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The paper underlines those aspects of Creangă’s work in connection with his biography. This relation was analysed by different critics in many ways, from its negation to its excessive use. In Amintiri din copilărie, Creangă is seen both as a character and narrator. Some of his tales or short stories reveal Creangă’s inner nature; he can be seen in his characters or his characters borrow something of his way of being.
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The present study aims not only to introduce in a synthetic manner Gheorghe Grigurcu’s poetry, but also to problematise the relationship between poetry and the author’s critical attitude. After his debut, in 1968, Grigurcu published several tens of volumes of poetry, criticism and literary history, to all these directions of his creative spirit adding in the last years the preoccupation for aphorism. A moralist, one that distinguished himself after 1989 through his outstanding involvement, in the first line of the attitude directed towards revisioning literary hierarchies, Grigurcu only apparently writes notation poetry, mainly visual and metaphorical, refined and manneristic. What I wish to demonstrate in this study is that the two hypostases – the inclement critic and the refined poet – do not reveal a rupture, but a complementarity, based on an ethical outlook on writing. Writing as biography (considering that Grigurcu doesn’t seem to have another life except for his ideas) and as ethics (the experience of wiriting becomes his only existence), this is the message implicitly conveyed through Gheorghe Grigurcu’s work.
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The first-hand experience of living in an oppresive society cannot be without consequences, especially in the case of a reflexive and visionary spirit. Dumitru Radu Popa is a Romanian auhor whose narrative writings reflect life by creating fictional dystopian worlds inspired from his experiences. This paper aims at exploring some of his writings included in the Skenzemon! volume, published in 2005, in order to highlight their dystopian nature. Our analysis will lay emphasis both on the features that Radu Popa’s universe has in common with the universe put together by the classical narratives in dystopian fiction, and the ones making his works stand out.
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The present book, a collection of older articles, opens solemnly and programmatically with texts about Călinescu and Vianu, underlining the tradition of the author. The local-universal dilemma persists in our culture. Martin seems to admit that literature is „from and about” a certain geographical and cultural space.
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This paper is analyzing Teodor Dună latest poetry book „obiecte umane”. The author of this article is stressing that through an absolutely organic construction, each chapter diminishes a rigid and superficial corporality that masks the world's fatuous voids
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The celebration of Professor Eugen Todoran, a remarkable personality of Romanian culture, a century after his birth, is an opportunity to reflect today, in all earnestness, upon the need for role models whose activity is a moral and professional landmark. An intellectual of high standing, with a sound knowledge of literature, philosophy, literary theory, folklore and ethnology, one of the great founders of the West University of Timișoara, Eugen Todoran is always a necessary presence.
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As a representative of the Romanian culture, through his work Lucian Blaga can always be placed in the spiritual patrimony of humanity. Consequently, the present study aims to bring to light the biographical landmarks of a Romanian elite figure who besides his literary works was also prolific in the field of philosophical thinking by elaboration of a very complex and original philosophical system.
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The article deals with the works of non-classical forms of Romanian poet George Bacovia. Having made his début as a poet-symbolist, he sets up as the author of new poetic forms in the Romanian literature at the turn of the 20th century, discovering artistic means of modernism. Versification analysis of lyrical works of G. Bacovia showed that his non-classical poems are built on the basis of homomorphism and heteromophism. G. Bacovia used five homomorphic forms among which are: three-stress dolnik (Dk3), four-stress dolnik (Dk4), five-stress dolnik (Dk5), three-stress taktovik (Tk3) and four-stress taktovik (Tk4). Dominating become dolnik constructions and both in pure form and in combination with other kinds of tonics. The most often used forms become three-stress dolniks, which, for the most part, become a systematized or “normalized” forms. The poet builds up such forms on the basis of trisyllable classical meters. Dolnik form proper with dynamic and flexible rhythm, in which inner lines modulations inter-ictus intervals are available, can be observed in four-stress dolniks. To the regularity of Dk4 testify almost constant one-syllable anacrusis, predominance of female clauses and availability of rhyming and strophic organization of the poetic work. Five-stress forms of dolnik appear sporadically only in combination with other meters, mostly with Dk4 and only in not fully stressed form. Taktovik is a less used meter. It is mostly part of polymorphic structure at the level of micropolymetria or is directed to the pure tonic. Taktovik is built on the basis of shattered disyllabic meters.
