Teodora Dumitru

L’enjeu de cet ouvrage est d’identifier, de décrire et d’offrir une explication plausible aux tensions et aux contradictions engendrées par l’indécision épistémologique qui gouverne les synthèses historico-littéraires roumaines de la première moitié du siècle précédent: d’une part, la préservation d’une vision essentialiste et finaliste du fait littéraire (la théorie classique des genres littéraires, par exemple) et, d’autre part, l’intérêt croissant pour les nouvelles théories de l’évolution de la littérature, i.e. pour une approche antifinaliste et anti-essentialiste.
Le premier chapitre – « Entre marxisme et darwinisme… » – surprend le contexte idéologique particulier (théorie darwinienne de l’évolution vs. dialectique marxiste), contexte qui forge l’idée d’évolution dans les premières étapes de la pensée du jeune militant socialiste G. Ibrăileanu (notamment l’idée d’une évolution sociale et politique graduelle – de l’état bourgeois vers l’état socialiste). Un concept poursuivi par G. Ibrăileanu, en ce qui concerne ses données fondamentales – rapports des classes/ milieux/ entités ethniques –, dans la représentation du fait littéraire (œuvres, auteurs, directions, courants).
« Classe et individu… » suit le fil du précédent chapitre : le critique littéraire ex-socialiste G. Ibrăileanu passe du concept marxiste de classe, à travers le concept de milieu, vers le concept du spécifique ethnique ou national, toujours en promouvant l’idée d’une littérature et d’un auteur représentatifs (de la classe, du milieu, de son peuple etc.) et, en même temps, tentant de garder le juste milieu entre les vues d’un Ferdinand Brunetière (qui pensait qu’un écrivain représentatif pour une époque ne pouvait être qu’un esprit médiocre) et la nécessité idéologique du moment réclamant un auteur représentatif qui soit, en même temps, un grand écrivain, voire un génie.
« Sélection et mutation… » s’attache à deux concepts-clé appartenant à deux critiques littéraires roumains en renom, qui ont beaucoup influencé – par leurs positions antagoniques – le climat et la scène des idées de la culture roumaine de la première moitié du XXe siècle. Il s’agit du concept de sélection littéraire, proposé par G. Ibrăileanu selon le modèle darwinien de la sélection naturelle, et celui de mutation des valeurs esthétiques, illustré par E. Lovinescu à partir du concept de mutation du biologiste Hugo de Vries. Témoignant d’une pensée critique et historiographique en voie de quitter l’essentialisme traditionnel des valeurs littéraires, ces concepts relèvent, de manières différentes et cependant complémentaires, d’approches idéologiques cohérentes, dont les similarités et les divergences systémiques ont été souvent manquées ou sous-interprétées.
« E. Lovinescu et la théorie des genres littéraires… » met en évidence les tensions épistémologiques qui jalonnent l’œuvre critique et historiographique de l’auteur roumain : d’une part, la préservation de la théorie des genres littéraires comme entités préétablies et figées, émanée de l’idéalisme allemand (la poésie lyrique exprimant l’attitude subjective du poète, tandis que „la prose littéraire” – l’attitude opposée, objective, les deux genres suivant a priori des voies opposées), d’autre part, la promotion des concepts ayant un fort potentiel anti-essentialiste, comme le synchronisme et la mutation des valeurs esthétiques.
« La modernité : évolution ou révolution ?... » aborde l’attitude critique et historiographique de E. Lovinescu, auteur de l’Histoire de la littérature roumaine contemporaine (1926-1929), à travers deux synthèses fondamentales du modernisme littéraire européen – De Baudelaire au surréalisme (1933) de Marcel Raymond et La structure de la poésie moderne, (1956) de Hugo Friedrich. L’idée de modernité est ici disputée en tant que relation dis-continue avec ce qu’on nomme, généralement, tradition. En essayant de „synchroniser” le champ de la littérature et de la recherche littéraire roumaine avec les acquis occidentaux de l’époque, Lovinescu importe des idées et des perspectives étrangères (et surtout françaises) pour décrire et conceptualiser des réalités autochtones dépourvues d’une tradition littéraire solide. D’où l’aspect de bricolage ad hoc, ingénieux, paradoxal, et voire contradictoire, des solutions qu’il met en place. Malgré ses affinités pour le génie et la tradition française, l’attitude du critique-historien E. Lovinescu s’avère, en tant que pulsion différenciatrice, plus proche de la vision discontinue de la modernité réclamée par Hugo Friedrich que de la vision unificatrice, continuelle, de Marcel Raymond.
