| abstract |
The influence of Constantine Cavafy's (1863-1933) poetry outside of Greece has mainly proceeded through translations. Only in the last two decades has some attention been given to formal structures, such as meter and rhyme, which play a significant role in at least a third of his poems.
Cavafy shows particular ingenuity creating one form, which is found in 18 examples. It consists of visible hemistiches and a fixed syllabics structure. Cavafy built on the traditional structure of the Dekapentasyllavo or Greek folk song but allowed a flexible number of syllables, 6 or 7 for either hemistich, together with a clear caesura. In later years, Cavafy would compromise the integrity of the meaningful phrase in each hemistich but never violated his own rules of syllabics.
Syllabics look, feel and sound different when they are applied in translation. They are a hidden structure with historical antecedents. The poetry translations in this thesis adhere to the syllabics in the original and include poems in which Cavafy combined syllabics with either hemistiches or rhyme.
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