Perpessicius
Encyclopedia
Perpessicius was a Romania
n literary historian and critic, poet, essayist and fiction writer. One of the prominent literary chroniclers of the Romanian interwar
, he stood apart in his generation for having thrown his support behind the modernist
and avant-garde
currents of Romanian literature
. As a theorist, Perpessicius merged the tenets of Symbolism
with the pragmatic conservative
principles of the 19th century Junimea
society, but was much-criticized over perceptions that, in the name of aesthetic relativism
, he tolerated literary failure. Also known as an anthologist, biographer, museologist, folklorist and book publisher, he was, together with George Călinescu
, one of his generation's best-known researchers to have focused on the work of Junimist author and since-acknowledged national poet Mihai Eminescu
. Much of Perpessicius' career was dedicated to collecting, structuring and interpreting Eminescu's texts, resulting in an authoritative edition of Eminescu's writings, the 17-volume Opere ("Works").
A veteran of World War I
, where he lost use of his right arm, Perpessicius debuted in poetry while recovering in hospital, publishing the critically acclaimed volume Scut şi targă ("Shield and Stretcher"). His subsequent "intimist" and Neoclassical
tendencies made him part of a distinct current within the local branch of Symbolism
. Like other mainstream modernists of his day, Perpessicius also espoused anti-fascism
and criticized nationalism
in general, attitudes which led him into conflict with the 1930s far right
. In 1938-1940 however, Perpessicius controversially offered a degree of support to the fascist
-inspired National Renaissance Front
, and was promoted by its leader, King
Carol II
. Sympathetic to the left-wing trend after World War II
, Perpessicius was drawn into cooperation with the Romanian Communist Party
. Although subsequently endorsed and acclaimed by the communist regime
, Perpessicius was reluctant to condone its policies and dedicated his final years almost exclusively to literature. A member of the Romanian Academy
and founding director of the Museum of Romanian Literature, he was co-editor of Viaţa Românească
magazine, and, in 1957, head of the Academy's Library.
), the author was given the name Dumitru S. Panaitescu (also Dimitire Panaiot, Panaitescu Şt. Dumitru), while in primary school. To his friends, he was known as Mitică or Mitiş, the pet forms of Dumitru.
Perpessicius' pseudonym, dating from ca. 1913-1918 is Latin for "he who suffers" or "he who was tested". Some commentators believe that the verb had special significance for Perpessicius, as either an ironic coincidence or a direct consequence of losing his writing arm. Others argue that it was merely imposed on him by his writer friends Tudor Arghezi
and Gala Galaction
.
port city of Brăila
, in the Bărăgan Plain
areas, Perpessicius was the son of middle-class parents Ştefan Panaiot (or Panaitescu) and Ecaterina (née Daraban), who owned a house on Cetăţii Street. Between 1898 and 1902, he attended the Nr. 4 Primary School, completing his gymnasium-level and secondary education at the Nicolae Bălcescu
School (1902–1910).
The future Perpessicius rallied with Symbolism while still an adolescent, and, at his Baccalaureate
examination of 1910, gave a spoken presentation of innovative poet Ion Minulescu
. He subsequently left for Bucharest
, where he attended the city university
's Faculty of Letters, specializing in Romance studies
. He notably attended lectures on modern
Romance-language
literature given by Ovid Densusianu
, patron of the Symbolist school, which he himself deemed a formative experience. Also during his university years, he first came into contact with the remaining manuscripts of Mihai Eminescu
, on which his later exegesis would rely. He made his literary debut with poems sent to the Versuri şi Proză magazine, edited in Iaşi
by Densusianu's admirers I. M. Raşcu and Alfred Hefter-Hidalgo. One of them, titled Reminiscenţă ("Reminiscence"), was signed with the pen name D. Pandara. At around that time, the young author met and befriended Parnassian poet Artur Enăşescu, being, together with fellow critic Tudor Vianu
, a witness to Enăşescu's life before it was changed by mental disorder and material ruin.
Perpessicius graduated in 1914, the same year when he married Alice Paleologu. In autumn 1915, at around the same time when Alice gave birth to a boy, he was appointed a clerk at the Romanian Academy
Library, assigned to work on its new catalog
. That year, other early selections of his writings saw print in Cronica, a Symbolist and left-wing journal co-edited by Arghezi and Galaction. Perpessicus may have also shared Cronicas Germanophile
agenda, which, at the time, implied criticism of the Entente Powers
. He was by then working on a novel, titled Veninul ("The Venom"). A fragment of this work saw print in Arena, a short-lived magazine edited by poets Ion Vinea and Demostene Botez in collaboration with Hefter-Hidalgo and N. Porsenna.
Perpessicius joined the Romanian Army in 1916, as Romania rallied with the Entente against the Central Powers
(see Romania during World War I). He was sent to Northern Dobruja
in the wake of the Turtucaia defeat
, when southern Romania was being invaded by Bulgaria
n and Imperial German
forces. On October 6, 1916, during the skirmish of Muratan
, his right elbow was hit by an enemy bullet, being partially amputated
by surgeons in order to prevent a loss of the entire limb. His disabled arm was fastened with a black-colored sling, and Perpessicius taught himself to write left-handed (a change which reportedly made his handwriting
instantly recognizable by his peers).
, Perpessicius returned to Bucharest. It was there that, together with two of Denusianu's disciples—Dragoş Protopopescu
and Scarlat Struţeanu—he established the magazine Letopiseţi, which did not survive into the next year. After the November 1918 Armistice
, which saw the end of the war to the Entente's benefit, and after the Austro-Hungarian
-ruled region of Transylvania
was united with Romania
, Perpessicius was assigned to a teaching position in the newly-gained city of Arad
, at the Moise Nicoară High School (1919) and afterward at the Târgu Mureş Military High School. From autumn 1920 to summer 1921, he returned to Brăila, employed by the Normal School as a teacher of Romanian
and French
. Citing letters the young teacher had sent to his friends, Vianu reports that he missed working in the archives.
Late in 1921, Perpessicius made his return to Bucharest, where, until 1929, he held teaching positions at various high schools and business education
establishments. In 1922, he began his work in Romanian theater, collaborating with the Iaşi-based Insula, a troupe founded by writer Benjamin Fondane
and actor Armand Pascal. The company favored a characteristic blended of modernist theater and influences from defunct traditionalist currents such as Sămănătorul
. Just before it went bankrupt in early 1923, it was planning a "spoken anthology", during which notes compiled on several authors were supposed to be read for the public: Fondane's own comments on Arghezi, together with those of Perpessicius and Ion Călugăru
on traditionalist poets—respectively, Alexandru Vlahuţă
and George Coşbuc
.
Also in 1923, he debuted as a literary chronicler and a regular on Felix Aderca
's magazine Spre Ziuă. By 1924, he had articles published in leading Romanian magazines: Ideea Europeană, Mişcarea Literară
, Cuget Românesc and Camil Petrescu
's Săptămâna Muncii Intelectuale şi Artistice. His debut volume of essays, Repertoriu critic ("Critical Repertoire"), was commissioned by the Romanian Orthodox
Arad Diocese, saw print in 1925. Perpessicius was by then also noted as an advocate of public causes: his articles reacted against the decision to publicly auction
the large art collection of Alexandru Bogdan-Piteşti
, a controversial politician and former convict who had bequeathed it to the state.
Having established contacts with the emerging avant-garde
during the war years, Perpessicius notably signaled the 1923 debut of its representative, poet Ilarie Voronca
. He was, with poet Ion Pillat
, editor of Antologia poeţilor de azi ("The Anthology of Present-Day Poets", 2 vols., 1925 and 1928), often considered a seminal text for the popularization of innovative literature, and featuring ink drawings by Marcel Janco
, a co-founder of Dada
ism. His critically acclaimed collection of war poems, Scut şi targă, was published in 1926. In 1927, the same year as Pillat and Artur Enăşescu, he received the Award for Poetry granted by the Romanian Writers' Society. During those years, Perpessicius fell in love with Viorica "Yvoria" Secoşanu, a woman scholar who became his mistress. When she became aware that the critic was happily married, she committed self-immolation
in Bellu cemetery, and died in hospital a short while after. The detail was omitted from Perpessicus' official biographies, and resurfaced only in 2009.
Perpessicius was one of the moderate figures to sign contributions for the cosmopolitan avant-garde magazine Contimporanul
, published by his friends Vinea and Janco, part of a small group which also included, at the time, Minulescu, Pillat, Camil Baltazar
, Claudia Millian, Alexandru Al. Philippide, Ion Sân-Giorgiu
and some others. These texts included some of his "intimist" poems and translations from French
poet Francis Jammes
. Contimporanul also published his earlier notes on Vlahuţă, recovered from the Insula manuscripts. In 1927, Perpessicius took over as chronicler for Nae Ionescu
's Cuvântul
(before it became a tribune for fascist
causes), and, in 1929, became a teacher at the Matei Basarab High School in Bucharest (a position he held until 1951). The second volume of Antologia... was received with less enthusiasm, being even called "wasted energy" by Philippide.