Le chapitre « G. Călinescu et la dualité de la poésie… » dispute de la conception théorique de la poésie du critique roumain G. Călinescu et propose en tant que solution surmontant l’une de ses plus difficiles dichotomies – d’après Andrei Terian, la dichotomie d’entre la poésie comme langage «liturgique» et la poésie comme langage «hiéroglyphique» – le concept d’orphisme, présent chez son contemporain Marcel Raymond. Prétexte pour étudier ensuite la capacité de l’orphisme, item spécifique au genre lyrique, de fonctionner aussi comme prototype de „l’énoncé performatif” (le concept de J.L. Austin) – „par ces mots, moi, le poète, j’institue un monde” –, i.e. la capacité de se transférer du domaine du littéraire et du genre lyrique à la philosophie du langage commun et à la théorie de la communication.
« Le paradigme kuhnien entre critique et histoire littéraire… » rapproche la typologie du critique et de l’historien littéraire (réduits à des types heuristiques) de la théorie de la validation scientifique développée par Thomas S. Kuhn dans La Structure des révolutions scientifiques (1962 ; 1970)  et dans ses écrits ultérieures. L’enjeu collatéral de cette entreprise est de montrer que, même si les théories de l’art et de la littérature réclament l’autonomie méthodologique et conceptuelle de leurs acteurs-créateurs par rapport au discours scientifique, ces disciplines s’avèrent bien plus perméables à une herméneutique via l’histoire des idées scientifiques qu’elles ne le pensent. Les concepts-clé de cette mise en balance sont la notion de changement de paradigme (paradigm shift) et l’incommensurabilité des langages impliqués dans ce changement. Un aspect connexe de la discussion porte sur la pertinence d’un remplacement des paradigmes aussi radical dans le domaine du littéraire que celui présumé par Kuhn vis-à-vis des sciences et, simultanément, la question de l’irréversibilité des langages (paradigmes) révolus dans la littérature et surtout dans les théories du littéraire. C’est par rapport à ce concept controversé d’incommensurabilité que la typologie bipolaire du critique et de l’historien littéraire est donc mise en avant. Le chapitre a une disposition agonale (thèse, suivie d’une antithèse et d’une synthèse ouverte, négociable). Thèse : la critique repose sur une vision concurrentielle et souvent dialectique des valeurs du jour par rapport aux valeurs du passé (et notamment d’un passé récent), valeurs qui, par le simple fait d’être combattantes, s’avèrent « commensurables », tandis que l’histoire littéraire, purifiée de ces contingences concurrentielles, arrange ses valeurs dans des suites incommensurables, et donc non-agonales. Antithèse : La critique, cherchant à promouvoir le nouveau, situe tout le reste sous le spectre d’un advenu irrecouvrable dans le nouveau langage, c'est-à-dire dans l’incommensurable kuhnien. Le travail de l’historien se place dans la « science normale » (il est un « puzzle solver »), tandis que le critique, confronté avec les « anomalies » de la littérature prise sur le vif, est plus proche du « paradigme tester » propre à la « science extraordinaire » et au changement paradigmatique. Le critique favorise et augmente les prémisses de la rupture (pensée divergente), tandis que l’historien, habité d’une pensée convergente, construit un organisme, une architecture du passé qui ne saurait pas admettre les césures et les sauts propres à l’incommensurable. Le critique fait la révolution, quant à l’historien, il en fait la lecture post factum.
« Formes de validation du nouveau... »  questionne la possibilité d’un parallèle entre la méthodologie de la validation scientifique et la validation esthétique opérée par la critique littéraire. Mon propos et de montrer que la réception d’une innovation littéraire et sa validation subséquente comme valeur littéraire (esthétique) se rapproche de la validation des théories scientifiques (selon la dialectique vérité/ erreur, la nouveauté étant perçue – en première instance et rapportée à un système de valeurs donné – comme erreur).
En conclusion, les concepts et les auteurs choisis exposent les impasses et les solutions contingentes à une vision  historico-littéraire fondée sur l’idée que les „biens symboliques” – i.e. les productions littéraires – peuvent être quantifiées en termes essentialistes de nécessité catégorielle et/ ou générique et, en même temps, d’entités doués d’une autonomie imprescriptible, sous les auspices d’une évolution imaginée comme non-téléologique.

