order in the world is a heap of random sweepings.

Heraclitus D.124

This article examines the ways in which the perennial philosophy of Heraclitus becomes a site where the battle between modernist and postmodernist poetics unfolds. Seferis and Elytis exploit the Heraclitean doctrines of change, unity of opposites and the all-permeating logos in a manner that allows them to conceptualize and present what Lyotard calls the ‘modernist sublime’. Fostieris mobilizes the very same doctrines within his poetry, flouting the logical law of contradiction as Heraclitus did. By using and abusing the very concepts he challenges, Fostieris interrogates the modernist quest for master narratives and universal consensus, bringing forward the illusory character of such endeavours.     

Made in France? The (re-)invention of ‘Mai 68’

Abstract

Whenever young people protest, references to the French ‘Mai 68’ are quickly made. For nearly 50 years, former activists and journalists have turned events in the Latin Quarter in Paris into the main symbol for the potential of youth to pressure governments. Western European politicians and scholars easily index ‘Mai 68’ as the positive core of ‘European Memory’. French accounts during the historical moment initially emphasized, however, the global experience of student unrest. Such interpretations understood mobilization in Mexico, Poland and Nigeria as sharing one horizon of expectation and turned worldwide anti-authoritarian student unrest into an interpretive frame. With the unfolding of events in France, the French narrative shifted from a globally experienced present to a nationally framed ‘évènement’ of the past. This shift from lived experience to memory turned the student mobilization into a succession of French historical events coined ‘les évènements de mai-juin 68’. The commemoration of French events as a paradigmatic case sidelined mobilization in other European, Asian, African and Latin American countries. Meanwhile, this nationalization gave way to a pacified Franco-centred narrative which could be juxtaposed to the European memory scale whilst neglecting its internal contradictions stemming from the diverse European and global peripheries.     

The presence of Sikelianos in the poetry of George Seferis

Abstract

Echoes of Sike1ianos' poetry can be detected in many poets, but his presence in Seferis is particularly interesting in the light of the close personal relationship which developed between the two poets from the 1940s. The poetic dialogue starts with Seferis' Στρo?η (1931) and develops continuously until his last book of poems, Tρια Kρυ?? Φoιημα&tauα (1966). Seferis, attracted by Sikelianos' linguistic richness, recreates the older poet's words ingeniously in his search for a new poetics. I examine this dialogue chronologically to show that exploring the presence of Sikelianos in Seferis' poetry enhances the understanding of the younger poet and reveals that, however great the differences in matters of technique between the two poets, their attitudes to poetry and poetics are in the end closely related.     

Cavafy in Poland

Abstract

Despite the diversity of Modern Greek poetry available in Polish translation, Cavafy's work has eclipsed the achievements of other poets, just as the shadow of his lifelong translator, Zygmunt Kubiak, has inhibited other attempts only starting to surface in the twenty-first century. While external factors have determined Modern Greek anthologies in Poland, Cavafy translation has been mostly driven by personal passion. Apart from translation, this article reflects on various reasons why the Alexandrian's work should be so attractive to the Polish literary scene. Cavafy's seminal place within Polish literature stimulates further reflection on rewriting Cavafy in Poland.     

From ‘flight and expulsion’ to migration: contextualizing German victims of forced migration

Abstract

The forced migration of twelve million Germans was central to German memory after 1945, and reflects fundamental changes in remembering the Second World War, that is, refocusing from German victims, such as expellees, to the victims of Germany in the Holocaust. Within this discourse, ‘flight and expulsion’ demonstrates Germany’s entangledness with her eastern neighbours and is turned into a European and transnational mnemonic discourse with the debates over a ‘Centre against Expulsions’ in the 2000s. This article studies ‘flight and expulsion’ between two mnemonic patterns, that is, the loss of the homeland against migration. After the collective imagination of a lost homeland in the east, the emerging Holocaust memory both marginalized ‘flight and expulsion’ in the late 1970s and introduced new patterns of commemoration. These patterns enabled a turn toward individual victimhood and the decontextualization of ‘flight and expulsion’ from the Second World War. The ‘Centre against Expulsions’ project demonstrates the coordination of the German example with other cases of forced migration and the claim for a universal commemoration of past expulsion and the condemnation of any future attempts. The case of Syrian civil-war refugees, however, reveals that such forms of decontextualization only in part transfer into humanitarian imperatives.     