, entitling him to become its on-air literary chronicler, performing the job until 1938. Working under the direction of Adrian Maniu, a modernist writer and radio broadcaster, Perpessicus devoted special shows to recently-deceased authors: the Symbolist-modernist Mateiu Caragiale
and the former Poporanist
doyen Garabet Ibrăileanu
.
He focused part of his subsequent research on Mateiu Caragiale, compiling and transcribing his unpublished notes and diaries. He published a definitive edition of Caragiale's collected works in 1936, and, in 1938, returned with an anthology of French literature
, comprising texts which, he argued, blended fiction and theoretical viewpoints. Titled De la Chateaubriand la Mallarmé ("From Chateaubriand
to Mallarmé
"), it carried a dedication to the memory of French critic Albert Thibaudet
. After 1933, he also began planning the definitive edition of Eminescu's Opere, a project he discussed first with Editura Naţională Ciornei, and later with Editura Fundaţiilor Regale director Alexandru Rosetti; the first volume, grouping Eminescu's anthmously published poems, saw print with Rosetti's institution in 1939, being received with much critical acclaim. He published a second volume of his poetry, Itinerar sentimental ("Sentimental Itinerary", 1932).
By the late 1920s, as nationalism
became a radical force on the Romanian political stage, issuing calls for ethnocracy
, Perpessicius joined intellectuals who called for moderation. In a 1931 piece for Cuvântul, he reacted against nationalist arguments: "The fashion of good Romanians is making a rather furious comeback. You all know the heresy
: one claims that native inhabitants are separated into good and bad, into plagued and pleasant-smelling, less so for their intentions or actions, but rather for the point of view adopted by the esteemed censors of our public and national life. [...] And how much longer do they plan to confront us with this self-sufficient nonsense? Will the mystification never cease? Will common sense never descend among the concrete walls of the office where they forge nationality certificates? No good Romanians but just humans, just humans, gentlemen, and it would suffice." Literary historian Z. Ornea, who likens this "lucid-democratic" text with one issued an year earlier by Viaţa Românească
magazine, notes that both appeals failed to prevent the "totalitarian
debauchery" of the subsequent decade, when the Iron Guard
emerged as a force.
Perpessicius integrated his condemnation of antisemitism in a radio broadcast of 1934. It reacted against objections that his Antologia... had made a point of adding newly-emancipated
Romanian Jews
among examples of Romanian literature
, reaffirming an earlier rebuttal: "one cannot exclude a poet [...] based only on his nationality paper. The nationality of an artist is of less interest. In the eventuality, it is that of the people whose language he uses in his writing. But what is certain is that the work is the distinguishing sign of art." Alarmed by what he called "a Jewish quota
in literature", he gave positive evaluations to newer works by Jewish authors Ury Benador, I. Peltz and his colleague Mihail Sebastian
.
During the same period, the modernists in general became targets of a campaign in the radical nationalist, far right
and fascist press, including the journals Sfarmă-Piatră
, Buna Vestire and Neamul Românesc. These journals, owned respectively by Nichifor Crainic
, Mihail Manoilescu
and Nicolae Iorga
, produced various inflammatory allegations and insults, in particular claims of Judeo-Bolshevik
plot and antisemitic slurs. In reaction to this, Perpessicius seconded his colleague Pompiliu Constantinescu
in creating Gruparea Criticilor Literari Români (GCLR, the Group of Romanian Literary Critics), a professional association which aimed to protect its members' reputation and reacted in particular to accusations of modernist "pornography
". The GCLR counted among its members Şerban Cioculescu
and Vladimir Streinu, as well as Sebastian, Ion Biberi and Octav Şuluţiu. The members carried a polemic with Iorga's Cuget Clar magazine, defending Arghezi against accusations of obscenity repeatedly launched by Iorga and opinion journalist N. Georgescu-Cocoş. Perpessicius also tried his hand at mediating the parallel conflict between Streinu and Tudor Vianu, speaking out in writing and on the radio against Streinu's uncharacteristically harsh treatment of Vianu's contributions (1935).
King
Carol II
banned political activities and created a corporatist
and fascist-inspired regime around the National Renaissance Front
, thus countering the threat posed by revolutionary fascism. In this context, he began collaborating on Cezar Petrescu
's propaganda
outlet for the regime, the newspaper România. Also then, he published his collected articles of 1925-1933 as Dictando divers ("Various Writing Exercises"), and received the King Carol II Award for Literature and Art. The critic was a contributor to the state-owned Revista Fundaţiilor Regale journal, where he played a part in imposing Carol's personality cult. Thus, as part of a 1940 homage to the ruler, he stated: "Fatherly love and love for the motherland have blended together and submerged into this enchanted river bed, where, together with the Prince's intellectual and spiritual education, was forged the very future of the Motherland." The text, together with similar pieces by cultural figures such as Arghezi, Camil Petrescu, Lucian Blaga
, George Călinescu
, Constantin Daicoviciu
, Constantin Rădulescu-Motru
, Mihail Sadoveanu
and Ionel Teodoreanu
, sparked a controversy in the political underground: one adversary of the monarch, psychologist Nicolae Mărgineanu, referred to the authors in question as "scoundrels". However, Perpessicius took a stand against the regime's adoption of antisemitism. He thus spoke out against the Romanian Writers' Society decision to eliminate its Jewish members, being, with Nicolae M. Condiescu and Rosetti, one of just three members to voice support for their Jewish colleague Mihail Sebastian. According to literary historian Ovidiu Morar, Perpessicius and novelist Zaharia Stancu
were also the only literary men to speak out against the marginalization of Felix Aderca
, who was also Jewish.
These events were taking place in the first year of World War II
, just months before Carol's regime lost credibility for the peaceful cession of Romanian territories to the Soviet Union
and Hungary
(see Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, Second Vienna Award
). This was followed by the proclamation of a new Axis
-aligned fascist regime, the National Legionary State
, formed as an uneasy partnership between the Iron Guard and Conducător
Ion Antonescu
. Perpessicius left ironic notes on National Legionary propaganda, recording the Romanian Radio speakers' disjointed and unprofessional praise for the new government, the self-proclaimed purge of Romanian culture by the Guard's Legionary critics, or the rapid fascization of modernist poets such as Ion Barbu
(who wrote a special poem for Adolf Hitler
). The Iron Guard-appointed new head of Revista Fundaţiilor Regale, D. Caracostea, temporarily suspended the contributions of critics whom he considered supporters of Jewish writers: Perpessicius, Cioculescu and Streinu. At the time, the measure was commented upon by the anti-fascist and modernist literary historian Eugen Lovinescu
, who deemed it "idiotic".
Legionary government broke apart in early 1941, when the Iron Guard's Bucharest Rebellion
caused Antonescu to reclaim all power, and later to join Romania into the Nazi German
-led invasion of the Soviet Union
. Perpessicius was isolated from political events. In 1942, with Cioculescu, Constantinescu, Streinu, and Vianu, he contributed essays dedicated to their mentor Lovinescu, celebrating his 60th birthday. They were collected in a single volume, published by Editura Vremea the following year—months before Lovinescu's death. In 1943, he published a second volume of Eminescu's Opere, which included the alternative versions of lyrical works, including the Luceafărul poem. In 1944, he followed up with the essay volume Jurnal de lector ("A Reader's Diary"), which also included Eminesciana, a collection of his Revista Fundaţiilor Regale articles on the 19th century poet. Also that year, he completed a third volume of Eminescu's Opere, comprising anthumous variants of poems, from Doina to Kamadeva.
Soon after Antonescu was ousted during the August 23 Coup of 1944 and Romania began cooperating with the Allies
, Perpessicius made his return to the public arena. For a while in 1944-1945, he joined the Romanian Writers' Society Board, replacing the resigned Zaharia Stancu. The major decision taken by the body was to exclude 28 of its members on grounds that they had actively supported fascist ideologies, which, literary historian Victor Durnea notes, was an arbitrary selection. This purge was followed by the integration of 20 authors known for their communist or left-wing convictions. In late 1944, Perpessicius also joined the Romanian Society for Friendship with the Soviet Union (ARLUS), set up by the newly-legalized Romanian Communist Party
in order to attract intellectuals and professionals to its cause, and supporting the Soviet occupation forces
. He was, with Mihai Ralea, vice president of ARLUS' Literary Section (presided over by Mihail Sadoveanu). In May 1945, he represented ARLUS at the funeral of Mihail Sebastian, who had been killed in a road accident, and contributed one of Sebastian's obituaries
in Revista Fundaţiilor Regale. Shortly after Lovinescu's death, Perpessicius also sat on the commission granting a memorial award, presented to aspiring authors such as Ştefan Augustin Doinaş
. In 1945, he made the last of several sporadic visits to Brăila, where his mother still resided.
He had by that stage resumed his activity as a chronicler, publishing articles in Familia
, Gazeta Literară, Lumea
, Tribuna, Universul
, as well as in Steaua, Jurnalul de Dimineaţă and Tânărul Scriitor. With Rosetti and Jacques Byck, Perpessicius authored a 1946 literature textbook for the 7th year of secondary education (final year of high school). The following year, he published the 5th volume of his Menţiuni critice.