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The Brașov Literary School - a philological and literary movement initiated after several favorable conjunctions in Brașov in the '80s - has evolved from a large literary cenacle in an industrial city to a complex phenomenon manifested in several main directions. The abundance of contributions to this dossier has defined the organization of materials in two parts: texts that discuss the programmatic character of the present-day School, texts dedicated to books signed by school members, followed by portraits, evocations and / or memories, and, of course, a consistent section of the illustrative texts - literature of the Brasov School.
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An unpublished piece of prose in the style of Romanian writer Urmuz has rekindled my interest in absurdist writings and/or absurd cases which, in Romanian culture, are associated with the likes of Urmuz, Caragiale or Ionesco. I will ponder here, with the aid of the aforementioned authors and also by comparing their work with Lewis Carroll’s, the absurdist spirit of certain Romanian literary and dramatic pieces, or only of certain scenes therein, to propose a typology of the absurd as distinct from satire (the latter often a companion piece to the former). Mine is an investigation that crisscrosses texts, cultures and ages more than it offers an in-depth analysis by recourse to concepts and theories; asks questions more than it offers answers; plays more than it does sober research; and laughs – lest it should weep.
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Travel narratives are complex accounts that include a significant layer of factual information – related to the geography, history, and/or the culture of a particular place or country – and a more personal layer, comprising the author’s unique perceptions and rendering of the travel experience. In the last thirty years of transition from a communist to a democratic society, the Romanians have been free to travel to any country they choose; however, during the communist period, especially during the 1980s, travelling to Western, capitalist countries, such as France, Great Britain, Canada, or the United States, was rather limited and fraught with complex issues. Still, Romanian travelers during that time managed to visit the United States, on diplomatic- or businessrelated exchanges, and published interesting travel stories of their experiences there. Therefore, this essay sets out to capture, from a comparative perspective, the impressions and encounters depicted by Radu Enescu in Between Two Oceans (1986), Ion Dinu in Traveler through America (1991) and Viorel Sălăgean in Hello America! (1992), with a view to analyzing how their descriptions and perceptions of two major urban spaces, New York City and San Francisco, reflect the complexity of the American social and cultural landscape in the late 1970s and mid-1980s.
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Constantin Mateescu made himself known in Romanian literature predominantely after 1970 through the large number of published volumes. His activity in the field of literature happened due to a complete change in his life after some historical events which marked his destiny, akin to the Second World War. When it comes to his prose, it can be noticed that he uses some techniques from the interwar period, thus critics from the '70s considered it to be a handicap, however it was a mere rejection of the style of writing promoted by official authorities. A good part of his prose stems from the life stories of acquaintances, family or his own experience, which is why we can state that memoirs make a great part of his creation. The year 1989 offers writers, once the restraining censorship of the national institutions fell, the chance to put their memories forward without any restraints. This is the moment when Constantin Mateescu publishes his first memoirs book: The stork nest where he nostalgically captures the years of his early childhood which were marked by the influence of his grandparents and the historical events that changed his entire being. His grandparents from his mother's side, of Macedonian heritage, came to Vâlcea from Greece after the persecution of people of other ethnicities due to their refusal of abandoning their language and culture passed down from generations before, representing the first example of historical influence of a nation on the destiny of a family. The writer is among the few whose life was so enriching in the terms of historical events: this however changed the destiny of both his family and himself.
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Our paper is focused on Andrei Grigor’s book published by Lucian Chisu after A.Grigor’s death and its mirror-like strategies by means of which the double-faceted identity is depicted: the ‘ego-graphical identity’ and the ‘ideo-graphic’ one – both of them used in a critical discourse mirroring post-communist Romanian literature and its torments. The study analyzes the book collecting Grigor’s editorials written in the years after the fall of the communist regime, a single-authored mirror-like writing in which the biographical course and scriptural identity engage in a clear, sharp dialogue. The aim is to define a double reading effect embedded into a Self-oriented narrative: a collective history of Romanian literature portrayed in its journey from a communist totalitarian culture towards a “free” one, with literary, cultural and political insertions; then, the legitimation of an implicit “identity pilgrimage” of the writer in dialogue with his Time, with peculiarities stemming from his own existential and ideological path, in permanent relation to contemporary literature. Aside from the latent literary question, which subtextually directs the existential and cultural choices of the writer, the dialogue with his own Self and with Romanian literature also marks the becoming of a problematic identity projected onto the inside of his own critical texts. Andrei Grigor also tackles the complex issue of the relation between the aesthetic criterion of establishing value and the ethical value, all being related to the political status that writers should (or not) assume. Thus, in Grigor’s view, the writer’s status brings an ethic value specific to literature and art, in his quest for the exemplary power of the literary text itself. Andrei Grigorʼs editorials are constructed on two levels, as questions and answers, and they turn into a Self-speaking discourse, where the bio-graphemes are embedded into this fascinating mixture.