In this essay I investigate the influence exerted by the German philosophers Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776-1841) and Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) on the first theory of poetry in the history of Romanian literature. It was launched by the literary critic Titu Maiorescu (1840-1917). In a study titled „Romanian Poetry. A Critical Inquiry” (1867), which is among the first Romanian works of literary criticism and the first one dedicated to poetry, Maiorescu introduces concepts and theories formulated by Herbart and Schopenhauer. He combines these theories in a particular way, with the intention of producing a theory of poetry that is as solid as possible. An important contribution made by Maiorescu to the theorization of poetry is the attempt to fortify or complete Schopenhauer’s theory about the lyrical genre—an eminently idealistic one—with resources provided by the “realist” Herbart—one of the first thinkers who aimed at providing psychology with a scientific foundation. Herbart introduces, for example, concepts from the physics of that period (Newtonian mechanics, electricity, etc.) and from mathematics to define or quantify psychological experiences, which he seeks to describe as measurable entities, governed by laws just like other phenomena of the physical world. Thus, inspired by Schopenhauer to determine the “object” of poetry – namely “feeling” –, Maiorescu defines “feeling” in terms of Herbartian psychology: as an experience located in the “consciousness,” resulting from a “struggle” of “representations,” and which possesses an “intensity” that is superior to other experiences. Thus, the first theory on poetry in the history of Romanian criticism, one indebted to idealism and romantic poetics, also draws inspiration from science.

Abstract: In the first part of this essay I propose a synthesis on how art (and the discourse that accompanies it, including literary theory) has modified its “object” over the centuries. If for the classical theories of art and even for some produced in romantic period the object of art is the man-in-general, the theories of the 19th century (I will privilege those active on the territory of Romania) progressively particularize the object of art. This becomes either the “citizen” of a nation (in the case of Romanian literature, the object of literary art should have been the national hero or the “Romanian” in general), either the majority class (the peasantry), or the class considered the most active or favored by evolution or by the historical moment (the bourgeoisie in the first part of 20th century, workers from the moment Romania entered the zone of Soviet influence, after the Second World War), or groups or social entities not previously represented in art/ literature. In a second part of the essay, I focus on the case illustrated by the problem of the representation of Roma in literature (particularly in Romanian literature) and its correlates.



Keywords: nation, peasantry, Jewish people, Roma people, Schopenhauer, Vasile Alecsandri, Titu Maiorescu, Duiliu Zamfirescu, H. Sanielevici, Garabet Ibrăileanu, Eugen Lovinescu

In this essay I look at how E. Lovinescu - as author
of „The History of Contemporary Romanian Literature” - use the typology of the "realist and/or social" poet,
as it is presented in the 19th chapter of the third volume of the „History”, „The Evolution of Lyric Poetry”,
published in 1927. On this occasion, the critic handles a particular form of the concept
of 'realist'/'realism', which, in the field of poetry, at least through the authors investigated in the mentioned chapter, appears as a sequel to Romanticism (in fact as a pseudo-"realism").
„Realism” also appears here in a loose relationship - unnecessary, but of some affinity - with the 'social', that is, with the poet's quality of representing the voice of a collectivity,
of a group or a class.