. In 1948, he joined the editing staff of Viaţa Românească
magazine, and, upon the proposal of Gala Galaction
, was made a corresponding member of the newly-reshaped Romanian Academy
. In 1949, again on Galaction's proposal, he was considered for full membership the Academy (at the same time as Stancu, Alexandru Al. Philippide and poet Mihai Beniuc
), serving as head of section at its Institute of Literary History and Folklore until 1954. Also in 1949, Perpessicius joined the communist-endorsed Writers' Union of Romania
, created on the Writers' Society structure. A new volume of Eminescu's Opere (the first to feature previously unpublished works) and an edition of Însemnare a călătoriei mele ("Account of My Travel") by the early 19th century author Dinicu Golescu
were both published in 1952. Perpessicius was also contributing prefaces to books published by Editura Cartea Rusă, a newly created institution which exclusively published works of Russian and Soviet literature
. He received the State Prize for 1954, in recognition for his work in editing Eminescu, and, on June 21, 1955, received full Academy membership, with Camil Petrescu
as rapporteur
. At around the same time, Perpessicius focused some of his studies on the work of Lazăr Şăineanu
, a linguist and folklorist whom specialized criticism of the time had come to ignore.
Despite official endorsement, his relationship with the new authorities had its moments of tension. An unsigned 1953 article in the Communist Party's main daily, Scînteia
, accused the author of being indifferent to the Marxist-Leninist
view of "class struggle
", and noted that the Opere volume's introduction cited "reactionary
" critics Titu Maiorescu
, Mihail Dragomirescu and Gheorghe Bogdan-Duică without "assuming a critical stance". Some of his own earlier works, like those of the colleagues of his generation, were subjected to official censorship
, and several were not given approval for publication. A relaxation of political pressures on the literary environment followed in the late 1950s, when communist leader Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
embarked on the path of controlled De-Stalinization
, but totalitarianism
still had direct consequences on the critic's life and career. Perpessicius' son Dumitru D. Panaitescu, a student at the University of Bucharest
during the mid-1950s, was arrested by the Securitate
secret police and implicated in the "Dardena trial", becoming a political prisoner
of the communist regime. Panaitescu had been found guilty of sedition
, for having joined Mihai Stere Dedena and others in organizing a dissident Marxist
circle, which sympathized with the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and stood behind the Bucharest student protest
. The same year, at a Writers' Union congress consecrating the rehabilitation
of formerly-censored Tudor Arghezi, Perpessicius made negative comments on the impact of Romanian Socialist Realism
: "The Arghezi case is, without doubt, one of the most painful cases literature has known over the past ten years".
Perpessicius was appointed head of the Academy Library in 1957, with a mission to create the Museum of Romanian Literature (MLR). Unable to provide adequate facilities for the Library, he presented the authorities with a series of proposals, but only received an increase in the funds allocated, and resigned. He did however succeed in creating the museum itself, and presided over it until his death. Also in 1957, he collected his various essays on literary history and Romanian folklore, as Menţiuni de istoriografie literară şi folclor ("Mentions in Literary Historiography and Folklore"), followed by two more volumes in 1961 and 1964 respectively. Perpessicius returned with a new volume of Opere in 1958, by gathering the printed versions of Mihai Eminescu's original drafts and apocrypha
. The 6th Opere volume of 1963 comprised the poet's folklore and paremiology collection, together with his works of direct folkloric inspiration. In 1964-1965, he edited Eminescu's selected works in an Editura pentru literatură edition, followed by a similar edition of Mateiu Caragiale's works.
His 75th birthday of 1966 came at an interval when newly-instated communist leader Nicolae Ceauşescu
was effecting liberalization
measures. It was celebrated nationally, and the authorities granted him the Order of Cultural Merit 1st class. He also began publishing his own Opere, largely based on Menţiuni critice, in four volumes (the last of which was posthumous). The following year, Perpessicius' Museum was faced with a crisis, having been evicted out of its original quarters and provisionally relocated to an apartment on Şoseaua Kiseleff
. The matter was resolved when the director appealed to his friend Arghezi, by then a prominent cultural figure, and who managed to have the MLR relocated to a spacious location once occupied by the defunct Romanian-Russian Museum. One year before his death, Perpessicius also founded the MLR archive's press venue, Manuscriptum. By 1968, he was also collaborating on the new edition of Gazeta Literară, with the column Lecturi intermitente ("Intermittent Readings"), and collected his lifelong articles to be republished as a series of volumes.
Having fallen ill and losing much of his eyesight, Perpessicius died on the morning of March 29, 1971, after prolonged and acute suffering. He was buried in Bellu cemetery. Two posthumous volumes were published as tribute during the same year: Lecturi intermitente with Editura Dacia
, and Eminesciana with Editura Minerva
(forwarded by his son, Dumitru D. Panaitescu).
. Tudor Vianu thus described him as "one of the purest figures of writers who came to develop in the period between the two wars." The generic group also includes George Călinescu
, Şerban Cioculescu
, Pompiliu Constantinescu
, Eugen Lovinescu
, Vladimir Streinu, Tudor Vianu
and others. This entire generation of critics stood for the legacy of Junimea
, a literary society influential in the second half of the 19th century. They followed in the footsteps of Junimist leader and philosopher Titu Maiorescu
, who was known for his rationalist
approach, his conservative
suspicion of nationalism
, his calls for pragmatic Westernization
and controlled modernization
, his advocacy of professionalization
in science and literature, and, in particular, his critique of literary didacticism
in favor of "art for art's sake
". Lovinescu referred to himself and his colleagues as "the third post-Maiorescian generation", and, in the 1942 homage to Lovinescu, Perpessicius's essay, called "deepest and most convincing" by 21st century literary historian Nicolae Manolescu
, focused primarily on Lovinescu's own study of Maiorescu. However, Z. Ornea notes, the analogy with Junimea only has limited application, given that the interwar critics all espoused "historicist
" beliefs to varying degrees, and contextualized literary movements in a manner rejected by Maiorescu. Perpessicius' other mentors, Vianu notes, were critics and academics of diverse backgrounds: Ovid Densusianu
, Dumitru Evolceanu and Ion Bianu.
Out of this environment, Perpessicius emerged with a personal style, characterized by literary historian Paul Cernat as both "eclectic
" and "impressionist
". Cernat also notes that Perpessicius parts with the Junimist tradition of combative, and ideally "masculine" criticism, establishing an ideological alternative: "The utopia of 'Perpessician' criticism is an aesthetic ecumenism
purged of sociological
, ethical and ethnic intrusions, and likewise of dogmatic, rationalist-positivist
, prejudice." Contantinescu referred to his friend as "the only Romanian critic not to have practiced dogmatism" and "our most civilized critic, both spiritually and ethically".
According to literary critic Ştefan Cazimir, Perpessicius and George Călinescu are "our only 'poets and critics' who honor both terms of the sequence", while, in Cernat's view, Perpessicius and his friend Ion Pillat
stood out for having internalized "the collaboration between 'poet' and 'critic' ". This particularity resulted in the literary mix of De la Chateaubriand la Mallarmé, partly inspired by the ideas of Albert Thibaudet
: here, the critic blurs the lines between views expressed by writers and views expressed about the writers, using fragments of narratives to deduce critical thought. As a compliment to his stated preference for lyricism in prose, Perpessicius also believed that the modern novel and novella
were interfering with each other to the point were distinction became "absolute gratuitousness" (a vision discussed in his Menţiuni critice).
This tendency toward aesthetic relativism
owed inspiration to the theories of French Symbolist Remy de Gourmont
, and brought Perpessicius into conflict with Lovinescu, whose more rigid version of Impressionism was based on the views of Émile Faguet
. Initially, the elder critic had expressed approval of Repertoriul critic, calling Perpessicius himself "a man of taste, a graceful stylist and an ornate spirit". A major point of contention between the two figures emerged in the late 1920s, when Lovinescu published his Istoria literaturii române contemporane ("The History of Contemporary Romanian Literature"). The work was received with reserve by Perpessicius, who, in his chronicle at Cuvântul
, objected to his senior's belief in the inferiority of lyricism over both narratives and epic poetry
, and also to his dismissive treatment of avant-garde
writers and of paraliterature
. He declared himself disappointed by Lovinescu having disregarded the post-Symbolist poetry of George Bacovia
, and criticized him for deriding the lyricized prose of traditionalist author Mihail Sadoveanu
. He commented with irony on Lovinescu's primarily historicist perspective, arguing that it closely resembled what he himself criticized in the didacticism of Mihail Dragomirescu and Henri Sanielevici, and claiming that his rival's Sburătorul
society aggravated "the dependence on literary schools". However, Perpessicius recognized Lovinescu's mentorship in his 1941-1942 essays, joining what literary historian Mircea Iorgulescu defines as "Lovinescu's first posterity" (also grouping, alongside the other authors of the 1942 volume, the younger-aged Sibiu Literary Circle
).
