Analysis of The Town

Constantine P. Cavafy 1863 (Alexandria) – 1933 (Alexandria)



You said: “I’ll go to another land, to other seaways wandering,
Some other town may yet be found better than this,
Where every effort of mine is a writ of guiltiness;
And my heart seems buried like a corpse. My mind---
How long is it to be in this decay confined?
Wherever I turn, wherever I lift my eyes,
The blackening ruins of my life arise,
here I have spent so many years spoiling and swquandering.”

“You’ll find no other places, no new seas in all your wanderings,
The town will follow you about. You’ll range
In the same streets. In the same suburbs change
From youth to age; inn this same house grow white.
No hope of another town; this is where you’ll always alight.
There is no road to another, there is no ship
To take you there. As here in this small strip
You spoiled your life, the whole earth felt your squanderings.”


Scheme ABBCCDDA XEEFFGGB
Poetic Form
Metre 1111101011101100 110111111011 1100101110111 01111010111 111111010101 010110101111 01001011101 111111011001 1111010111011100 0111010111 0011001101 1111111111 11101011111101 111110101111 1111110111 1111011111
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 841
Words 160
Sentences 10
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 8, 8
Lines Amount 16
Letters per line (avg) 40
Words per line (avg) 10
Letters per stanza (avg) 322
Words per stanza (avg) 78
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

48 sec read
89

Constantine P. Cavafy

Constantine P. Cavafy was a Greek poet who lived in Alexandria and worked as a journalist and civil servant. He published 154 poems; dozens more remained incomplete or in sketch form. His most important poetry was written after his fortieth birthday. more…

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