Caminares aporéticos cavafianos

Abstract

The act of walking in Constantine Cavafy’s poetry often implies walking in circles, restrictively and bound exclusively to return; it sometimes represents a symbol of a frustrating repetition while, in some cases, it represents a wistful regression. Be as it may, both meanings converge in a concept I call aporia which, in Cavafy’s case, implies the absence —intended or unintended— of an alternative path. In the first case, we observe a desperate, redundant, rather anxious, and distressing walk, as illustrated by the poems ʻThe Windowsʼ, and ʻThe Cityʼ; different altogether from other relatively contemporary authors of his, e.g., Walt Whitman, who portrayed this act of displacement and movement in their texts as a practice for conquering freedom. Conversely, in the second case, the Alexandrian poet’s regressive walk implies a trigger not only for introspection but also for re-encountering sad and pleasant experiences; the nostalgic walk, walking to return —in turmoil— to those life experiences that one cannot swerve from, as depicted by the poems ʻAt the Same Placeʼ, ʻIn Front of the Houseʼ, and ʻAt the Streetʼ. It is the return to the homeland, to the abstract Ithaca of his most renowned poem—the return to the origin, to those things that have entirely defined him.