, an expansion outside "the traditional realm of Romanian poetry, which had penetrated public consciousness through its cultural and didactic elements." The book was based on similar anthologies of German
or French literature
, as compiled by Kurt Pinthus and Paul Fort
. As part of his dislike for historicist definitions, he most often refused to differentiate between the various "-isms" within the current, referring to the avant-garde in general as the "far left
" of modernism. This approach partly echoed the pronouncements of his fellow critics, among them Const. T. Emilian, author of the first study on Romania's cutting-edge modernism, a work noted for its ultra-conservative, nationalist
and antisemitic conclusions. Perpessicius did not however share Emilian's viewpoint, and, in line with his pronouncements against a "Jewish quota
", explicitly rejected the belief that avant-garde poetry was subversive, arguing instead that, at its best, the current displayed a modern "virtuosity". In his review of Emilian's polemical study of the avant-garde, Perpessicus spoke of the author's "rigid and timorous" approach to the subject.
Perpessicius was especially sympathetic to poet Tudor Arghezi
, a former Symbolist who had created a mixture of radical modernism and traditionalism, and who was hailed as a hero by the avant-garde circles. According to Cernat, the critic was the first-ever professional to declare Arghezi compatible with and comparable to Mihai Eminescu
, thus cementing into mainstream verdict what had previously existed only as an isolated avant-garde claim. He was also interested in the work of another avant-garde champion, the suicidal clerk Urmuz
, being one of the first to take Urmuz's work seriously, producing an essay which Nicolae Manolescu describes as "the most profound in our country's interwar criticism." Perpessicius stripped Urmuz's fragmentary and absurdist
prose of its satirical elements, believing to have found profound cultural meanings, such as elements of fairy tale
s, echoes from Norse
and Greek mythology
, and allusions to the puppet theater, all of which created "new, daring and amazing, forms".
His essays included ample comments on Urmuz's following, discussing his influence on diverse authors, avant-garde as well as mainstream: Arghezi, Geo Bogza
, Jacques G. Costin, Adrian Maniu, Tudor Muşatescu
, Saşa Pană
, Stephan Roll and Ion Vinea. He focuses such pieces on Costin, whom he believed was an important author with "sharp traits" and "great subtlety", different from Urmuz in that he was "good-humored". He believed that Costin's parody
of Don Quixote needed only "a mild process of purification" in order to join the "Romanian models" of its genre. Other avant-garde affiliates favorably reviewed by Perpessicius include: Ion Călugăru
, whose fantasy
writings and folk story parodies he considered suited for "the heaven of dreams"; Benjamin Fondane
, a "reputable essayist" in whose poetic work, which reinterpreted the rural landscape, "patriarchy
suffered and made itself seem outraged"; and the post-Symbolist Ion Minulescu
, whose 1930 volume Strofe pentru toată lumea ("Stanzas for All") he deemed "fantasy poetry [...] transfiguring the every day and the trend [...], raising jokes to the level of poetic principle and conversing with God in a simpler, more citizen-like [...], more democratic [...] than [Minulescu] was conversing with himself some twenty years ago". Perpessicius also backed Fondane's verdict according to which Minulescu was "the first bell-ringer of Romania's lyrical revolt". His interest also covered Mateiu Caragiale
, but his surviving renditions of the latter's texts have been criticized for being selective.
Despite this interest in innovation, Perpessicius treated the work of various avant-garde authors with noted reserve, and attempted to correct tendencies he considered negative. This attitude surfaced in his reviews of Ilarie Voronca
's poetry, when, although not adverse to the subconscious
explorations of Dada
ism and Surrealism
, Perpessicius voiced his concern that the resulting imagery was chaotic, and therefore hard to merge into the lyrical tradition. This reproach he combined with earlier objections: in his review of Voronca's 1923 collection of Decadent
poems, Restrişti ("Tribulations"), he first criticized the poet for introducing neologisms or barbarisms to literary Romanian
. Referring to Voronca's later Imagist
and Surrealist volume Plante şi animale, Perpessicius noted: "such poetry impresses, but does not charm. It strikes, but it does maintain. That's because it is fragmentary poetry." This kind of "prudent" conclusions, Cernat proposes, made the critic resemble all his colleagues of the moderate mainstream. Although discussing the shortcomings of Voronca's literature, Paul Cernat notes, Perpessicius was overall his most sympathetic of his more important early reviewers. Praise became the norm after 1928, when Voronca parted with radicalism and, through his Ulise (Romanian for "Ulysses
"), elaborated a personal style at the junction of visionary tradition and introspective modernity. He believed this change had brought Voronca close to the types of poetry illustrated by classics such as Novalis
, Walt Whitman
and Eminescu, or by former Dadaist doyen Tristan Tzara
in his The Approximate Man, while protesting that the Romanian Writers' Society had failed to honor Voronca with a prize.
Perpessicius was welcoming of other Surrealist productions, among which was a cryptic prose poem
by Stephan Roll, Moartea Eleonorei ("Eleonora's Death"). He also enjoyed Ion Vinea's lyrical and marginally-Surrealist novel Paradisul suspinelor ("The Paradise of Sighs"), which he described as "a picturesque theater of reflexive puppets" emerging from the combined "virtuosity" of "poet, psychoanalyst
and Surrealist aesthete". Other texts by Perpessicius focused on the impact of psychoanalysis on modernist and psychological novel
authors such as Felix Aderca
, Gib Mihăescu
and Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu
, or experimented in art criticism, with a review of Marcel Janco
's vignette portraits for Antologia.... Perpessicius viewed the latter drawings as "masks", "macerated by outer flames and drained of blood" and displaying "great vital force." He also took an interest in the illustrations contributed to Voronca and Pană by, respectively, Constantin Brâncuşi
and Victor Brauner
, expressing admiration for their "primitivist
" aesthetics. Sympathetic to Mircea Eliade
, leader of the new radical modernism of the 1930s (a current emerging from Trăirism), he also offered positive reviews to other members of Eliade's generation, among them Mihail Sebastian
(in particular for the controversial novel De două mii de ani...) and Petru Comarnescu
(for Homo americanus, a group of essays on the United States
). According to one assessment, he was also the only critic of his generation to defend Camil Petrescu
's novel Ultima noapte de dragoste, întâia noapte de război, criticized from early on for being sharply divided into two seemingly unrelated sections—in his assessment, this arrangement resonated with a profound message.
on the poet, we have no critical edition [...] and we are even further from the prospect of a monument. We nonetheless have a Ministry of the Arts, and we carry on erecting, instead of statues [...], blocks of granite and beams of steel, more perishable than the paper stanzas of [Eminescu's] Floare albastră." By compiling his own edition, Perpessicius also sought to point out perceived flaws in previous selections, including that of his Junimist model Maiorescu—an approach revered by his political adversary, the post-Junimist historian and critic Nicolae Iorga
. Both Iorga and Pompiliu Constantinescu
offered special praise to Perpessicius' detailed study of Eminescu's biography on a strictly chronological basis (a chronology mirrored by the sorting of poem variants). Vianu saw the book as a major progress in understanding Eminescu's poetry. Noting that, in all, Perpessicius reviewed and transcribed some 15,000 pages of Eminescu's manuscripts, a prospect others had avoided, Vianu stated: "No one will ever be able to study Eminescu, the history and connections of each of his works, their genesis and echoes in literary historiography and criticism, without using Perpessicius' critical edition as their starting point."
One major contribution made by Perpessicius to the field of Eminescu studies is his uncovering and publication of posthumous works. Vianu noted that, together with the bio-bibliographical writings of George Călinescu, Perpessicius' version of Opere initiated "the most significant transformation in posterity's image of the Romanians' greatest writer [Eminescu]." This helped highlight the successive periods in Eminescu's work, from his Romanticism
of the 1860s to his epic
interpretations of Romanian folklore, early Balkan myths and Norse mythology
. An entire section of Operes fifth volume sorted Eminescu's random and often unused drafts, collectively titled Moloz ("Debris"), thus allowing readers to differentiate between Eminescu's moments of inspiration and his routine poetic exercises. Perpessicius' research is also credited with having tracked down and compared the various drafts of Luceafărul, a process which, according to Ene, might not have otherwise been attempted. The late article collection Eminesciana, was criticized by some for being overall inferior to Perpessicius' other contributions, a conclusion which, Ene believes, is owed to some of the pieces having been prompted by public events. The author himself saw it as a diary and document of his studies, with "a certain kind of usefulness".
Reproaches on this perspective were notably voiced by his colleague and rival Lovinescu, who, in his Istoria literaturii..., argued that critics were supposed to resemble the folk legend hero Meşterul Manole
, who sacrificed his wife in the name of art, and claimed that, contrary to this ideal, Perpessicius had not waived "affective connections", particularly when discussing Arghezi. Lovinescu argued that his preference for modernism "embraces almost everything in contemporary literature, down to its minor products", an attitude which he equated with "abdication". George Călinescu discussed Perpessicius' reviews of "the most insignificant books", which, he claimed, consecrated his belonging to a "brilliant generation of secondary teachers" ill-adapted to the job of critics, lacking both "general ideas" and the ability of detecting "a work's hierarchic place" (in support of which he mentioned Perpessicius's claim that novelist Eugen Goga was one of Romania's best). Călinescu went on to argue that any negative comment made by his colleague could "seem like praise" by being "sweetened" from one phrase to the next, making reference to his use of euphemism
s, "digressions" and "excessive delicacy". The same comemntator did however note that Menţiuni critice was "a precious bibliographic guide."