În eseul de față abordez un caz particular al traumei economice, angoasa locativă, a dificultății obținerii unei locuințe, așa cum se reflectă ea în literatura română publicată după 2008, anul crizei financiare globale. Angoasa locativă se complică uneori sau se prelungește la unii scriitori români din postcomunism, ca Lavinia Braniște, într-o traumă identitară, a dorinței nesatisfăcute de a aparține unei comunități, de a construi un cuplu, de a ține de o "patrie", de un colectiv securizant oarecare. Alteori, ca la Ruxandra Novac, trauma economic-identitară mutează într-o nouă formă de adaptare epigenetică: dezvoltarea unui interes pentru non-apartenență, pentru transnațional, pentru un global difuz, pulsiunea apartenenței apărând ca o formă obsoletă de control exercitat de tradiție asupra individului. Tânărul arhitect implicat în afaceri imobiliare private, personajul emblematic al lui M. Duțescu, e modelul antagonic/ complementar al personajelor sau al vocilor literaturii lui Braniște și Novac: construiește spații ale captării individului într-o logică a locuirii/ deținerii de proprietăți imobiliare pe care acestea fie nu și-o permit (Braniște), fie o resping (Novac).


In this essay I address a particular case of economic trauma, housing anxiety, the difficulty of obtaining
housing, as reflected in Romanian literature published after 2008, the year of the global financial crisis. The housing
anguish is sometimes complicated or prolonged in some post-communist Romanian writers, such as Lavinia
Braniște, into an identity trauma, of the unfulfilled desire to belong to a community, to build a couple, to hold on
to a "homeland", to a certain securing collective. At other times, as with Ruxandra Novac, the economic-identity
trauma moves into a new form of epigenetic adaptation: the development of an interest in non-belonging, in the
transnational, in a diffuse global, the urge to belong appearing as an obsolete form of control exercised by tradition
over the individual. The young architect involved in the private real estate business, M. Duțescu's emblematic
character, is the antagonistic/ complementary model of the characters or voices of Braniște and Novac's literature:
he constructs spaces of the individual's capture in a logic of inhabitation/ ownership of real estate that they either
cannot afford (Braniște) or reject (Novac).

The purpose of this essay is an attempt to map the energetic and (peri)thermodynamic background of
theories about poetry from the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, also included
in the horizon of interest of Romanian critics. In the present essay, I trace the route by which the literary critic E.
Lovinescu arrives at his unique stylistic and conceptual approach to the poetry of G. Bacovia from the article he
dedicates to him in 1922 and from the sequence reserved for the same poet in the study Poezia nouă (1923), both
capitalized, further, in his literary histories. It is about the interpretation or even the definition of Bacovian poetry as
an “expression” of “a neurosis,” as a “poetry” of “(deeply animalistic) kinesthesia,” as an “almost direct expression” of
a “sick kinesthesia” or, even more abruptly, as “secretion of a sick organism, as moisture is the tear of damp walls.”

Key words: thermodynamics, energy, neurosis, kinesthesia, G. Bacovia, E. Lovinescu, I.L. Caragiale, Claude Bernard,
Léon Dumont, Ernest Dupré

The purpose of this essay is to map the energetic and (peri)thermodynamic background of some theories of
poetry from the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, also included in the horizon
of interest of Romanian critics. In the present essay, I trace the route by which the literary critic E. Lovinescu arrives
at his unique stylistic and conceptual approach to the poetry of G. Bacovia from the article he dedicates to him in
1922 and from the sequence reserved for the same poet in the study „Poezia nouă” (1923), both capitalized further in
his literary histories. It is about the interpretation or even the definition of Bacovian poetry as an “expression” of “a
neurosis,” as a “poetry” of “(deeply animalistic) kinesthesia,” as an “almost direct expression” of a “sick kinesthesia”
or, even more abruptly, as “secretion of a sick organism, as moisture is the tear of damp walls.”
Keywords: thermodynamics, energy, neurosis, kinesthesia, G. Bacovia, E. Lovinescu, Claude Bernard, Léon Dumont

