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"Cavafy's messages are still relevant today"

Professor Michael Tsianikas of Flinders University, South Australia speaks to Odysseas Kripotos about his Lecture, "Cavafy - From Paganism to Christianity".

Constantine P. Cavafy
Constantine P. Cavafy Source: Wikimedia/Public Domain

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By Odysseas Kripotos



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A significant number of Cavafy's poems refers to the passage from Paganism to Christianity, a cosmohistorical change that lasted more than five hundred years. It is this long period where almost everything is constantly and irrevocably changed and tested and societies, as Hellenism is profoundly altered. No other poet focuses on this period as long as Cavafy.

His views may be either historical or aesthetic, or both, without taking a clear position, leaving the reader to make conclusions on his own. One thing is however certain: Cavafy puts us in serious thinking that is not at all irrelevant to our time. 

The central point of reference, however, is the revelation of the psychic shiver, the uninhibited and unmistakable work of consciousness, in its attempt to give meaning to its existence.*

*Press Release Synopsis

 

 


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