Similar judgments were issued from various sides of the cultural spectrum. Although himself a collaborator of Perpessicius, Vladimir Streinu once referred to him as "the flower girl of our literature". While Tudor Vianu believed the "discreet" Perpessicius able of "biting irony", he also claimed: "The critic is at times too indulgent and, as a consequence, the contrasts in his appreciations are somewhat toned down. But how many young people did not absorb fortifying strengths from Perpessicius' benevolent verdicts?" Perpessicius' rejection of "sectarianism" was unfavorably reviewed by Cioculescu in a 1928 article for Adevărul
, which prompted a reply from Perpessicius. For Alexandru Al, Philippide, the second volume of Antologia poeţilor de azi was a sample of such leniency, to the point of becoming "embarrassingly instructive" by including talentless authors. He noted: "Seventy real poets in a quarter of a century is an a priori impossibility. [...] In such conditions, poetry presents itself as a real scourge, like some dangerous pestilence, almost like a social peril. And in such circumstances an anthology as horrifyingly complete as that of Mr. Pillat and Mr. Perpessicius appears to be disastrous. It is made to implant the belief that poets are to be found in a sum of individuals who, perhaps, had they been lacking such 'consecration', would be growing disillusioned and turn back into decent men, brave citizens and diligent clerks". The dispute touched on Perpessicius' own relationship with the avant-garde. In his account of Voronca's departure from the Surrealist group (part of a 1933 letter addressed to Fondane), Roll sarcastically downplayed his former colleague's success, alleging: "Only Perpessicius smothered [Voronca] in slobbery, grandmotherly, kisses; only Perpessicius showered with gifts, produced licks of the tongue, telephone calls and accolades."
These themes of criticism were revisited by newer generation of critics. According to Eugen Simion, in following the Symbolist path of Remy de Gourmont, Perpessicius "gazes without discrimination over a Surrealist poem or a late Romantic work." Expanding on his take on the conflicting perspectives of Romanian criticism, Cernat observed: "Not at all lacking in critical spirit, Perpessicius most obviously belongs to the category of 'feminine', 'artistic' and 'poetic' critics [...]." Cernat also notes that, despite common perception, Perpessicius was "coherent with himself". Writing in 2002, literary historian Florin Mihăilescu argued that "directional criticism" as exemplified by Maiorescu, Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea
, Garabet Ibrăileanu
and Lovinescu, "will always be superior to the eternally well-disposed and always equable reviewer's office, à la Perpessicius".
directed at the regime changes in Greater Romania
. Like its immediate successor Itinerar sentimental, Scut şi targă was seen by Vianu as among "the most delicate and spiritual inspirations of [their] epoch." From a stylistic perspective, Scut şi targă fitted within the scope of Symbolist poetry and, as Perpessicius himself is said to have recounted, marked by the influence of Jules Laforgue
. George Călinescu, who notes that their apparently "detached" tone allows glimpses of a "profound emotion", also stresses that the poems are indebted to the school of Arthur Rimbaud
. He thus sees a connection between Rimbaud's The Sleeper of the Vale and scenes of "solar putrefaction" he associates with Perpessicius' lines for men killed by firing squads:
For Călinescu, Perpessicius combined a Rimbaudesque appetite for "vagrancy" with a love for his native Bărăgan Plain
, providing him with "a sense for the vigorous eternity of the fields, indifferent as they are to human waste". This, he argued, was made obvious by stanzas such as:
In Cazimir's view, there is a close connection between Perpessicus' "bookish" poems and some verse works by George Călinescu, particularly as melancholic contributions to Romanian humor. Cazimir believes that Perpessicius' distinguishing notes are the "suspicion toward all sorts of pathos
", "prosaic touches" and the recourse to "cultural references". As an example of this technique, he cites the poem Toamnă ("Autumn"):
According to Călinescu himself, while the type of "intimism" had roots reaching as far back as medieval poet Alain Chartier
, Perpessicius' other tendency was a form of Neoclassicism
which directly referenced the major figures of Latin literature
: Catullus
, Horace
, Ovid
and Sextus Propertius
. The latter influence, he argues, explained how Perpessicius return adoption of elegy
as a form of poetic expression, in which "melancholy is without neurosis
, but only slightly purple, like a funerary urn." In what Călinescu deems "such an excellent poem", Perpessicius depicts the Mureş River
as his Styx
:
Perpessicius' work in fiction includes several unfinished novels. In addition to Veninul, they include Fatma sau focul de paie ("Fatma or the Straw Fire") and Amor academic ("Academic Love Affair"), both of them mentioned in his profile for the 1925 Antologia poeţilor de azi. According to literary historian Ioana Pârvulescu, who suspects that Amor academic was Perpessicius' intended homage to Yvoria Secoşanu, the author portrayed himself under the fictional names Mototolea (from mototol, "wuss") and Pentapolin (the shepherd king in Don Quixote).
For the final half of his life, Perpessicius' Eminescu studies took precedence over his contributions to both poetry and fiction. Reflecting on this situation, Tudor Vianu noted: "We may at times experience regret that the poet, the literary historian, the prose writer [in Perpessicius] have consented to such a sacrifice. But we cannot prevent ourselves from saying that Perpessicius has thus fulfilled himself through the best part of his moral nature, through his modesty, generosity and dedication." In addition to this and his translations from Francis Jammes
, he also rendered some of Charles Baudelaire
's poetry, being noted by Tudor Vianu for his "beautiful" translation of The Kind-hearted Servant of Whom You Were Jealous (part of Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal
).
's texts, like the similar notebooks kept by Alexandru Rosetti, appear to have been lost forever under mysterious circumstances. Perpessicus' own private notebooks were only published in fragments, in various 1970s issues of Manuscriptum; the majority of these notes are kept away from the public eye, and, according to his express wish, can only be published at an unknown term in the future.
His native home in Brăila
was torn down in 1977, as the result of error, and rebuilt soon after with more modern materials. The new building became the Perpessicius Memorial House, hosting a permanent exhibit of his personal objects (including more than 7,000 of the books he owned). It also features a marble bust of the author, the work of Romanian-born Canadian
sculptor Nicăpetre. A teacher training school in the city was named the D. P. Perpessicius in the critic's honor. The 17 volumes of his Mihai Eminescu edition form part of an Eminescu book collection at the Botoşani County
Library, which in turn resulted from an exceptionally large donation made after the Romanian Revolution of 1989
.
In 2006, Adevărul
journalist Christian Levant investigated the Dedena affair, concluding that Panaitescu Jr.'s arrest, like that of other members of his Marxist circle, was made possible by the actions of an informant
. In Levant's view, that person was Eugen Florescu, who later made a career in the Communist Party and, after the Revolution, in the nationalist Greater Romania Party
, having served in the Senate
until 2004.
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
n literary historian and critic, poet, essayist and fiction writer. One of the prominent literary chroniclers of the Romanian interwar
Interwar period
Interwar period can refer to any period between two wars. The Interbellum is understood to be the period between the end of the Great War or First World War and the beginning of the Second World War in Europe....
, he stood apart in his generation for having thrown his support behind the modernist
Modernist literature
Modernist literature is sub-genre of Modernism, a predominantly European movement beginning in the early 20th century that was characterized by a self-conscious break with traditional aesthetic forms...
and avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
currents of Romanian literature
Literature of Romania
Romanian literature is literature written by Romanian authors, although the term may also be used to refer to all literature written in the Romanian language.Eugène Ionesco is one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd....
. As a theorist, Perpessicius merged the tenets of Symbolism
Symbolism (arts)
Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...
with the pragmatic conservative
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
principles of the 19th century Junimea
Junimea
Junimea was a Romanian literary society founded in Iaşi in 1863, through the initiative of several foreign-educated personalities led by Titu Maiorescu, Petre P. Carp, Vasile Pogor, Theodor Rosetti and Iacob Negruzzi...
society, but was much-criticized over perceptions that, in the name of aesthetic relativism
Aesthetic relativism
Aesthetic relativism is the philosophical view that the judgement of beauty is relative to individuals, cultures, time periods and contexts, and that there are no universal criteria of beauty...
, he tolerated literary failure. Also known as an anthologist, biographer, museologist, folklorist and book publisher, he was, together with George Călinescu
George Calinescu
George Călinescu was a Romanian literary critic, historian, novelist, academician and journalist, and a writer of classicist and humanist tendencies...
, one of his generation's best-known researchers to have focused on the work of Junimist author and since-acknowledged national poet Mihai Eminescu
Mihai Eminescu
Mihai Eminescu was a Romantic poet, novelist and journalist, often regarded as the most famous and influential Romanian poet. Eminescu was an active member of the Junimea literary society and he worked as an editor for the newspaper Timpul , the official newspaper of the Conservative Party...
