Handbook of Romanian Literature.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fotache, Oana.

Series:

Handbooks of Literary and Cultural Studies

Handbooks of Literary and Cultural Studies ; v.5

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Romanian literature.

Comparative literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (493 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Boston : BRILL, 2026.

Summary:

The Handbook of Romanian Literature illuminates the richness of Romanian history through the evolution of literary forms, from 16th-century religious tracts to modern works available in English by writers such as Mihail Sebastian, Mircea Eliade, Emil Cioran, Ana Blandiana, Gabriela Adameșteanu, and Mircea Cărtărescu.

Contents:

Intro

Contents

Acknowledgements

Note on Translations

Notes on Contributors

Editors

English Translator

Contributors

Twelve Windows into Romanian Literature

1 Conquerors and Conquered

2 Here and There

3 Identities/Alterities

4 Forms/Deformations

5 Greatness and Decline

References

1521: First Steps

1 Conquerors and Conquered: How We Learned to Write Romanian

2 Here and There: 'Whose Kingdom Shall Have No End'

Further Reading

3 Identities/Alterities: the Paradoxes of Romanian Identity

3.1 'The Heresies'

3.2 'The Turk'

4 Forms/Deformations: A Different Way of Making Literature

4.1 Let There Be Instruction!

4.2 Literature without Borders

4.3 Poetry as a Trade

5 Greatness and Decline: A Literature Perpetually Rediscovered

1711: The Unicorn's Tale

1 Conquerors and Conquered: Lost Battles

1.1 The Two Exiles of Dimitrie Cantemir

1.2 Contexts

2 Here and There: in Between

and the Discovery of the West

2.1 Between

2.2 A Scholar at the Crossroads

2.3 Eastwards, Farther, Ever Farther

3 Identities/Alterities: Us versus Them

3.1 Dilemmas of Identity

3.2 Christians and Pagans

3.3 Others: the Marginalised, the Agents of Satan and a Dracula Rebooted

4 Forms/Deformations: the Borders of Literature

4.1 Histories and Stories

4.2 Romania's First Novel:

5 Greatness and Decline: the Hieroglyph of History

5.1 Old Literature and New Readings

5.2 Masterpiece and Destiny

1800: History, Faith, Hope

1 Conquerors and Conquered: the End of the Middle Ages

1.1 The Demo-Aristo-Monarchical Organisation and the Enlightened Despot

1.2 The Time of Reform

Further Reading.

2 Here and There: Enlightenment Culture on Both Sides of the Mountains

2.1 The Transylvanian School

2.2 Beyond the Mountains

3 Identities/Alterities: Latin, Palaeoslavonic, Romanian

3.1 'One and the same Romanian, or corrupt Latin, language'

3.2 A History of Militancy

3.3 Between the Altar and the City Square

4 Forms/Deformations: Classical Rhetoric and Baroque Experimentation

4.1 Literature as a Means of Persuasion

4.2 The Plaything

5 Greatness and Decline: a Masterpiece Discovered

5.1 A Delayed Posterity

5.2 A Protracted Posterity

1848: Changing Times

1 Conquerors and Conquered: Time's Patience Runs Out

1.1 Retrogrades and Frivolous Young Men

1.2 The Ideas and the Money

2 Here and There: Worlds in Contact

2.1 Near/Far

2.2

(Light from the West)

2.3 The (Re)Invention of the Orient

3 Identities/Alterities: Fault-Lines: Linguistic, Geographic, Racial, Social and Cultural

3.1 The Battle for the Romanian Language

3.2 Moving Forward, Looking Backward: Breaking out of the Village

3.3 Contrasts, Hybrids, Ruptures, Reversals

3.4 In the Forefront: the Women

3.5 Between Xenophobia and Xenomania

4 Forms/Deformations: the Redefinition of Poetry, the Tribulations of Prose, the Rise of Theatre

4.1 The New Face of Poetry

4.2 Prose Avatars

4.3 Promises and Reluctance: the Indigenous Novel

4.4 From the Red Fountain to the National Theatre

5 Greatness and Decline: the Aura of Success, the Aura of History

5.1 'That King of Poetry …'

