LUCIAN BLAGA, DINSPRE „ALEGORIILE NAȚIONALE” SPRE WORLD LITERATURE
Lucian Blaga from “National Allegories” to World Literature
Abstract: Whether we refer to Lucian Blaga’s inclusion in a hyper-canon, or we choose to focus on his relationship with European cultures or his incursions into the realm of philosophy, the contextualization of his work can only be achieved by going down a two-way street; can we refer to Blaga as a German author of Romanian expression, as he was considered to be by some of his contemporaries, or can we refer to him as Romanian Goethe, as he was named upon the release of his translation of Faust? These are just a few lines of thought the present study is based on.
Keywords: Blaga, hyper-canon, European determinants, spatial morphogenesis, Romanianism, World Literature
DRAMATURGIA MITOPOETICĂ A LUI BLAGA ȘI RESCRIEREA CANONULUI REDEMPȚIUNII
Blaga’s Mythopoetic Dramaturgy and the Rewriting of the Canon of Redemption
Abstract: Taking in consideration a broad perspective on Romanian literature and the prevalence of the Byzantine religious model, the orthodox background that provides the dichotomie Good-Bad or Beautiful-Ugly as a statement, the present paper analyses Lucian Blaga’s plays (Tulburarea apelor and Meșterul Manole) as an alternative model. The European cultural influences, the Gnostic, the psychoanalytic and aesthetic visions, the religious syncretism, the mythical and poetic, tragic and expresionst dimensions of his works are the premises of considering Blaga a rewriter of the redemption’s canon for his heroes. Firstly, the present paper proposes reading the plays through Goethe’s grind – the two souls theory (that of the day and that of the night) corresponding to the maternal and the paternal images, in relation with Blaga’s biography. On the other hand, taking in consideration Nietzsche’s theory about ancient tragedy, it analyses the rapport between apollonian and dionysian elements, but also the faustization of the heroes. If masculine characters can be related to different faustic steps, the women have both angelic and mephistophelean features – there are correspondents to the Anima, or to the Shadow, in the Jungian archetypes, to the biblical fallen angel or to the ancient Bacchanta. Nona remains a femnine Mephisto or a Sucubous that reshapes the patter of temptention into the erotic seduction while Mira can be seen as a Margareta or even as a Helena, while the church that Manole built on the foundation of her sacrifice can be read in the same grind as Euphorion – the symbol of Beauty and Perfection or of Manole-Faust’s new soul. The question if Nona and Mira can represent (or not) the Eternal Feminin and the salvation of heroes is sill valid. However, describing the Priest and Manole as dramatic (not as tragic heroes, although we can talk about the resurrection of Hybris, Hamartia, Catastrophe and a possible Nemesis), in relation with a non-Crestian, Gnostic, Bogumilic or Pantheist God (a Deus absconditus or Deus otiosus), their redemption is a non-canonic one. Although the answer that the author provides if we are talking about a damnation or about a path to redemption, from the religious point of view, the priest’s salvation is a Pantheist one, while Manole’s redemption can be seen as an aesthetic one. Both parralel with the classic possibilities of saving heroes, alternative models that rewrite the canon of redemption.
Keywords: the canon of redemption, plays, Blaga’s biography, models, heroes
FINALITATEA SIMBOLIC-MITICĂ A CREAȚIEI DE SENS ÎN CONFIGURAREA ONTO-TEOFANIEI POETICE BLAGIENE
The Symbolic-Mythic Purpose of Meaning-Creation in the Configuration of Blaga’s Poetic Onto-theophany
Abstract: In this paper, we seek to demonstrate how Lucian Blaga’s poetic universe is double layered, in the sense that one can distinguish between, on the one hand, a phenomenological plane, characterized by a pervasive sense of the inexorable passage of time and of human mortability and, on the other hand, a supramundane (noumenal) plane which, in a profane world, has become unattainable and therefore intensifies the individual’s sense of loneliness and estrangement from a sacred universe. We attempt to show how there two planes interfere, mainly through revelations of the divine (epiphanies). In our paper, we follow a poetic and stylistic approach, founded on Mircea Borcilă’s attempt to formulate a poetic typology aiming to highlight the intrinsec mechanisms of a poetic finality oriented towards the creation of meaning, therefore inscribing Blaga’s poetry on the coordinates of a symbolic-mythical pattern. The linguist’s theory draws on Blaga’s conception of the duality of metaphor (“plasticizantă” and “revelatorie”), the latter having a revelatory function and being subdivided by Borcilă according to a cultural finality into a “plastic” finality in creating poetic meaning, whose universe of reference will be modelled upon the phenomenological world, and a “revelatory” finality, whose universe of reference will be modelled upon a noumenal, transmundane world.