. Much of Perpessicius' career was dedicated to collecting, structuring and interpreting Eminescu's texts, resulting in an authoritative edition of Eminescu's writings, the 17-volume Opere ("Works").
A veteran of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, where he lost use of his right arm, Perpessicius debuted in poetry while recovering in hospital, publishing the critically acclaimed volume Scut şi targă ("Shield and Stretcher"). His subsequent "intimist" and Neoclassical
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...
tendencies made him part of a distinct current within the local branch of Symbolism
Symbolist movement in Romania
The Symbolist movement in Romania, active during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, marked the development of Romanian culture in both literature and visual arts...
. Like other mainstream modernists of his day, Perpessicius also espoused anti-fascism
Anti-fascism
Anti-fascism is the opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals, such as that of the resistance movements during World War II. The related term antifa derives from Antifaschismus, which is German for anti-fascism; it refers to individuals and groups on the left of the political...
and criticized nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
in general, attitudes which led him into conflict with the 1930s far right
Far right
Far-right, extreme right, hard right, radical right, and ultra-right are terms used to discuss the qualitative or quantitative position a group or person occupies within right-wing politics. Far-right politics may involve anti-immigration and anti-integration stances towards groups that are...
. In 1938-1940 however, Perpessicius controversially offered a degree of support to the fascist
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
-inspired National Renaissance Front
National Renaissance Front
The National Renaissance Front was a fascist Romanian political party created by King Carol II in 1938 as the single monopoly party of government following his decision to ban all other political parties and suspend the 1923 Constitution, and the passing of the 1938 Constitution of Romania...
, and was promoted by its leader, King
King of Romania
King of the Romanians , rather than King of Romania , was the official title of the ruler of the Kingdom of Romania from 1881 until 1947, when Romania was proclaimed a republic....
Carol II
Carol II of Romania
Carol II reigned as King of Romania from 8 June 1930 until 6 September 1940. Eldest son of Ferdinand, King of Romania, and his wife, Queen Marie, a daughter of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, the second eldest son of Queen Victoria...
. Sympathetic to the left-wing trend after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Perpessicius was drawn into cooperation with the Romanian Communist Party
Romanian Communist Party
The Romanian Communist Party was a communist political party in Romania. Successor to the Bolshevik wing of the Socialist Party of Romania, it gave ideological endorsement to communist revolution and the disestablishment of Greater Romania. The PCR was a minor and illegal grouping for much of the...
. Although subsequently endorsed and acclaimed by the communist regime
Communist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
, Perpessicius was reluctant to condone its policies and dedicated his final years almost exclusively to literature. A member of the Romanian Academy
Romanian Academy
The Romanian Academy is a cultural forum founded in Bucharest, Romania, in 1866. It covers the scientific, artistic and literary domains. The academy has 181 acting members who are elected for life....
and founding director of the Museum of Romanian Literature, he was co-editor of Viaţa Românească
Viata Româneasca
Viaţa Românească, originally Viaţa Romînească , is a monthly literary magazine published in Romania...
magazine, and, in 1957, head of the Academy's Library.
Name
Known initially as Panait S. Dumitru or Panaiot Şt. Dumitru (with an inverted name order and the middle initial standing for his patronymicPatronymic
A patronym, or patronymic, is a component of a personal name based on the name of one's father, grandfather or an even earlier male ancestor. A component of a name based on the name of one's mother or a female ancestor is a matronymic. Each is a means of conveying lineage.In many areas patronyms...
), the author was given the name Dumitru S. Panaitescu (also Dimitire Panaiot, Panaitescu Şt. Dumitru), while in primary school. To his friends, he was known as Mitică or Mitiş, the pet forms of Dumitru.
Perpessicius' pseudonym, dating from ca. 1913-1918 is Latin for "he who suffers" or "he who was tested". Some commentators believe that the verb had special significance for Perpessicius, as either an ironic coincidence or a direct consequence of losing his writing arm. Others argue that it was merely imposed on him by his writer friends Tudor Arghezi
Tudor Arghezi
Tudor Arghezi was a Romanian writer, best known for his contribution to poetry and children's literature. Born Ion N. Theodorescu in Bucharest , he explained that his pen name was related to Argesis, the Latin name for the Argeş River.-Early life:Along with Mihai Eminescu, Mateiu Caragiale, and...
and Gala Galaction
Gala Galaction
Gala Galaction was a Romanian Orthodox clergyman and theologian, writer, journalist, left-wing activist, as well as a political figure of the People's Republic of Romania...
.
Early life and World War I
Born in the DanubeDanube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
port city of Brăila
Braila
Brăila is a city in Muntenia, eastern Romania, a port on the Danube and the capital of Brăila County, in the close vicinity of Galaţi.According to the 2002 Romanian census there were 216,292 people living within the city of Brăila, making it the 10th most populous city in Romania.-History:A...
, in the Bărăgan Plain
Baragan Plain
The Bărăgan Plain is a steppe plain in south-eastern Romania. It makes up much of the eastern part of the Wallachian Plain. The region is known for its black soil and a rich humus, and is mostly a cereal-growing area....
areas, Perpessicius was the son of middle-class parents Ştefan Panaiot (or Panaitescu) and Ecaterina (née Daraban), who owned a house on Cetăţii Street. Between 1898 and 1902, he attended the Nr. 4 Primary School, completing his gymnasium-level and secondary education at the Nicolae Bălcescu
Nicolae Balcescu
Nicolae Bălcescu was a Romanian Wallachian soldier, historian, journalist, and leader of the 1848 Wallachian Revolution.-Early life:...
School (1902–1910).
The future Perpessicius rallied with Symbolism while still an adolescent, and, at his Baccalaureate
Romanian Baccalaureate
The Bacalaureat is an exam held in Romania when one graduates high school .Unlike the French Baccalaureate, the Romanian one has a single degree...
examination of 1910, gave a spoken presentation of innovative poet Ion Minulescu
Ion Minulescu
Ion Minulescu was a Romanian avant-garde poet, novelist, short story writer, journalist, literary critic, and playwright. Often publishing his works under the pseudonyms I. M. Nirvan and Koh-i-Noor , he journeyed to Paris, where he was heavily influenced by the growing Symbolist movement and...
. He subsequently left for Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
, where he attended the city university
University of Bucharest
The University of Bucharest , in Romania, is a university founded in 1864 by decree of Prince Alexander John Cuza to convert the former Saint Sava Academy into the current University of Bucharest.-Presentation:...
's Faculty of Letters, specializing in Romance studies
Romance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
. He notably attended lectures on modern
Modern literature
Modern literature can either refer to*modernist literature *modern literature ....
Romance-language
Romance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
literature given by Ovid Densusianu
Ovid Densusianu
Ovid Densusianu was a Romanian poet, philologist, linguist and folklorist. He is known for introducing new trends of European modernism into Romanian literature.He was a professor at the University of Bucharest, and a member of the Romanian Academy....
, patron of the Symbolist school, which he himself deemed a formative experience. Also during his university years, he first came into contact with the remaining manuscripts of Mihai Eminescu
Mihai Eminescu
Mihai Eminescu was a Romantic poet, novelist and journalist, often regarded as the most famous and influential Romanian poet. Eminescu was an active member of the Junimea literary society and he worked as an editor for the newspaper Timpul , the official newspaper of the Conservative Party...
, on which his later exegesis would rely. He made his literary debut with poems sent to the Versuri şi Proză magazine, edited in Iaşi
Iasi
Iași is the second most populous city and a municipality in Romania. Located in the historical Moldavia region, Iași has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Romanian social, cultural, academic and artistic life...
by Densusianu's admirers I. M. Raşcu and Alfred Hefter-Hidalgo. One of them, titled Reminiscenţă ("Reminiscence"), was signed with the pen name D. Pandara. At around that time, the young author met and befriended Parnassian poet Artur Enăşescu, being, together with fellow critic Tudor Vianu
Tudor Vianu
Tudor Vianu was a Romanian literary critic, art critic, poet, philosopher, academic, and translator. Known for his left-wing and anti-fascist convictions, he had a major role on the reception and development of Modernism in Romanian literature and art...
, a witness to Enăşescu's life before it was changed by mental disorder and material ruin.
Perpessicius graduated in 1914, the same year when he married Alice Paleologu. In autumn 1915, at around the same time when Alice gave birth to a boy, he was appointed a clerk at the Romanian Academy
Romanian Academy
The Romanian Academy is a cultural forum founded in Bucharest, Romania, in 1866. It covers the scientific, artistic and literary domains. The academy has 181 acting members who are elected for life....
Library, assigned to work on its new catalog
Library catalog
A library catalog is a register of all bibliographic items found in a library or group of libraries, such as a network of libraries at several locations...
. That year, other early selections of his writings saw print in Cronica, a Symbolist and left-wing journal co-edited by Arghezi and Galaction. Perpessicus may have also shared Cronicas Germanophile
Germanophile
A Germanophile is a person who is fond of German culture, German people, and Germany in general, exhibiting as it were German nationalism in spite of not being an ethnic German or a German citizen. Its opposite is Germanophobia...
agenda, which, at the time, implied criticism of the Entente Powers
Allies of World War I
The Entente Powers were the countries at war with the Central Powers during World War I. The members of the Triple Entente were the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire; Italy entered the war on their side in 1915...