5.2 The Aura of History

1878: Romania at War with Itself

1 Conquerors and Conquered: the Literature of History, the History of the Everyday

1.1 Where History Meets Literature

1.2 Daily Life Becomes History

2 Here and There: Places and Connections

2.1 Places Where Literature Is Born

2.2 The Worlds of Correspondence

2.3 Germanophiles and Francophiles, or How Romanians Were Both Impassioned and Objective

3 Identities/Alterities - the Jew: between 'Utter Foreigner' and 'Good Romanian'

4 Forms/Deformations: in Search of Perfection

4.1 Forms without Form - Alexandru Odobescu:

4.2 Journey to the End of the Lyric Line, with Mihai Eminescu

5 Greatness and Decline: Romania's National Poet

1901: The Moment of

1 Conquerors and Conquered: Styles of a New Century

1.1 At the Crossroads of the Centuries

1.2 Jovial, Calm, Casual

2 Here and There: from the Closerie des Lilas in Paris to High Life in Bucharest

3 Identities/Alterities: Goodwill and Grace

3.1 Miticǎ, the Parisian of the Orient

3.2 The Feminine in a Changing World

4 Forms/Deformations: Playfulness, Decadence, Irony

4.1 The Sword and the Shield of Irony

4.2 In the Manner of Others

5 Greatness and Decline: Polemical Forms of Modernism

5.1 The Poetry of the Future

5.2 Less Is More

5.3 Distinctive Voices and Bubbling Controversy

1919: After the War

1 Conquerors and Conquered: Traces of the War in Politics and Literature

1.1 The Great War and Greater Romania

1.2 War Literature

2 Here and There: French Culture and 'the Revolt of the Non-Latin Foundations'

2.1 France and the Rest of the World

2.2 Pride in Latinity and the Reinvention of Dacia

2.3 From the

to Dada

3 Identities/Alterities: the Tensions of a New Country and the Idealisation of Childhood

3.1 Regional Identities: 'People from the Kingdom' and People from the New Provinces

3.2 The Post-Sămănătorist Peasant

3.3 The Child's Perspective

4 Forms/Deformations: Poetic Trends at the Beginning of the Century

4.1 From Symbolism to Expressionism

4.2 Atypical Faces of Expressionism: the Bucolic and the Ironic

5 Greatness and Decline: Literature, Literary Journalism, Popular Success

5.1 Recipes for Success

5.2 Humour and Violence

5.3 Literary Magazines

1927: The Mad Years and the Era of the Masses

1 Conquerors and Conquered: the New Zeitgeist

1.1 The End of the Mad Years: Intergenerational Conflicts, Emancipations, Resistance

1.2 Eugen Lovinescu and

1.3 The New Traditionalism, the New Spirituality

2 Here and There: between East and West

2.1 Rural versus Urban

2.2 European Cultural Personalities Visit Romania

2.3 Journeys: Departures and Returns

3 Identities/Alterities: Angry Youths

3.1 The Rebellious Teenager and the Inter-war Hooligan

3.2 The Emancipation of Marginalised Identities: Feminine Identities, Ethnic Identities

3.3 The Cult of the Body and Sexual Uninhibitedness

3.4 Bourgeois versus Intellectual

4 Forms/Deformations: Radical Cultures

4.1 Poetic Programming and the Literature of Manifestos

4.2 Authenticity, Experientialism

4.3 Antirealism

4.4 The Avant-Garde

5 Greatness and Decline: the Victory of Modernism

5.1 The Maturation of Modern Aesthetic Consciousness

5.2 The Battle for Arghezi

5.3 The Growth of Modernist Criticism

1933: The Year of the Novel

1 Conquerors and Conquered: a National Emergency - the Novel

2 Here and There: Mythical Times in Nearby Places

2.1 Archaic Civilisation

2.2 The Balkan Universe

2.3 The Far East: a European Diary of a Bengali Love Story

2.4 Life in Inter-war Bucharest: Centre and Periphery

3 Identities/Alterities: Discovering the Self, Writing the Other

3.1 The Intellectual in Love

3.2 The Inter-War Woman and the Taboos of Erotic Writing

3.3 Novels of the Jewish Ghetto

3.4 Foreign-Language Romanian Writers: Migrant Writers

4 Forms/Deformations: the Forms of the Novel

4.1 Postures of the Novel

5 Greatness and Decline: Re-Reading Max Blecher

1947: Falling out of History

1 Conquerors and Conquered: December, the Last Dance

1.1 The Long Arm of the Political Police

1.2 From Ideology to Literature and Back

2 Here and There: Exile or Prison

2.1 The First Wave of Cultural Exile

2.2 The Linguistic Cleavage

2.3 Carceral Spaces: Representations of Prison Life

3 Identities/Alterities: Lights and Shadows

3.1 Light Comes from the East: The Eastward Journey

4 Forms/Deformations: Literature as an Instrument of Party Ideology

5 Greatness and Decline: the Longest Winter

1971: Breathing under Water

1 Conquerors and Conquered: Short-Lived Hope.

1.1 The Mirage of a Speech: the Thaw and Its Consequences.

Notes:

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ISBN:

9789004738652

OCLC:

1613770469