Țiganiada: bucuria textului
The Gypsy Epic Poem: Textual Bliss

Summary/Abstract: Our approach follows two dimensions of the text The Gypsy Epic Poem (Țiganiada) by Ion Budai-Deleanu. On the one hand, we focus on the French Enlightenment model present in this epic of the Transylvanian writer, in the line identified by Ioana Em. Petrescu in her critical studies. The heroi-comic poem Țiganiada is the first Romanian writing to bring Enlightenment ideas into a parody, and some of the texts to which it relates are La Pucelle d'Orleans by Voltaire, Gli animali parlanti by Casti, or Vergil’s Aeneid. On the other hand, we use the French theoretical model in the analysis of the epic poem, namely the “architextural” system designed by Gérard Genette (presented in the The Architext: An Introduction). We identify the textual levels of the poem, concluding that Budai-Deleanu’s purpose was not only related to founding a literature in the Romanian language, but also to the bliss of playing with literature and textual strategies.

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