. He was by then working on a novel, titled Veninul ("The Venom"). A fragment of this work saw print in Arena, a short-lived magazine edited by poets Ion Vinea and Demostene Botez in collaboration with Hefter-Hidalgo and N. Porsenna.
Perpessicius joined the Romanian Army in 1916, as Romania rallied with the Entente against the Central Powers
Central Powers
The Central Powers were one of the two warring factions in World War I , composed of the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Bulgaria...
(see Romania during World War I). He was sent to Northern Dobruja
Northern Dobruja
Northern Dobruja is the part of Dobruja within the borders of Romania. It lies between the lower Danube river and the Black Sea, bordered in south by Bulgarian Southern Dobruja.-Geography:...
in the wake of the Turtucaia defeat
Battle of Turtucaia
The Battle of Turtucaia in Bulgaria, was the opening battle of the first Central Powers offensive during the Romanian Campaign of World War I...
, when southern Romania was being invaded by Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
n and Imperial German
German Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
forces. On October 6, 1916, during the skirmish of Muratan
Topraisar
Topraisar is a commune in the Constanţa County, Romania.The commune includes four villages:*Topraisar *Biruinţa *Moviliţa...
, his right elbow was hit by an enemy bullet, being partially amputated
Amputation
Amputation is the removal of a body extremity by trauma, prolonged constriction, or surgery. As a surgical measure, it is used to control pain or a disease process in the affected limb, such as malignancy or gangrene. In some cases, it is carried out on individuals as a preventative surgery for...
by surgeons in order to prevent a loss of the entire limb. His disabled arm was fastened with a black-colored sling, and Perpessicius taught himself to write left-handed (a change which reportedly made his handwriting
Handwriting
Handwriting is a person's particular & individual style of writing with pen or pencil, which contrasts with "Hand" which is an impersonal and formalised writing style in several historical varieties...
instantly recognizable by his peers).
1920s
By late 1918, as Romania signed an armistice with the Central PowersTreaty of Bucharest, 1918
The Treaty of Bucharest was a peace treaty which the German Empire forced Romania to sign on 7 May 1918 following the Romanian campaign of 1916-1917.-Main terms of the treaty:...
, Perpessicius returned to Bucharest. It was there that, together with two of Denusianu's disciples—Dragoş Protopopescu
Dragos Protopopescu
Dragoş Protopopescu was a Romanian writer, poet, critic and philosopher. He was professor at the University of Cernăuţi....
and Scarlat Struţeanu—he established the magazine Letopiseţi, which did not survive into the next year. After the November 1918 Armistice
Armistice with Germany (Compiègne)
The armistice between the Allies and Germany was an agreement that ended the fighting in the First World War. It was signed in a railway carriage in Compiègne Forest on 11 November 1918 and marked a victory for the Allies and a complete defeat for Germany, although not technically a surrender...
, which saw the end of the war to the Entente's benefit, and after the Austro-Hungarian
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
-ruled region of Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
was united with Romania
Union of Transylvania with Romania
Union of Transylvania with Romania was declared on by the assembly of the delegates of ethnic Romanians held in Alba Iulia.The national holiday of Romania, the Great Union Day occurring on December 1, commemorates this event...
, Perpessicius was assigned to a teaching position in the newly-gained city of Arad
Arad, Romania
Arad is the capital city of Arad County, in western Romania, in the Crişana region, on the river Mureş.An important industrial center and transportation hub, Arad is also the seat of a Romanian Orthodox archbishop and features two universities, a Romanian Orthodox theological seminary, a training...
, at the Moise Nicoară High School (1919) and afterward at the Târgu Mureş Military High School. From autumn 1920 to summer 1921, he returned to Brăila, employed by the Normal School as a teacher of Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
and French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
. Citing letters the young teacher had sent to his friends, Vianu reports that he missed working in the archives.
Late in 1921, Perpessicius made his return to Bucharest, where, until 1929, he held teaching positions at various high schools and business education
Business education
Business education involves teaching students the fundamentals, theories, and processes of business. Education in this field occurs at several levels, including secondary education and higher education or university education. Approximately 38% of student enroll in one or more business courses...
establishments. In 1922, he began his work in Romanian theater, collaborating with the Iaşi-based Insula, a troupe founded by writer Benjamin Fondane
Benjamin Fondane
Benjamin Fondane or Benjamin Fundoianu was a Romanian and French poet, critic and existentialist philosopher, also noted for his work in film and theater. Known from his Romanian youth as a Symbolist poet and columnist, he alternated Neoromantic and Expressionist themes with echoes from Tudor...
and actor Armand Pascal. The company favored a characteristic blended of modernist theater and influences from defunct traditionalist currents such as Sămănătorul
Sămănătorul
Sămănătorul or Semănătorul was a literary and political magazine published in Romania between 1901 and 1910. Founded by poets Alexandru Vlahuţă and George Coşbuc, it is primarily remembered as a tribune for early 20th century traditionalism, neoromanticism and ethnic nationalism...
. Just before it went bankrupt in early 1923, it was planning a "spoken anthology", during which notes compiled on several authors were supposed to be read for the public: Fondane's own comments on Arghezi, together with those of Perpessicius and Ion Călugăru
Ion Călugăru
Ion Călugăru was a Romanian novelist, short story writer, journalist and critic. As a figure on Romania's modernist scene throughout the early interwar period, he was noted for combining a picturesque perspective on the rural Jewish-Romanian community, to which he belonged, with traditionalist and...
on traditionalist poets—respectively, Alexandru Vlahuţă
Alexandru Vlahuta
Alexandru Vlahuţă was a Romanian writer. His best known work is România pitorească, an overview of Romania's landscape in the form of a travelogue. He was also the main editor of Sămănătorul magazine, alongside George Coşbuc....
and George Coşbuc
George Cosbuc
George Coşbuc was a Romanian poet, translator, teacher, and journalist, best remembered for his verses describing, praising and eulogizing rural life, its many travails but also its occasions for joy....
.
Also in 1923, he debuted as a literary chronicler and a regular on Felix Aderca
Felix Aderca
Felix Aderca or F. Aderca Aderca, also known as Zelicu Froim Adercu or Froim Aderca; March 13, 1891 – December 12, 1962) was a Romanian novelist, playwright, poet, journalist and critic, noted as a representative of rebellious modernism in the context of Romanian literature...
's magazine Spre Ziuă. By 1924, he had articles published in leading Romanian magazines: Ideea Europeană, Mişcarea Literară
Miscarea Literara
Mişcarea Literară was a literary and art weekly published in Romania from 1924 to 1925 by writer Liviu Rebreanu and poet Alexandru Dominic....
, Cuget Românesc and Camil Petrescu
Camil Petrescu
Camil Petrescu was a Romanian playwright, novelist, philosopher and poet. He marked the end of the traditional novel era and laid the foundation of the modern novel era.- Life :...
's Săptămâna Muncii Intelectuale şi Artistice. His debut volume of essays, Repertoriu critic ("Critical Repertoire"), was commissioned by the Romanian Orthodox
Romanian Orthodox Church
The Romanian Orthodox Church is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church. It is in full communion with other Eastern Orthodox churches, and is ranked seventh in order of precedence. The Primate of the church has the title of Patriarch...
Arad Diocese, saw print in 1925. Perpessicius was by then also noted as an advocate of public causes: his articles reacted against the decision to publicly auction
Auction
An auction is a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bid, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder...
the large art collection of Alexandru Bogdan-Piteşti
Alexandru Bogdan-Pitesti
Alexandru Bogdan-Piteşti was a Romanian Symbolist poet, essayist, and art and literary critic, who was also known as a journalist and left-wing political agitator. A wealthy landowner, he invested his fortune in patronage and art collecting, becoming one of the main local promoters of modern art,...
, a controversial politician and former convict who had bequeathed it to the state.
Having established contacts with the emerging avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
during the war years, Perpessicius notably signaled the 1923 debut of its representative, poet Ilarie Voronca
Ilarie Voronca
Ilarie Voronca was a Romanian-French avant-garde poet and essayist.Voronca was of Jewish ethnicity...
. He was, with poet Ion Pillat
Ion Pillat
Ion Pillat grew up in Bucharest. He was a poet, best known for his volume Pe Argeş în sus and Poeme într-un vers...
, editor of Antologia poeţilor de azi ("The Anthology of Present-Day Poets", 2 vols., 1925 and 1928), often considered a seminal text for the popularization of innovative literature, and featuring ink drawings by Marcel Janco
Marcel Janco
Marcel Janco was a Romanian and Israeli visual artist, architect, art theorist and cultural promoter, known as the co-inventor of Dadaism and a leading exponent of Constructivism in Eastern Europe. His first contribution came in the 1910s, when he joined up with poets Tristan Tzara and Ion Vinea...