From ‘Traditional’ to Collectivized Reindeer Herding on the Kola Peninsula: Continuity or Disruption?1

Abstract

The article turns critical attention to the process of Kola Sami land-use changes that had occurred in the century immediately preceding Soviet collectivization drives of the mid-1930s. Particular attention is turned to influences brought by Izhma Komi settlers at the end of the 19th century. The overall argument is that Kola Sami land-use adaptive patterns had shown signs of orienting towards reindeer-driven, market-oriented form of husbandry well before collectivization. In this sense, there are grounds to see collectivization – in its expansive strategy for ever-rising production of reindeer meat – as part of a sufficiently long period of continuous changes, rather than an abrupt disruption of ‘traditional’ patterns – the latter reading occurring as a popular theme in Kola Sami related literature. Attention is turned also to post-Soviet forms of re-orientation in land-use. Here the problematic point of intra-community tendencies for ‘hidden privatization’ of extant collective assets is discussed in its current local controversy with foreign-supported experiments in private, clan community (obshchina) reindeer-husbandry.     

Peripheral creativity: temporary cultural uses as alternatives to inefficient policies?

ABSTRACT

The article focuses on temporary and improvised cultural spaces in marginalized neighbourhoods of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. They are presented here as alternatives to current urban and cultural policies, often based on international ‘best practices’ models with exclusionary and segregating consequences. It begins with a brief overview into North American and Western European cultural planning policies. It then analyses the instability of cultural policies in Brazil, highlighting that, after a period of State recognition of bottom-up actions, administrators have turned to a contradictory planning scheme that mixes outdated and recent international trends, leading lower-income inhabitants to self-build their own cultural spaces. Unlike many products of today’s global strand of ‘tactic urbanism’, Rio’s temporary spaces are politically charged territories of resistance. An example is ‘Cine Taquara’ – an improvised cinema and debate forum that illustrates how, in an unequal city, such initiatives can do more towards social inclusion than ready-made models.     

The Great War,the child’s body and the American Red Cross

Abstract

This article examines the child-relief activities of the American Red Cross in Hungary in the aftermath of the Great War, offering an insight into the workings of humanitarianism in interwar Europe. A close look at this one Central European ‘playground’ of transatlantic intervention helps us understand the logic and the underlying political, economic and ideological motives behind Allied humanitarian aid to ‘enemy’ children. Analysis of the ways in which the war’s aftermath affected children, their bodies and their relief throws light on the relationship between violent conflicts, children in need and humanitarian intervention. The article looks particularly at the role of the child’s damaged body and its photographic representation, making it what Cathleen Canning calls an ‘embodied experience of war’. Exploration of the humanitarian discourse around the suffering child helps us identify the humanitarian reaction to the unforeseen social consequences of wartime confrontation. The article argues that the harmed body of the ‘enemy child’ served to mobilise transnational compassion that challenged the war’s deeply anchored ‘friend–foe’ mentality. The child turned into a means of configuring and translating human suffering beyond ideological and political borders. At the same time humanitarian child relief helped to further consolidate asymmetric international power relations.     

The Theme of the Voyage in Voltaire's Contes Philosophiques

Abstract

J'ai passé toute ma jeunesse à opposer en moi deux parties de moi, qui peutětre ne demandaient pas mieux que de s'entendre. Par amour du combat, j'imaginais des luttes et je divisais ma nature.