Keywords: phenomenological plane, noumenal plane, epiphany, symbolic-mythical pattern,“revelatory” finality
POETICA DIVINITĂȚII ÎN VOLUMUL POEMELE LUMINII
The Poetics of Divinity in the Volume Poems of Light
Abstract: The purpose of this work is to analyze, both in terms of interpretation and occurrence, the religious elements of Lucian Blaga’s volume “Poems of Light” (“Poemele Luminii”), namely the links between the figures of divinity and the individual, the latter being seen in its inferior, ephemeral condition, which in fact prevents him from identifying with the deity in question, but which does not stop him from aspiring to the absolute.
Keywords: divinity, original sin, individual, Genesis, concordances
DESPRE FUNCȚIONALITATEA POETICO-STILISTICĂ A STRUCTURII ADVERSATIVE ÎN CÂTEVA POEME ALE LUI LUCIAN BLAGA
On the Poetic-Stylistic Functionality of the Adversative Structure in Several Poems by Lucian Blaga
Abstract: This paper starts from the theoretical support of some central figures in the field of study of Lucian Blaga’s works: Mircea Borcilă and Mircea Scarlat. The first outlook that this essay will focus on the linguist and poetician from Cluj, Mircea Borcilă, with his esteemed article from 1987 (“Contribuții la elaborarea unei tipologii a textelor poetice”). The other perspective is that of Mircea Scarlat, from The History of Romanian Poetry (vol. III). In the articulation of Blaga’s poetics, the exegete finds important the adversative structure as strategies of establishing the poetic tension and polarization of the world newly created. Thus, the purpose of this essay is to emphasize/ demonstrate the fact that the poetic finality of the creation of worlds motivates even the linguistic structures, and the poetic meaning is vertebrated by, but also beyond the linguistic “material”. These mechanisms of meaning articulation through and beyond language will be followed in the poems as “Flori de mac” (from the volume Pașii profetului), “Paradis în destrămare” (from the volume Laudă somnului) and “Isus și Magdalena” from the Lucian Blaga’s unpublished poems.
Keywords: poetics, adversative structures, articulation of meaning, dialectics, metaphor, polarities
BLAGA-CIORAN: INCURSIUNI ÎN MARGINEA FIINȚEI
Blaga-Cioran: Incursions on the Margins of Being
Abstract: The following paper focuses on what lies between transcendence and reality, between self and non-self, between bounded and infinite, it focuses on that included third which contradicts Aristotelian logic and which is represented by the margin itself, by the boundary between these concepts, as it is reflected in the texts of Lucian Blaga and Emil Cioran. The role of the limit is analysed especially in those contexts in which, in addition to spatial references, the limit has a figurative meaning, that of term at the intersection of an antithetical binomial that advances the being, in Hegel’s vision, towards becoming. Consequently, the paper will refer to texts from Blaga’s poetry, where there are twenty occurrences of the word “limit” (Romanian: “margine”), six of which meet the semantic condition mentioned above, but also in Cioran’s texts that treat this matter.
Keywords: Lucian Blaga, Emil Cioran, limit, philosophy, being
FRĂMÂNTĂRILE OMULUI CREATOR ÎN „TINDA ÎNFĂPTUIRII”. MEȘTERUL MANOLE LA LUCIAN BLAGA ȘI VALERIU ANANIA
The Creator Man’s Inner Turmoil in “The Vestibule of Fulfilment.” Manole Master in Lucian Blaga and Valeriu Anania
Abstract: For a vast period of the human history, the whole universe has been perceived as creation. In a created cosmos people create following the example of divinity and “any creation has a model: the way in which gods created the Universe” (Eliade, Sacrul și profanul 25). Lucian Blaga illustrated this fact in one of his poems in his unique manner: “Through all eras/ what a clod in torment!/ Under all spheres/ Everything begets” (“Through all eras,” t. n.). Creation is the wonderful constant of existence through aeons. This paper will analyse how the creator’s condition is unfolded in two dramatic texts which belong to different literary periods of Romanian literature: Meșterul Manole by Lucian Blaga and Meșterul Manole by Valeriu Anania.
