SOURCE: “The History Man,” in Journal of the Hellenic Diaspora, Vol. 10, Nos. 1-2, Spring/Summer, 1983, pp. 23-44.

In the essay which follows, Beaton urges critics to take a closer look at Cavafy's use of time and history in his poetry, arguing that the poet has a more complex and intricate method of merging history and the present than scholars previously believed.

“It was all a plot.” “I thought you liked plots … In any case, it's the plot of history. It was simply inevitable.” “But you helped inevitability along a little. …” “There's a process … It charges everyone a price for the place they occupy, the stands they take.”

Malcolm Bradbury

1.

“Plenty of poets are poets only … I am a historical poet,” Cavafy is reported to have said toward the end of his life (Lechonitis, 1977: 19). Possibly “historian-poet” would be a more accurate translation, in the context of this remark, of...