Body reminiscent. Twenty one poems of C. P. Cavafy
Yannis Stoyas (ed.)
Ghent: MER, 2016. 48 p.
This booklet embodies an idea which arose while in preparation of the exhibition ‘Heads and Tails – Tales and Bodies: Engraving the Human Figure from Antiquity to the Early Modern Period’ (Pushkin Museum, Moscow): that C. P. Cavafy would be an ideal companion for better understanding, or rather appreciating, the exhibition’s narrative. This was planned to work like a vademecum either to the visitor of the exhibition or to the reader of the catalogue, making even more palpable some of the incorporated subtle allusions through the selected verses of the poet — here marvelling at a beautiful face, there reminiscing at the touch of a much-desired body. Against the canvas of mythical or historical figures woven by the coins and artworks displayed, one may notice selective affinities with certain portrayals in Cavafy’s poems, either in the stories recollected or with the bodies remembered with affection.
