Cavafy worked as a clerk in Alexandria for 30 years and published his poems privately in pamphlets. His subject was the Hellenistic world, its minor kings and soldiers and lovers, rendered with an irony that hid enormous erotic heat. "Ithaka" is the most widely quoted poem about the journey's meaning (not its destination); "Waiting for the Barbarians" is the great poem about how civilizations justify their decline.

The case for it, the case against, and the rest of the canon open with Pro.