Before Time Could Change Them: The Complete Poems of Constantine P. Cavafy

Since his death almost seventy years ago, C. P. Cavafy has come to be recognized as one of the greatest poets of modern times. Elegiac, deeply sensual, and able to plumb the heart with language of immense richness, Cavafy evokes the great lost classical world of the Mediterranean with unparalleled beauty. Much of his poetry deals with love, specifically homosexual love. It speaks of human passions, the experience common to all mankind of love offered, sought, and lost. His verse is beautiful and embracing, and remains as alive and sensuous as it was when he wrote it.

Theoharis Constantine Theoharis offers a new translation, one that presents Cavafy's work in the thematic order Cavafy wanted it published and emphasizes the tenderness and intensity of the love poems. Gore Vidal's foreword offers an explication of Cavafy's world, a valuable map for readers of what will be embraced as a signal volume of world poetry.

Constantine P. Cavafy (1863-1933) was born in Alexandria, Egypt, to Greek parents. He is considered to be the greatest of modern Greek poets.

Theoharis Constantine Theoharis (left) has taught comparative literature at Harvard University since 1985 and is the author of Ibsen's Drama and Joyce's Ulysses. He is the editor of the Boston Book Review.

Gore Vidal is the author of many bestselling novels including Julian, Burr, Myra Breckinridge, and Lincoln. He lives in Italy.