Keywords: creation, destiny, love, Master Manole, sacrifice
IPOSTAZE ALE LUI ULISE ÎN LIRICA LUI BLAGA, VORONCA ȘI SORESCU
The Manifestations of Ulysses in the Poetry of Blaga, Voronca, and Sorescu
Abstract: This study is based on the analysis of the ancient Greek myth of Ulysses, which has been reproduced in various reinterpretations over time. However, the purpose of this paper is to highlight the myth of Ulysses in the vision of three important Romanian writers: Lucian Blaga, Ilarie Voronca and Marin Sorescu. To be more specific, the work will focus on the hypostases in which the protagonist of the Odyssey is outlined in the verses of these writers. We will notice during the research that, in the case of each writer mentioned above, Ulysses acquires personal nuances with an impressive note of originality.
Keywords: hypostasis, intertextuality, myth, reinterpretation, Ulysses
JERTFA PENTRU CREAȚIE: MITUL ESTETIC LA LUCIAN BLAGA ȘI HENRIK IBSEN
Sacrifice for Creation: The Aesthetic Myth in Lucian Blaga and Henrik Ibsen
Abstract: This paper tackles the myth of creation through sacrifice as depicted in Lucian Blaga’s theatrical piece “The master builder Manole” („Meșterul Manole”, 1927) and Henrik Ibsen’s “The Master Builder” („Constructorul Solness”, 1892). The purpose of this paper is, therefore, to explore the ways in which this myth passes through different european cultures. The symbols which gravitates around these literary works become premises for a paradigmatic, psychoanalytic and anthropological analysis.
Keywords: myth, offering, creation, Blaga, Ibsen
CUM VĂ (MAI) PLACE SHAKESPEARE? DRAMATURGI ROMÂNI SUB SEMNUL BARDULUI: MARIN SORESCU, MATEI VIȘNIEC, OLIVIA NEGREAN
How Do You (Still) Like Shakespeare? Romanian Playwrights under the Sign of the Bard: Marin Sorescu, Matei Vișniec, Olivia Negrean
Abstract: Three plays, three styles, three testimonies about the artist and the space of art of performance, from the ‘80s until today, three decentralizing visions, but also tangents. Vărul Shakespeare (Cousin Shakespeare) is one of Marin Sorescu’s lesser-known and hardly-edited texts. Beyond the inter- and metatextual juggling, beyond the playful discourse and the theatrical effects, the Romanian writer emphasizes the encounter between the language of Elizabethan poetry and the local comic. Richard III visits director Vsevolod Meyerhold in Richard al III-lea se interzice (Richard III is forbidden) by Matei Vişniec. Like a self-portrait, perhaps, of the author slipped into Meyerhold’s character, the play returns – through paradoxes, theatricality, intersections between times, cultures and authorial voices – to a message as clear as possible about the artist’s freedom, a message that (proof being the current global situation) the aforementioned aspects are of a continuous topicality.
Keywords: intertextuality, Marin Sorescu, Matei Vișniec, Olivia Negrean, Romanian Romanian playwrights
EASTERN/WESTERN PLACE AND PLACELESSNESS IN SALMAN RUSHDIE’S “AT THE AUCTION OF THE RUBY SLIPPERS”
Abstract: Written in 1994, Salman Rushdie’s story “At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers”, part of the volume suggestively entitled East, West, perfectly thematizes and predicts the East-West cultural conflict which would dominate most of 20th and 21st century politics, economy, and discourse. The story deliberately blurs the dividing line between real and fictional in a magical realist text which masterfully narrates Rushdie’s lifelong identity struggle. With much irony and wit, the multicultural author dwells on what he perceives as obvious shortcomings of both the Eastern and the Western culture. The cultural discourse is permanently intertwined with the one related to ethical versus immoral behavior, and our cultural conditioning which makes us have obviously biased views towards both, as well as with the importance of spatial and cultural paradigms and senses of belonging. Rushdie’s story transposes historical and cultural realities into the realm of the fictional, drawing heavily on nowadays’ global understanding of the terms “home” and “identity”, which have become painfully fluid concepts. Place and placelessness thus beome the central axes around which the story’s culturally tinged narrative evolves.
