"Anna Komnina": Ambitious, Vicious & Deceptive Politics are Timeless & Timely
This issue of Cinematic Poetry for the Power Hungry features a Cavafy poem titled "Anna Komnina," a Byzantine princess. This poem was written more than 100 years ago; it features a politician who lived 1000 years ago, yet the deception & ambition & political machinations of this obscure episode in Byzantine history sums up our current political climate.
In her autobiography, the Alexiad, Anna Komnina, the Emperor's first-born, piously laments the loss of her husband. But Cavafy tells us her only lament was losing the throne to her brother, despite her machinations and plots. It's a story of shameless self-promotion, fake news, and political intrigue. Kind of like 2020.
The slideshow below features the poem in the original Greek (left pages), and in English translation (right pages), a few verses per slide, followed by the entire set of images, and the entire poem. Click on the image for a pop-up.
Coda: A long time ago I started pairing Cavafy poems with sets of images, a process I termed "cinematic poetry." Think of it as storyboarding for a micro-movie whose script is the poem.
Cavafy poems feature succinct descriptions of spaces, places, and objects--the things I care about and design for.
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