Abstract: In this essay I bring to attention the event of the recent discovery of an unpublished diary of the RomanianJewish literary critic, writer, and diarist Mihail Sebastian (1907-1945). This diary—written between 1930 and 1931—
contains fragments that were published in the press of the author’s time (in 1932), but also some passages that
remain unpublished until today. All the passages related to the author’s Jewish origins and his anguish of living in
a “closed and defined circle,” a metaphor for the real or symbolic ghetto, are unpublished. Also, these unpublished
passages expose his strategy for creating and publishing prose fiction: since they are the work of a Jewish author,
the characters would be impossible to conceive of as anything other than “Jews,” but, upon publication, the author
would delegate them a non-Jewish identity. This strategy would allow Sebastian’s “Jewish-Romanian” “truths” to be
communicated publicly, but without explicitly assuming them as such. The information provided by the unpublished
fragments of this diary—nowhere expressed so firmly and transparently in author's writing—reconfigure how
Sebastian’s entire oeuvre is to be interpreted, from the first prose fiction intended for publication to his (private)
diary, partially published after 1989. I will show in this essay, following unpublished passages from this journal
between 1930 and 1931, that all of Sebastian’s writings—both those that apparently ignore the theme of Jewishness
and those that approach it head-on—are permeated by the same anguish: the anguish of living and writing in a
“closed circle,” a feeling heightened by the increasingly anti-Semitic atmosphere in 1930s Romania. I also prove that
Sebastianʼs strategies of obscuring his Jewish identity and indirectly communicating his “truths” as a Romanian Jew
are coherent and well connected with his strategies of direct communication of the same “truths.”

Cette étude porte sur la manière dont le critique littéraire E. [Eugen] Lovinescu (1881-1943) décrit le parcours poétique du poète roumain Octavian Goga (1881-1938), né à Rășinari, un petit village de Transylvanie ‒ à lʼépoque partie de lʼEmpire austro-hongrois.
Admiré dès son début de 1905 pour son éthos solidariste, nationaliste, messianique et préoccupé par le destin du paysan roumano-transylvain et par sa condition dʼesclave moderne („rob”) détenue dans la sociographie de lʼEmpire, le poète Goga nʼaboutit pas ‒ jusquʼà la veille de „La Grande Guerre” ‒ à satisfaire les attentes de Lovinescu. Ses poèmes des années 1910, touchés par des influences symbolistes et surtout par le modèle romantique fournit par le „poète national” M. Eminescu, mais aussi marqués dʼune xénophobie croissante et hostiles à la grande culture européenne, estimée trop éloignée des valeurs rurales proches au poète, sont considérés moins originales. En plus, ce sont des poèmes emparés dʼune  philosophie devenue trop divergente par rapport à la philosophie de plus en plus philo-urbaniste et libéralo-industrialiste du critique littéraire (et du sociologue en devenir) E. Lovinescu.
Le contact avec la poésie de Goga conduit Lovinescu à méditer aussi à des concepts et théories concernant la poésie/ le genre lyrique, surtout dʼorigine idéaliste/ romantique.

In this essay I show that the picture of universal extinction in the poem Satire I of the Romantic poet Mihai Eminescu (1850-1889) is deeply and rigorously inspired by a theory of thermodynamics from the 1870s, more precisely by the theory of universal "death" launched in the second part of 19th century by physicists William Thomson and Rudolf Clausius. My interpretation addresses competing interpretations, from literary-centric scenarios claiming that Eminescu's representation of the extinction is inspired by or approaches models of the mythological-Christian tradition or universal literature, to scenarios that also launch hypotheses in the field of science, but other than thermodynamics. I am also interested in producing here, in the alternative, a critique of the thesis-widespread not only in popular culture but also in the most serious academic circles-according to which many of the discoveries of modern and even contemporary science would have been "announced," "contained," or "coded" in literary fiction, mythology, religious narratives etc., from ancient times (Indian, Judeo-Christian mythology etc.) to modern authors.

