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Mihai Eminescu |
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Mihai
Eminescu (1850-89) was born in Botosani, the seventh
of eleven children. His childhood
was happy, and for a while Mihai was a model student. But
at 10 he ran away from the military-style gymnasium, and
at 14 again left school, joining up with travelling actors
before taking a job as a copyist at the Botosani county
administration. In Cernauti he restarted his education,
and at 16 wrote his first poem on the death of a close teacher.
Again he joined up with actors, and again he picked up his
education, studying in Vienna, where he fell in love with
the beautiful but married Veronica Micle. His great gifts
encouraged
the Juminea
Society to send him to Berlin, but Eminescu broke off
his studies, travelled to Konigsberg and then returned to
Vienna, where he was appointed librarian and then inspector
of schools. In 1876, his mother died, and Eminescu became
a journalist, continuing to write
the greatest of Romanian poetry until 1883, when he
complained of headaches and became certifiably insane. In
great distress and semi-paralyzed, Eminescu spent the remaining
five years in asylums
and hospitals, writing almost nothing. Nonetheless,
though the short working life left large portions of his
creations unfinished and unpublished, Eminescu gave Romanian
poetry its modern shape. Like much of Europe, Romania
looked towards France
and Germany in the first half of the nineteenth century,
and Eminescu drew on Kant
and Schopenhauer
for his thought, reworking their ideas in historical
sagas, an intense nationalism and tender broodings on
love. Beneath these expressions lay a mythical cosmology
and subjective pantheism, and Eminescu also added an historical
perspective that viewed contemporary Romania as a falling
away from a crystalline and luxuriant pre-Roman society
he called the Dacian.
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Romanian
poetry to W.W.II |
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Romanian poetry in the first half of the nineteenth
century assimilated the classicism and romanticism of contemporary
Europe: Dimitrie
Bolintineanu, Grigore
Alexandrescu and Vasile
Alecsandri. Poetry after Eminescu divided into two great
streams. European influences continued in the work of Alexandru
Macedonski and Ion
Minulescu who developed the imagery and some of the
obsessions of symbolism. The second movement was more populist,
using simple language to express local themes and national
interests: George
Cosbuc, Octavian
Goga, and Stefan
Iosif. The unification of Romania after W.W.I., and
a fledgling democracy opened the country to outside influences,
encouraging a great
flowering in diverse forms: the dreariness of Moldavian
towns in George
Bacovia, the folk world of the Balkans in Ion
Barbu, praise of the cosmic orders in Lucian
Blaga, the combined metaphysics and realism of Tudor
Arghezi, neoclassicism in Ion
Pillat, folk iconography in Adrian
Maniu, and messianic nationalism in Aron
Cotrus.
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Modern Romanian
poetry |
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Many of the more experimental
Romanian poets emigrated to France, where they became
leading exponents of of surrealism, dada and committed poetry:
Tristan Tzara,
Benjamin
Fondane, Ilarie
Voronca, Gherasim
Luca,
Gellu
Naum, Camil
Baltazar and Ion
Vinea.
W.W.II forced others abroad — Vintila
Horia,
Stefan
Baciu — and more into silence: Ion
Caraion, Geo
Dumitrescu,
Constantine Tonegaru,
Radu
Stanca, Ion
Negoitescu and Stefan
Doinas. Then came political conformity under the 1947
Communist regime. But the more liberal 1960s saw a return
to the diversity for which Romanian poetry is famous. Nichita
Stanescu wrote a poetry of the everyday that escaped
ideology. Ioan
Alexandru moved from tragic naturalism to religious
harmony. Ion Gheorghe
combined primitivism with sophisticated language games.
Mircea
Ivanescu employed stream of consciousness techniques,
and Leonid
Dimov dream imagery and verbal music. Marin
Sorescu dealt in parody. Sorin
Marculescu and Ana
Blandiana aimed at lyrical purity, while the occupation
of Ileana
Malancioiu, Mircea
Dinescu, Dorin
Tudoran and many others was ethical matters and social
protest. The new generation that followed the end of communism
includes Mircea
Cartarescu, Florin
Iaru and Ion
Stratan, who are as contemporary as any European.
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Reading the Romanian |
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A peculiarity of Romanian poetry is its language,
which is a Romance language, close to classical Latin but
with some Slavonic words. There are several free Internet
sites to help: travlang,
dictionare,
romanian
resources, mylanguageexchange
and romanian
lessons. For commercial courses consider dictionare,
unforgettable,
multilingual,
elstead,
almudo,
or worldwidelearn.
Evocative photographs of Romania can be found at Eminescu's
native land, and the following provide a brief history:
rotravel,
domino,
romanian kingdom,
and romania.org.
Romanian speakers will enjoy: romanian
voice, romanian
dolls, akaa,
yamada,
parthenon,
romanian
diaspora, eminescu.petar,
scriitori.liternet,
teora, humanitas,
literatura,
poezie, agonia,
scriptor and cimec.
Translations of Eminescu's poetry into European languages
are online at virtualave,
jeanloup,
thebans,
luceafarul, far-kuan,
arlindo_correia,
and as anthologies listed at pigeon,
netstore,
amazon,
mystery
bookstore and eminesca
cd. The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and
Poetics (1993) has a good introduction to Romanian poetry,
and these critical studies may be useful: V. Ierunca's Litterature
Roumaine (1956), C. Ciopraga's La Personnnalité
de la Litterature Roumaine (1975) and V. Nemoianu's
The Real Romanian Revolution (1991). Older anthologies
of Romanian poetry include D. Tappe's Romanian Prose
and Verse (1956), R. McGregor-Hastie's Anthology
of Contemporary Romanian Poetry (1969) and S. Avadenei
and D. Eulert's 46 Romanian Poets in English (1973).
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