The call of the herald: Lohengrin and Kavafis
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to analyse two unedited poems of Konstandinos P. Kavafis («Lohengrin» and «The suspicion») which are dedicated to the opera Lohengrin by Richard Wagner and were written about 1898. Like other poems of his formative years such as «Second Odyssey» and «King Claudius», Kavafis offers in these two poems a transgressive version of the plot of the opera: in the first poem Lohengrin doesn't come to save Elsa and, in the second one, he is defeated by his enemy Telramund. Unlike Elsa, the protagonist of the poems is guilty of the crime of which he is accused and he doesn't deserve the salvation which his dreams promised him. These poems connect with other texts dated in the poet's maturity in which he claims his marginal status.
References
BAUDELAIRE, CH. (1885): Oeuvres complètes. L’Art romantiques, Calmann Lévy, París.
HAAS, D. (1996): Le problème religieux dans l’œuvre de Cavafy. Les années de formation (1882-1905), Presses de l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne, París.
SAVVIDIS, G. P. (1968): Anevkdota Poihvmata 1882-1923, Ikaros, Atenas.
SAVVIDIS, G. P. (1993): Krummevna Poihvmata 1877-1923, Ikaros, Atenas.
TERRADAS, I. (2014): «Lohengrin: De l’impecable judici en el drama wagnerià a la sospita en dos poemes de Kavafis», en MARTÍ, M. A., TAULÉ M. (coord.), Homenatge a Sebastià Serrano, Ediciones i Publicaciones UB, Barcelona, pp. 269-285.
WAGNER, R. (1978): Die Musikdramen, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich.
Authors retain copyright and grant the journal the right to be the first publication of the work as well as license it under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with acknowledgment of authorship of the work and initial publication in this magazine.
Authors may separately establish additional agreements for the non-exclusive distribution of the version of the work published in the journal (for example, placing it in an institutional repository or publishing it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this journal.