Some Interesting Excerpts
from W.H. Auden's introduction to Cavafy's Complete Poems (tr. Rae Dalven)
"What, then, is it in Cavafy's poems that survives translation and excites? Something I can only call, most inadequately, a tone of voice, a personal speech. I have read translations of Cavafy made by many different hand, but every one of them was immediately recognizable as a poem by Cavafy; nobody else could have written it. Reading any poem of his, I feel: 'This reveals a person with a unique perspective on the world.' That the speech of self-disclosure should be translatable seems to me very odd, but I am convinced that it is. The conclusion I draw is that the only quality which all human beings without exception possess is uniqueness..."
"Poems made by human beings are no more exempt from moral judgment than acts done by human beings, but the moral criterion is not the same. One duty of a poem, among others, is to bear witness to the truth. A moral witness is one who gives true testimony to the best of his ability in order that the court (or the reader) shall be in a better position to judge the case justly; an immoral witness is one who tells half-truths or downright lies: but it is not a witness's business to pass verdict...As a witness, Cavafy is exceptionally honest. He neither bowdlerizes nor glamorizes nor giggles."
Comments
I like what Auden says about the self-disclosure in Cavafy's poems. Cavafy's poems usually seem to me a little old-fashioned and retiring, when I hear them with a late-20th-century or early-21st-century ear. But he was writing (mostly) in the early 20th century, when the sciences of psychology and psychiatry were becoming fully formed, and his poems take on a more modern character when considered in the context of the time when he wrote them.
I disagree with Auden's comment regarding the poet acting as a moral witness but not reaching a "verdict." A verdict is, really, just a decision, a choice, a conclusion based on what one knows or believes. Poets can certainly arrive at "verdicts" in addition to offering witness -- we're not, of course, officers of the law, and any verdict we arrive at (like any act of witnessing we do) is, to use Auden's word, a moral verdict, not a legal one. I guess I'm saying that I believe there are times when it's all right, and even a good idea, to take sides.
"The 'unacknowledged legislators of the world,'" Auden wrote once, "are the secret police, not the poets."
Posted by: Lyle Daggett | August 25, 2005 07:24 PM
I think it's that Cavafy is such a declarative poet, in the deepest grammatical sense of "declarative." His view of the world is consistent; he doesn't pigeonhole; it's very much a poetry of witness. I agree with Auden that Cavafy's is not an imperative-based poetry.
Posted by: pamela | August 26, 2005 08:15 AM
I wish I had time to respond in more depth, but with school starting Tuesday I'm quite busy. Thanks to both of you for stopping by and sharing your thoughts!
Posted by: Ginger | September 3, 2005 03:18 PM