C.P. Cavafy in the English and American Literary Scenes

"C.P. Cavafy in the English and American Literary Scenes: Authorizing the Other traces how the Greek-Alexandrian poet C.P. Cavafy achieved global recognition through the writings and advocacy of E. M. Forster, Lawrence Durrell, W. H. Auden, Joseph Brodsky, Stephen Spender, and James Merrill—writers who helped shape the 20th century English-language literary scene. Moving beyond conventional reception studies, the book introduces a model of reciprocal authorization: these influential writers propelled the steady rise of Cavafy's fame in England and America, and in the process reinforced their own identities as authors and cultural arbiters. Cavafy's poetry intersected with Forster's modernist life writing, Durrell's cosmopolitanism, Auden's and Spender's post-war explorations, Brodsky's meditations on exile, and Merrill's queer aesthetics. Drawing on published works, correspondence, and previously unseen archival material, this book reveals so far unexplored aspects of the texts and personalities involved in Cavafy's legitimation across languages, genres, and historical contexts. It also presents these literary exchanges as a case study through which to rethink canon formation and transnational cultural validation."