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In this article I will analyse the way in which the Nouveau Roman was imposed and received in Romania between 1967 and 1968. During this time, the main works of Alain Robbe-Grillet, Nathalie Sarraute, Michel Butor were translated and brought to market in a high number of copies, all with lengthy prefaces. In 1967 Alain Robbe-Grillet visited Romania where he met his audience, while at the same time, the Romanian media were debating the topic at length. Among the advocates of the Nouveau Roman were Romul Munteanu and Nicolae Balota, whereas among the contestants, there were Vladimir Streinu and Adrian Marino, whose interventions had a consistent anti-modern character (not simply conservative).Together with structuralism, the phenomenon of ‘popularisation’ of the Nouveau Roman can be considered one of the main French cultural transfers, its implementation being an integral part of a significant episode of the modernity war which characterized Romanian modernity. The importance of the Nouveau Roman during the so called cultural liberalisation period is synchronous with the anamnesis of the inter-war literary modernity started by the writers of the 1960s, emphasising a clear intention to recover the time lost during Stalin’s era through a connection to the West’s extreme modernism. Last, but not least, as in any totalitarian political regime – and not only – the political aspect plays an important role in the way these novels were received, which skewed, influenced or even silently encourage the phenomenon (revolutions on paper hardly ever turn into real ones), highlighting the illusory nature of this written mirage, that came to Romania during a transition period: between Stalinism and Protocronism.
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This article presents the instances of the image of Greece in the Romanian poetry, during one and a half century. There are comments regarding texts of important poets such as Mihai Eminescu, Lucian Blaga, Ion Barbu and Nichita Stănescu and there are pointed out the aesthetic and stylistic differences in using some common motives such as antique Greece, historical decline, the god Pan, the plentiful error (Ptolemy). Being marked by these strong poetic personalities, the image of Greece in the Romanian poetry is kaleidoscopic.
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In this paper, I carry out an analysis of the novel The Story of the Great Brigand by Petru Cimpoeșu from the archetypal criticism perspective. The author’s own confessions and interpretations suggested in his interviews give substance to the premises of the proposed study: the detective story scenario is the narrative pretext for the development of a complex philosophical discourse with metaphysical implications. The author’s écriture shows awareness of the existence, in the background, of some archetypes (in the Jungian development of this concept), which the author is programmatically striving to express through narrative means, while the novel spectacularly stages, simultaneously, the passage from archetype to anarchetype, in Corin Braga’s terms. I follow the diverging meanings of the central metaphor, the empty grave, which is taken up at the various levels of the narrative; at the same time, it functions as a metaphor at the metatextual level, an overlapping that confers the novel an exemplary status in the aesthetic modernity paradigm.
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Vitoria Lipan is the heroine of The Hatchet novel, published in 1930 and written by the Romanian writer Mihail Sadoveanu. A representative character of Romanian literature, Vitoria Lipan – who is a simple, uneducated, yet intuitive peasant woman – reveals a way of thinking and acting that leads her to success. She lives in a traditional, rural society, where a simple woman could hardly be given the opportunity to find her deceased husband by herself, by retracing his death itinerary and exposing the culprits like a detective. Nevertheless, in this short mythical realistic novel we can identify several inner strategies that enable this simple mountain woman to succeed. Our study focuses on the internal psychological structure of the heroine and tries to relate her to the archetypal image presented by the author Clarissa Pinkola Estés, in her study on stories and myths of the wild woman archetype.
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We proposed here to read this dramatic text with a new vision, that of the relationship of each character with the collective alterity, the social state, the political, the relationship with the other, in the form of the dream of building, as an attempt to explain the difference between this text and other replications of the mythical scenario: in Lucian Blaga, the master focuses in a simple, at first glance, image of the potentiality of an entire universe, simultaneously with his builder; Lucian Blaga seeks to „crowd the world in a sign”.he myth of creation at L. Blaga depends on the folk version of the myth of the sacrifice, and then the legends, carols or ballads related to this myth, with their European spread, revealed that we possess, as a people, some of the most elaborate and most valuable of artistic perspective variants of the ballad of the handsome craftsman of the Balkans
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