C. P. Cavafy as an Egyptiote

Abstract

In contradistinction to Anglophone criticism's airbrushing of all things Egyptian/Arab from the iconic image of C. P. Cavafy, this essay dwells on the poet as an Egyptiote. An Egyptiote orientation, it is argued, variously informs given poems and prose texts in his later years. Probing Cavafy's knowledge of Arabic, the essay demonstrates his affinities and solidarities with Egyptians under colonial duress as witnessed in the choice of subject matter and in the intertextual Greek-Egyptian folkloric resonances in his poem “27 June 1906, 2 P.M.” Analyzing how the poem's tropes and temporality riposte to those in extraliterary discourses about the colonial incident it depicts, the essay reads “27 June 1906, 2 P.M.” in relation to other Cavafy poems that reveal an Egyptiote “transculturated” poetics. A set of prose texts—letters, essays, interviews—by Cavafy, it is demonstrated, vest Egyptiote literati with an intercultural literary agency of acquainting the Greek public with the outlines of Egyptian Arabophone literature and the Arabophone Egyptian literati with something of their own Greek language production.