Worlding C.P. Cavafy: Desire, Media, Translation

P. Cavafy, a poet of the Greek Diaspora in Alexandria, had a profound influence on writers such as E.M. Forster, Marguerite Yourcenar, and James Merrill as well as artists such David Hockney and Duane Michaels. By examining Cavafy’s work in all its permutations (as criticism, translation, adaptation), this course introduces students to a wide range of critical approaches used in Comparative Literature, Gender Studies, and Translation Studies. The Cavafy case becomes an experimental ground for different kinds of critical methods, those that engage social-historical issues such as sexuality, diaspora, postcoloniality as well as linguistic issues such as multilingualism, translation and media. How does this poet “at a slight angle to the universe” challenge contemporary theories of gender and literature as national institution? How can studying a canonical author open up our theories and practices of translation? To what extent are translations and adaptations hermeneutic acts? What do they tell us about the receiving culture as well as the source culture? What will our own translation project be? Though this course presupposes no knowledge of Greek, students wanting to read Cavafy in the original are encouraged to take the 1-credit directed reading tutorial offered simultaneously.