ABSTRACT
A Greek poet born in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, Constantine Cavafy was at home as an outsider: exile was the nature of his being. Consequently, when he thought of his homosexuality as an exiling force, he did not feel any the worse for it. To be homosexual was to participate even more fully in the nature of his cultural marginality. In his early years he spent five years in England and three in Constantinople. Otherwise, he spent his life in Alexandria. His poems on modern life are rooted in that city. The poems on ancient subjects are as wide-ranging as the Greek diaspora itself.
