On the Path(os) to Romanian Postmodern Logos
On the Path(os) to Romanian Postmodern Logos

Author(s): Lucia Ispas, Marius Nica
Subject(s): Romanian Literature, Theory of Literature
Published by: Universitatea Petrol-Gaze din Ploieşti
Keywords: Postmodernism; realistic convention; ethos pathos logos; metaliterature;
Summary/Abstract: Radu Petrescu’s novel What One Can See hides, under the thick and often hard to digest crust of a realistic writing, enough elements that can propel it into postmodernism (unborn at the time of its conceiving). Following his own tradition, pre-established with his diaries, the author covers his theoretical ideas about literature within the pages of a comfortable novel, conceived in the manner proposed by Balzac and G. Cǎlinescu. This meta-novel unveils the mechanisms by which logos can be disseminated (and disguised) throughout pathos. The article deals with the particular way in which pseudo-realism becomes postmodernism mettant en abîme the position of the author (the Michelangelo or Manole the Builder complex as well as the concept of theophagy), the implication of the reader in the process of writing (and the inert hand) and the dialectics of the look (as a tool used in order to achieve the harmonization of the elements, both in literature and in real life).

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