Meridian Critic

The passage from the geocentric conception of the world to the heliocentric one engendered „the crisis of the European consciousness”.In the XVIIth century, the human being is still under the shock of having lost the privileged position he used to have in the anthropocentric Universe of the Middle Ages. On the other hand, he is under the impression that his reason can comprehend the infinite Universe. In this context in which reason is held in high esteem, and the social pattern of a selfish behaviour starts to be adopted, God withdraws from the mundane world, becoming „Le Dieu caché” (The Hidden God).The Jansenist view of the world sets aut on the pursuit of the retreated divinity, setting up a new absolute pattern of living : to lead one’s life in the middle of the world in order to seize its inmost contradictions, but a life unable to enjoy whichever happening, since highly aware of its relativity.

André Kedros (1919-1999) was a political refugee in France, where he started to write in French, influenced especially by L. Aragon. One of his novels, Une femme trop aimée (1994) gives a full description of Romania in the years of communism and the author reveals less known aspects of the political system and contemporary Romanian history.

The figure of Nausica indicates a crucial point between tradition and innovation: she is not far from the princess of the oriental fairy-tale, but she is also the “ancestor” of the young heroine in the european roman of initiation. Today authors of homeric versions for children have the possibility to accentuate the “traditional” or the “modern” aspect of Nausica’s personality: in this way they respectively write tales or romans of initiation. Sometimes in illustrated books and comics Nausica is the female narrator of the Odyssey: the female voice reflects the new patterns of social life and culture with the help of the homeric myth.

This essay tries to emphasise the defining elements of Paul Celan’s poetics, starting from the poet’s setting in the specific context (not only cultural, but also political) of the pre-war and post-war Bucovina, with its own spiritus loci. Common to most of the poets who lived in this area (for example, Mircea Streinul and other members of the literary group Iconar) was a certain predilection for the darkness, that can be explained in Paul Celan’s case by the anti-Semitic atmosphere in which he grew up, and by the dreadful events that marked his existence (the loss of both of his parents during the war, the illness caught in his early childhood, etc.), but also by the common bookish influences: Dostoievski and Trakl above all. Marked by successive disillusions, incapable to believe in the redemptive force of poetry, Paul Celan finally chose death, as his writing could not mean anything but the deepening of his solitude. His poetry represents the attempt, brightened up in despair, to settle the being in its own house, the house of darkness. Perhaps his suicide stands for a final crowning of his work, the ultimate point of an existential trajectory to which at the beginning one could not discern anything but the anxiety of death. This interpretation proceeds from Paul Celan’s definition as a great poet of the nonbeing.

In the present paper, the author examines the way in which the imaginary of Petit Poucet, with its roots in Perrault’s version, has been modified in numerous contemporary writings. According to the style and phantasmic disposition of various authors, the new Petit Poucet may be cunning, mischievous, roguish, or else miserable, confused, affectionate, in pursuit of good bargains or in quest of a home. This multiform imaginary entitles the author of this paper to speak of an “uncountable” Petit Poucet.

Metatextul românesc din Nunta în cer propune o meditatie asupra relatiei dintre limbaj, existenta si creatie si asupra necesitatii unei corelari între viata individuala, ordinea ontologica a lumii si adevar. Punerea în abis a romanului si dublarea vocilor narative au o functie critica fata de reprezentarile artistice traditionale asupra autenticitatii creatiei estetice canonice, creatorului Trickster si demiurg, a naratorului- autor profesionist, a artistului si a omului ca producatori de cultura si ca produse culturale. Esecul lor în afirmarea individuala a unei dimensiuni autentice este motivat de lipsa de renovare a sistemului cultural traditional.

In this article, part of a larger project realized in collaboration with Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie - Litterature d’enfance (Literature for children) we shall analyse the girl characters in the short stories included in Ulita copilariei (1923) (Childhood Little Street) ans especially in the first volume La Medeleni (1925) (To Medeleni) by Ionel Teodoreanu, consecrated to childhood and read by children and by adults. Our article insists on Olguta - an intelligent, extroverted, boyish, energic, fascinating girl - through her words and acts - always above her brother, almost always in war with him, except some funny armistices. The article stresses upon the girl's relation with others and with herself to the familiar (and familial) universe, but also with the strange one. Since Olguta is a real genius of dialogue, her relation with the world’s languages (and also with the others adults or child) are also taken into consideration.

It may be considered that the syntax of Mircea Eliade's imagery is marked by two axes, two dimensions: one of daylight, materialized in the scientific texts, and a nocturnal one, featured by the fiction works. Nevertheless, the two types of discourse must not be seen as dichotomic elements, but as complementary ways of expression of the creative spirit, as several translations, combinations or shifts between registers can be noticed, sometimes even in the space of the same writing.