This thesis deals with the reception of Kalvos by Greek criticism and consists of ten Chapter in three parts. The first chapter refers to the positive reactions of European critics to Kalvos's first scholarly and poetic appearances in public. Chapter two discusses the reception of Kalvos by nineteenth century criticism, expressed primarily by Heptanesian literati and the Romantics of the Old Athenian School. The third chapter examines the treatment of Kalvos's poetry by Kostis Palamas and the contribution of the latter to the development of Kalvian Studies. Chapter four assesses the legacy of Palamas as regards the critical approval of the odes by his contemporary men of Letters, and those critics who challenged or opposed Palamas's views and questioned or denied the value of Kalvos.

No description available.

No description available.

Building upon C.P. Cavafy’s overall poetics with which the existing scholarship has dealt, this dissertation attempts to further define the Alexandrian poet’s art of making poetry by locating its ever-increasing global appeal in the notion of the “fragment” as a performance genre. The concept of the fragment repositions and redefines Cavafy’s poetry as a text that “does things” and as a result, it opens the gateway to performativity. Thus, through fragmentation Cavafy’s poems cease to be proper texts and are endowed with the potential of political acts. The interaction of poetry with music is indeed the key to understanding the fluidity of the Cavafean poetry and its subsequent undeniable appeal worldwide, which the interaction of poetry with music makes visible. Viewed as a sonorous envelope, a fantasy space, a psychotextual discourse or an activity based upon musico-textual mechanisms, music opens the way to being viewed as a socio-cultural site of subjectivity formation that ignores all kinds of boundaries, both temporal and spatial. This dissertation thus argues for a sui generis Cavafean poetics of fragmentation in both thematic and stylistic terms that allows for ample experimentation and freedom not only on the poet’s behalf, but also in terms of its reception. Moreover, this project further tests the validity of such an argument at the intersection of poetry and music when one fuses into another in the form of the art song. By scrutinizing how Cavafy’s poetry has been put into music by various composers by means of a variety of approaches, including music analysis (e.g., melodic, harmonic, textural, semiotic, music psychology), psychoanalysis, and cultural theory, it aims to shape a “map” of various musical receptions of such a highly fragmented oeuvre as the Cavafean. To this end, it focuses on several case studies of music renditions ranging from that of the composer Dimitri Mitropoulos during the days of High Modernism (publicly presented in 1927 in Athens, Greece) through Peter Schat’s For Lenny at 70 (for tenor and piano, 1988), Lou Harrison’s Scenes from Cavafy (a work composed for gamelan orchestra, 1992), Yannis Papaioannou’s The Funeral of Sarpedon (2000), Ned Rorem’s Another Sleep: Waiting for the Barbarians (2002) and John Tavener’s Tribute to Cavafy (first performed in 2005 at Birmingham, UK), to the contemporary composer Kostas Rekleitis’ Cavafy Cycle (2012). By entering the deep, almost invisible territories where one art fuses with another, this thesis aspires to contribute to a better understanding of such a complex poetry as the Cavafean one, by offering a fresh perspective and mode of investigation onto an overlooked dimension of Cavafy’s work. It thus ultimately calls for a renewed interest for further interdisciplinary explorations, not only in the reception of Cavafy in music, but also of Cavafy in more complex artistic settings and forms, especially, that of performance.

The present thesis examines the way E.M. Forster, Lawrence Durrell, W.H. Auden, Stephen Spender, Joseph Brodsky, and James Merrill appropriated C.P. Cavafy in writings that were disseminated and consumed amongst culturally dominant literary circles, and which eventually determined the Greek-Alexandrian poet’s international reputation. I aim to contribute a new perspective on Cavafy, by evading the text-based tradition of reception studies, and proposing an alternative method of discussing the production of Cavafy's canonical status. Inspired by Pierre Bourdieu's sociological theory, I view literary canonization as involving a variety of factors at play beyond creative achievement: in particular, relationships of 'authorial consecration' whereby writers create and circulate cultural capital through their power to legitimize other artists. The critical and fictional texts I analyse perform readings of Cavafy's poetry alongside imaginative portrayals of the poet's life and personality. I take this complementary relationship - between the image of the poet each author projects and their reading of his work - as a starting point to explore the broader ideas of aesthetics and authorial subjectivity that inform the renderings of Cavafy generated by prominent literary figures. Rather than passive recipients of influence, these figures are considered as active agents in the production of 'Cavafy narratives', appropriating the poet according to their own agendas, while also projecting onto him their own position within the cultural field. Eventually, Cavafy becomes a point of insight into the multiplicity of networks and practices involved in the production of cultural currency; in turn, the study of the construction of Cavafy's authorial identity sheds light on the cumulative processes that have defined the way the poet is read and perceived to the present day. This duality of perspective is essential to a study concerned with the cultural contexts framing the poet's steady rise to international fame throughout the 20th century.

No description available.