—André Gide, Journal (1893)     

Into the arms of dolls: Japan’s declining fertility rates,the 1990s financial crisis and the (maternal) comforts of the posthuman

Abstract

Japan’s 1990s financial crisis proved psychically traumatic for many men, their trauma exacerbated by decades of falling fertility rates and related sociospatial attenuation. The crisis disrupted a range of heteronormative practices that had stabilized post-war gendered identities, especially marriage and stay-at-home motherhood. Some men consequently began seeking comfort in the company of youthful-looking, large-format, hyper-feminized commodity-dolls of which there are two psychical kinds: ‘infantile’ dolls used largely by precariously positioned young men for comfort and play; and expensive ‘Oedipal’ silicone sex dolls associated with Japanese salarymen whose jobs had become less secure. Both have worked emotionally for two reasons: dolls are evocative of the maternal – the basis of intersubjective (be) longing/Eros; and the dolls are owned, ownership allowing pleasure and control more securely to intertwine. Following the oil crisis and the de-industrialization that followed, men in racially and economically privileged terrain across the US and Europe turned to similar kinds of commodity dolls for comfort, if for differently sexed and racialized reasons. Japanese men’s doll markets therefore speak to certain particular and general conditions of masculinity and geopolitical economic trauma.     

A cultural justice approach to popular music heritage in deindustrialising cities

ABSTRACT

Deindustrialisation contributes to significant transformations for local communities, including rising unemployment, poverty and urban decay. Following the ‘creative city’ phenomenon in cultural policy, deindustrialising cities across the globe have increasingly turned to arts, culture and heritage as strategies for economic diversification and urban renewal. This article considers the potential role that popular music heritage might play in revitalising cities grappling with industrial decline. Specifically, we outline how a ‘cultural justice approach’ can be used within critical heritage studies to assess the benefits and drawbacks of such heritage initiatives. Reflecting on examples from three deindustrialising cities – Wollongong, Australia; Detroit, USA; and Birmingham, UK – we analyse how popular music heritage can produce cultural justice outcomes in three key ways: practices of collection, preservation and archiving; curation, storytelling and heritage interpretation; and mobilising communities for collective action.     

A civilized nation: Japan and the Red Cross 1877–1900

Abstract

The history of both the Red Cross and the Japanese Red Cross is based on a teleological and eurocentric narrative which is strongly shaped by national histories and focused on persons. To assume 1863 as the founding date of the Red Cross is highly debatable, considering that most national relief organisations were renamed ‘Red Cross Societies’ only in the 1880s. In this Japan is no exception, since first a Haku-Ai-Sha (Philanthropic Society) was founded in 1877 and then turned into the Japanese Red Cross Society in 1887. Japanese actors must be regarded as intrinsically motivated and active participants in the Red Cross movement who saw an ideal and a model in the Euro-American ‘way of civilisation’ and humanity. It has taken about 30 years to turn the Haku-Ai-Sha in Japan into a humanitarian society which is accepted both at home and abroad and, with its 728,507 members in 1900, which constituted the largest Red Cross Society in the world.     

A Note on the Results of Recent Excavations at Camber Castle,Sussex

Abstract

A significant number of clay tobacco pipes in the style of the Ottoman ‘chibouk’ can be found in museums and private collections on the islands of Malta and Gozo. Indeed the smoking of these pipes remains a folk memory with the majority of senior citizens. It became obvious that very few of these artefacts were made locally and that the Maltese, being at the geographical centre of Mediterranean culture, might have received their imports from anywhere.

In 19th-century Tunisia (Malta’s nearest North African neighbour) three-quarters of the European population were Maltese migrants. Therefore, this study set out to discover whether Tunisia was a source of supply.

In Tunis it became obvious that although clay tobacco pipes had turned up in local excavations, little attention had been paid to them and a fuller examination was welcomed. A by-product of this examination was to establish a locally made Tunis pipe, although little evidence was found for trade to Malta in that particular commodity.