In this essay I show that the picture of universal extinction in the poem Satire I of the Romantic poet Mihai Eminescu (1850-1889) is deeply and rigorously inspired by a theory of thermodynamics of the 1870s, more precisely by the theory of universal "death" launched in the second part of 19th century by physicists William Thomson and Rudolf Clausius. My interpretation addresses competing interpretations, from literary-centric scenarios claiming that Eminescu's representation of the extinction is inspired by or approaches models of the mythological-Christian tradition or universal literature, to scenarios that also launch hypotheses in the field of science, but other than thermodynamics. I am also interested in producing here, in the alternative, a critique of the thesis-widespread not only in popular culture but also in the most serious academic circles-according to which many of the discoveries of modern and even contemporary science would have been "announced," "contained," or "coded" in literary fiction, mythology, religious narratives etc., from ancient times (Indian, Judeo-Christian mythology etc.) to modern authors.

In this paper I investigate how the interpretation of the Romantic poet Mihai Eminescu' work verifies the European transition from a rationalist conception of "genius" (according to which "genius" is a phenomenon subjected to the laws of nature/ society) to an irrationalist conception, where "genius" becomes a supernatural, transcendental, miraculous or inexplicable phenomenon.

The Present study puts forth a novel way of approaching the literary and criticaltheoretical fields by drawing on the constructal theory set forth by Romanian-American physicist Adrian Bejan in a series of articles and books written specifically for a lay readership, focusing mainly on Design in Nature (2012). The scientific model advanced by Bejan on the basis of what he considered to be a new law of physics offers a comprehensive explanation of the evolution of the living and non-living. The unifying perspective of constructalism is at the same time consonant as well as dissonant with several aspects of the holistic/systemic approaches, ranging from classical systems theory (Ludwig von Bertalanffy) to network theories. My strong belief is that the constructal model can be applied successfully in the field of literary studies, where it could prompt better solutions than the other scientific models that have been already employed by literary critics and theoreticians. The present study should, therefore, be understood as an attempt to test the possibility of introducing the constructalist way of seeing the world in the field of literary studies, as well as in the larger field of the philosophy of art, of culture, of political doctrines, etc. Following a first introductory section to constructal theory and its underlying law, I suggest two case studies that discuss works which are tangential to literary studies and can benefit from the novel perspective of constructalism:

Abstract: In this paper I investigate how the interpretation of the Romantic poet Mihai Eminescu’ work verifies the European transition from a rationalist conception of “genius” (according to which “genius” is a phenomenon subjected to the laws of nature/ society) to an irrationalist conception, where “genius” becomes a supernatural, miraculous or inexplicable phenomenon.

This paper investigates certain aspects of the concept of “genius” in 19th European literature and philosophy. The peculiarity of my approach consists in noticing a change within the epistemological foundation of this concept on a line that starts, at the beginning of the 19th century, from an eminently rationalist framework, but evolves progressively toward an irrational or supernatural perspective.

In this essay I investigate the multiple and ambiguous ways in which the Romanian critic Eugen Lovinescu instrumentalized one hundred years ago the concept of „intellectualization” regarding the process of Romanian literature evolution towards modernity, a process associated with abandoning its rural roots in order to become thematically more urbane oriented. I also investigate the polemical echoes of Lovinescu’s action during the Interwar period and after, especially during the Communist era (1948-89), when his texts and thesis were largely deformed in order to both subvert and accommodate the Communist regime agenda towards peasant and rural literature.

Keywords: poetry, literature, intellectualism intellectualization, intellectual proletariat, capitalism, peasantry.

