SOURCE: “Constantine Cavafy and the Greek Past,” in The Creative Experiment, Macmillan, 1967, pp. 29-60.

In the following excerpt, Bowra discusses Cavafy's unusual relationship to Greek culture and his life in Alexandria, arguing that his best poetry attests to his individuality.

The Greek poet, Constantine Cavafy, who was born in 1868 and spent most of his time in Alexandria until his death in 1933, presents a special case, both as a man and as a poet, of one whose situation cut him off from much of contemporary life and from any immediate or easy connection with a civilised past. His case is not unique, and the United States has more than once shown that it cannot always give to its writers a secure sense of an established background, with the result that they have settled in Europe and tried to make themselves at home by re-establishing broken ties with old traditions...