Keywords: Salman Rushdie, cultural conflict, identity, moral degeneration, globalization, place
MIHAIL SEBASTIAN – RASISM, RENEGARE ȘI HULIGANISM
Mihail Sebastian – Racism, Renunciation, and Hooliganism
Abstract: The accusations and controversies arising from the appearance of the novel For Two Thousand Years.. are numerous. Some of the most radical are accusations of anti-Semitism and repudiation of Sebastian’s own Jewish ancestry. Through How I Became a Hooligan, Mihail Sebastian responds to these accusations by emphasizing that Jewishness is presented in the novel from a metaphysical perspective, leaving aside politics and everything that politics implies.
Key words: Mihail Sebastian, For Two Thousand Years…, anti-Semitism, Jewish
CONDIȚIILE ȘI STRATEGIILE UNUI TRANSFER DE CAPITAL CULTURAL: IMPORTUL POEZIEI AMERICANE ÎN OPTZECISMUL ROMÂNESC
Conditions and Strategies of a Cultural Capital Transfer: The Import of American Poetry into Romanian Eighties Poetry
Abstract: Within the frame of theoretical ideas of World Literature methodology, my paper is aiming to reconsider the relationship between the post-war North-American poetry and the Romanian 80s Generation of poets. Being a complex import, this article sheds light on the conditions and the strategies of this phenomenon through a contextual equation which is more important than a strictly textual one. As a major conclusion of this research, the import of North-American poetry forms, models, ideas, as well as of ideological attitudes is the result of the Romanian young authors’ emulation regarding this faraway literary model. Therefore, this relationship between a centre and a (semi)periphery does not imply a colonizing model of a major culture’s hegemony on a minor one.
Keywords: 80s Generation, North-American poetry schools, Monday Literary Circle, emulation model, strategies, ideological conditions
TRANSPARENȚA CA POSTUMANISM: O RESTAURARE A OMULUI ÎN LITERATURĂ
Transparency as Posthumanism: A Restoration of the Human in Literature
Abstract: The present study aims to encapsulate the emergence of the posthumanism (and of the posthuman, implicitly), seen as profoundly human, in Radu Vancu’s Transparența. The starting point for selecting the characteristics of such a posthumanism peculiar to Radu Vancu is represented by his literary study Elegie pentru uman: o critică a modernității poetice de la Pound la Cărtărescu. From his analysis upon the antihuman side of modernity’s project, I extract the four typologies through which literature has fought against (the social, political and artistic) dehumanization: corporeal, confessional, maximalist and sacred. Following at the same time Elegie pentru uman and Transparența I reach the conclusion that Radu Vancu uses in his novel all the aforementioned typologies in his project to restore the human. In other words, Elegie pentru uman, in its first part, is, in a way, an ars poetica, a drawing in nuce of the forthcoming novel. To this group of four typologies enlisted by Radu Vancu, I will add one more, peculiar to his writing, which emerges from the study as well as from the novel: poeticality. The fifth category looms in the novel’s writing and in the reference to Ion Mureșan within Elegie pentru uman. Ion Mureșan described literature as the immune system, while the poets are seen as the antibodies of society. Thus, the poeticality within the novel is an immune system which helps the restoration of the human, becoming a key element of the posthuman fiction in Radu Vancu’s text. The second part of the study will focus on the close reading of the function of some fictional objects in the posthuman narrative of Transparența. The selected fictional objects are the ones which are vital for the human salvation from the dehumanizing ghosts of recent history. Such fictional objects are: the body, the light, the text, the reader, Mega, Sibiu etc. Seen through the filter of a posthumanism deeply human at its core, the novel presents the story of a narrator who whishes to restore his lover and, implicitly, the whole world. To conclude in Dostoyevskian terms: humanity will save the world.
Keywords: posthumanism, posthuman, restoration, fictional objects, corporality
Index vol. XXII (1-2)
Index vol XXII (3)