This paper analyses how the post-war autochthonous canon revision and the modification or preservation of the criteria underlying the latter’s constitution polarized post–1989 literary journalists and critics’ opinions. The supporters of preservation and perpetuation of the aesthetic criterion proclaim that the Romanian communist literature was a form of “resistance through culture” and that, consequently , the canon then built should be conserved along with the aesthetic autonomy thesis considered as its basis. On the other hand, the advocates of the more radical or mod-e rate revision of the pre–1990 scale of values and the criteria that created it believe in the overlap between the aesthetic criterion and the ethical one or even in the subordination of the former to the latter. In this case, of importance is the writers’ attitude towards the former regime, their
open or concealed collaborationism or, on the contrary , the resistance they managed to oppose to the political element .

Uniți sub comunism pentru contracararea unui dușman comun, regimul ceaușist, scriitorii și criticii literari s-au reorganizat după 1989 în grupuri de interese, fiecare dintre acestea mimând mai mult sau mai puțin imunitatea la conjunctural și acțiunea în serviciul interesului național. Imediat după căderea comunismului, s-a crezut că libertatea aliată cu economia de piață înseamnă nu doar eliberare de cenzură și restricții de ordin material ori simbolic, ci și de schizoidia și de războaiele interne care-i opuseseră pe oamenii Partidului cetățenilor mai puțin aderenți la dogma oficială, angajați în proiecte (potențial) subversive sau chiar în critici manifeste la adresa regimului. În realitate, după 1989 schizoidiile au continuat ori s-au reconfigurat, iar metehnele general umane − carierismul, corupția, oportunismul − și crearea de noi dialectici în acolada naționalism vs. cosmopolitism, conservatorism vs. progresism au continuat să genereze dispute inclusiv în viața literară, perpetuând sau recalibrând tensiuni mai vechi 1. Cea mai vizibilă configurare de poziții o reprezintă polarizarea lumii literare post-1989 între, pe de o parte, adepții conservării canonului literar construit în comunism și a criteriilor presupuse a se fi aflat la baza constituirii acestuia și, pe de altă parte, adepții revizuirii canonului literar din comunism și a fundamentelor lui teoretice. Primii − între care pot fi numărați critici ca Eugen Simion, Valeriu Cristea, dar și lideri ai generației


From Theoretical Anti-Communism to Pragmatic Anti-Capitalism: Romanian Literary Magazines Between 1990 and 1993

In this paper I analyze how the literary magazines in the early years of Romanian post-communism began to update their strong anti-communist position with a series of doubts concerning capitalism. It was not about capitalism per se, which inspired a rather favorable perception, but about the austerity measures imposed after 1989 during the transition from the communist centralized market to the post-communist free market. Given its generosity toward financing the literary superstructure, the communist regime began to be reconsidered in a rather favorable light when compared to the financially decompressed post-communist present. The inherent comparison between the "generous" communism and the austere capitalism triggered an ideological tension relevant for the post-communist Romania.

Cet essai porte sur lʼactivité de G. Călinescu à „Jurnalul literar”, hebdomadaire paru en 1939 à Jassy, sous sa direction, où il essaye dʼesquisser un véritable projet dʼéducation culturelle nationale. Les objectifs principaux de cette activité sont: dʼune part, promouvoir lʼautonomie et lʼélitisme de la littérature par rapport à la société (situation qui oppose la littérature vue comme art pur à des divers antagonistes non-esthétiques: démocratisme, nationalisme, autochtonisme, ortodoxisme, la question des juifs etc.), et dʼautre part, promouvoir un projet centré sur le national comme valeur ultime; Călinescu veut participer à la création dʼune „grande culture roumaine”, et dans ce but il fabrique une narration cohérente qui englobe tous les écrivains roumains, classiques et contemporains.
Un autre aspect auquel jʼattache importance dans cet essai est le fait que les uns des thèmes et des points de vue exprimés par Călinescu avant la Deuxième Guerre Mondiale, et donc dans son journal de Jassy, reviendront dans ses articles dʼaprès la guerre. Cʼest pourquoi il y a des commentateurs qui pensent que le critique roumain avait eu depuis toujours des sympathies de gauche – opinions que je cherche à nuancer, voire à démonter.

In this paper I will pursue the strategies used by literary critics to promote the potentially subversive poetry written during Romanian Communist last decade. Pretexting to break the tradition of aesthetical high modernism and pretending to address poetry in a more “realistic”, i.e. a more socialist friendly way, the authors I analyse (Mircea Cărtărescu, Florin Iaru, Traian T. Coşovei etc.) actually displayed certain subversive positions regarding the
Communist regime. The techno-industrial, societal modernity was officially seen as the work
in progress of the Romanian Socialist regime (1948–1989), therefore concepts such as ‘modernity’ and ‘reality’ used to be perceived as mere synonyms. Given these circumstances, he who criticised the Romanian modernity was in danger to be perceived as an enemy of the Communist project. Being aware of such presumptions concerning the
identity between ‘modernity’ and ‘reality’ (i.e. Socialist order), the Romanian literary critics tactically avoided portraying the poets of the 80s as attacking the ‘reality’/ ‘modernity’ for fear this attack would be perceived (and counter-backed) as an attack against the Communist
establishment. Consequently, the critics had to emphasize precisely the poets’ lack of “realism”, thus interpreting their poems as rather absurd, bookish and fantastic pieces (apparently non-dangerous topics for the Socialist order). After the fall of the Communism, the critics changed their discourse in order to underline the polemical, political, subversive
side of that poetry.

Cet essai porte sur la démarche historiographique par laquelle lʼesthéticien Liviu Rusu, dans le premier chapitre de son œuvre LʼEsthétique de la poésie lyrique (1937), essaie de fournir un milieu conceptuel favorable à ses propres contributions dans le domaine de la généricité littéraire et, plus largement, de lʼesthétique. La vue diachronique quʼil propose – depuis Platon et Aristote jusquʼau premiers décennies du XXe siècle – est fortement marquée (voire „viciée”) par lʼintention de promouvoir un produit nouveau dans le discours sur les genres littéraires, cʼest-à-dire la triade composée par les éléments sympathétique (correspondant au lyrique), démoniaque-équilibré (correspondant à lʼépique) et démoniaque expansif (correspondant au drame). Le souci pour son système (qui va inclure une typologie des artistes créateurs, une typologie des genres littéraires et une Logique du beau) lʼempêche quand même de documenter sérieusement le thème des genres littéraire au-delà du déjà-connu. Soutenu par les clichés de la doxa romantique, Rusu dispose les „preuves” historiques dans une narration favorable à sa thèse, dans une perspective faussement inductive.

Tout en offrant une vue diachronique de l’oeuvre poétique de Traian T. Coșovei, depuis les années 1980 jusqu’à la première décennie du XXIe siècle, cet essai propose une relecture de la réception critique du poète pendant la dernière décennie du communisme roumain et après la chute du régime, en 1989. Tandis que parmi les modèles de la poésie roumaine dite de la génération 80 se trouvaient les stars de la Beat Generation – dont les oeuvres relèvent d’une pensée anticapitaliste – les auteurs roumains des années 80, saisissant l’allure antisystémique
de la poésie beat, la dirigeaient, inversement, contre la modernité communiste. Pour protéger ces poètes dans leur relation avec la censure, les critiques littéraires des années 80 ont tenté de dissuader toute lecture et critique face aux réalités communistes de cette poésie, mettant en évidence ses vertus surréalistes, ludiques, livresques, fantastiques, bref, dépourvues de tout contact avec la réalité. Les premiers tomes de Traian T. Coșovei ont été une bonne occasion pour la critique d’exercer cette attitude récupératrice oscillant entre astuce et compromis.

Acest text, la originea căruia stă o disertație de master în literatura română contemporană susținută în 2004 la Universitatea din București, a apărut într-o formă restrânsă în „Cultura”, 5 mai 2011, și într-o formă apropiată de cea prezentă în „Transilvania”, nr. 11-12, 2013