, a co-founder of Dada
Dada
Dada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...
ism. His critically acclaimed collection of war poems, Scut şi targă, was published in 1926. In 1927, the same year as Pillat and Artur Enăşescu, he received the Award for Poetry granted by the Romanian Writers' Society. During those years, Perpessicius fell in love with Viorica "Yvoria" Secoşanu, a woman scholar who became his mistress. When she became aware that the critic was happily married, she committed self-immolation
Self-immolation
Self-immolation refers to setting oneself on fire, often as a form of protest or for the purposes of martyrdom or suicide. It has centuries-long traditions in some cultures, while in modern times it has become a type of radical political protest...
in Bellu cemetery, and died in hospital a short while after. The detail was omitted from Perpessicus' official biographies, and resurfaced only in 2009.
Perpessicius was one of the moderate figures to sign contributions for the cosmopolitan avant-garde magazine Contimporanul
Contimporanul
Contimporanul was a Romanian avant-garde literary and art magazine, published in Bucharest between June 1922 and 1932...
, published by his friends Vinea and Janco, part of a small group which also included, at the time, Minulescu, Pillat, Camil Baltazar
Camil Baltazar
Camil Baltazar was a Romanian-Jewish poet.-Selected works:*Vecernii, 1923*Flaute de mătase, 1923...
, Claudia Millian, Alexandru Al. Philippide, Ion Sân-Giorgiu
Ion Sân-Giorgiu
Ion Sân-Giorgiu was a Romanian modernist poet, dramatist, essayist, literary and art critic, also known as a journalist, academic, and fascist politician. He was notably the author of works on the Sturm und Drang phenomenon and the influence of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe...
and some others. These texts included some of his "intimist" poems and translations from French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
poet Francis Jammes
Francis Jammes
Francis Jammes was a French poet. Coming from an ancient family, he spent most of his life in his native region of Béarn and the Basque Country and his poems are known for their lyricism and for singing the pleasures of a humble country life...
. Contimporanul also published his earlier notes on Vlahuţă, recovered from the Insula manuscripts. In 1927, Perpessicius took over as chronicler for Nae Ionescu
Nae Ionescu
Nae Ionescu was a Romanian philosopher, logician, mathematician, professor, and journalist. Near the end of his career, he became known for his antisemitism and devotion to far right politics, in the years leading up to World War II.-Life:...
's Cuvântul
Cuvântul
Cuvântul is a newspaper from Rezina, the Republic of Moldova, founded in 1995 by Tudor Iaşcenco.- External links :*...
(before it became a tribune for fascist
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
causes), and, in 1929, became a teacher at the Matei Basarab High School in Bucharest (a position he held until 1951). The second volume of Antologia... was received with less enthusiasm, being even called "wasted energy" by Philippide.
1930s
During the 1930s, he published his collected essays and chronicles in several volumes as Menţiuni critice ("Critical Mentions"), most of which were issued by the official publishing house Editura Fundaţiilor Regale. In 1934, he signed a contract with the national radio stationRomanian Radio Broadcasting Company
The Romanian Radio Broadcasting Company , informally referred to as Radio Romania , is the public radio broadcaster in Romania. It operates four national radio channels, and, under the Radio România Regional umbrella, eleven regional radio stations. The four national radio channels are: Radio...
, entitling him to become its on-air literary chronicler, performing the job until 1938. Working under the direction of Adrian Maniu, a modernist writer and radio broadcaster, Perpessicus devoted special shows to recently-deceased authors: the Symbolist-modernist Mateiu Caragiale
Mateiu Caragiale
Mateiu Ion Caragiale was a Romanian poet and prose writer, best known for his novel Craii de Curtea-Veche, which portrays the milieu of boyar descendants before and after World War I. Caragiale's style, associated with Symbolism, the Decadent movement of the fin de siècle, and early modernism, was...
and the former Poporanist
Poporanism
The word “poporanism” is derived from “popor”, meaning “people” in the Romanian language. The ideology of Romanian Populism and poporanism are interchangeable. Founded by Constantin Stere in the early 1890s, populism is distinguished by its opposition to socialism, promotion of voting rights for...
doyen Garabet Ibrăileanu
Garabet Ibraileanu
Garabet Ibrăileanu was a Romanian-Armenian literary critic and theorist, writer, translator, sociologist, Iaşi University professor , and, together with Paul Bujor and Constantin Stere, for long main editor of the Viaţa Românească literary magazine between 1906 and 1930...
.
He focused part of his subsequent research on Mateiu Caragiale, compiling and transcribing his unpublished notes and diaries. He published a definitive edition of Caragiale's collected works in 1936, and, in 1938, returned with an anthology of French literature
French literature
French literature is, generally speaking, literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak traditional languages of France other than French. Literature written in French language, by citizens...
, comprising texts which, he argued, blended fiction and theoretical viewpoints. Titled De la Chateaubriand la Mallarmé ("From Chateaubriand
François-René de Chateaubriand
François-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand was a French writer, politician, diplomat and historian. He is considered the founder of Romanticism in French literature.-Early life and exile:...
to Mallarmé
Stéphane Mallarmé
Stéphane Mallarmé , whose real name was Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of the early 20th century, such as Dadaism, Surrealism, and Futurism.-Biography:Stéphane...
"), it carried a dedication to the memory of French critic Albert Thibaudet
Albert Thibaudet
Albert Thibaudet was a French essayist and literary critic. A former student of Henri Bergson, he was a professor of Jean Rousset...
. After 1933, he also began planning the definitive edition of Eminescu's Opere, a project he discussed first with Editura Naţională Ciornei, and later with Editura Fundaţiilor Regale director Alexandru Rosetti; the first volume, grouping Eminescu's anthmously published poems, saw print with Rosetti's institution in 1939, being received with much critical acclaim. He published a second volume of his poetry, Itinerar sentimental ("Sentimental Itinerary", 1932).
By the late 1920s, as nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
became a radical force on the Romanian political stage, issuing calls for ethnocracy
Ethnocracy
Ethnocracy is a form of government where representatives of a particular ethnic group hold a number of government posts disproportionately large to the percentage of the total population that the particular ethnic group represents and use them to advance the position of their particular ethnic...
, Perpessicius joined intellectuals who called for moderation. In a 1931 piece for Cuvântul, he reacted against nationalist arguments: "The fashion of good Romanians is making a rather furious comeback. You all know the heresy
Heresy
Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...
: one claims that native inhabitants are separated into good and bad, into plagued and pleasant-smelling, less so for their intentions or actions, but rather for the point of view adopted by the esteemed censors of our public and national life. [...] And how much longer do they plan to confront us with this self-sufficient nonsense? Will the mystification never cease? Will common sense never descend among the concrete walls of the office where they forge nationality certificates? No good Romanians but just humans, just humans, gentlemen, and it would suffice." Literary historian Z. Ornea, who likens this "lucid-democratic" text with one issued an year earlier by Viaţa Românească
Viata Româneasca
Viaţa Românească, originally Viaţa Romînească , is a monthly literary magazine published in Romania...
magazine, notes that both appeals failed to prevent the "totalitarian
Totalitarianism
Totalitarianism is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible...
debauchery" of the subsequent decade, when the Iron Guard
Iron Guard
The Iron Guard is the name most commonly given to a far-right movement and political party in Romania in the period from 1927 into the early part of World War II. The Iron Guard was ultra-nationalist, fascist, anti-communist, and promoted the Orthodox Christian faith...
emerged as a force.
Perpessicius integrated his condemnation of antisemitism in a radio broadcast of 1934. It reacted against objections that his Antologia... had made a point of adding newly-emancipated
Jewish Emancipation
Jewish emancipation was the external and internal process of freeing the Jewish people of Europe, including recognition of their rights as equal citizens, and the formal granting of citizenship as individuals; it occurred gradually between the late 18th century and the early 20th century...
Romanian Jews
History of the Jews in Romania
The history of Jews in Romania concerns the Jews of Romania and of Romanian origins, from their first mention on what is nowadays Romanian territory....
among examples of Romanian literature
Literature of Romania
Romanian literature is literature written by Romanian authors, although the term may also be used to refer to all literature written in the Romanian language.Eugène Ionesco is one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd....
, reaffirming an earlier rebuttal: "one cannot exclude a poet [...] based only on his nationality paper. The nationality of an artist is of less interest. In the eventuality, it is that of the people whose language he uses in his writing. But what is certain is that the work is the distinguishing sign of art." Alarmed by what he called "a Jewish quota
Jewish quota
Jewish quota was a percentage that limited the number of Jews in various establishments. In particular, in 19th and 20th centuries some countries had Jewish quotas for higher education, a special case of Numerus clausus....
in literature", he gave positive evaluations to newer works by Jewish authors Ury Benador, I. Peltz and his colleague Mihail Sebastian
Mihail Sebastian
-Life:Sebastian was born to a Jewish family in Brăila. After finishing his secondary studies, Sebastian went on to study law in Bucharest, but was soon attracted to the literary life and the exciting ideas of the new generation of Romanian intellectuals, as epitomized by the literary group...
.
During the same period, the modernists in general became targets of a campaign in the radical nationalist, far right
Far right
Far-right, extreme right, hard right, radical right, and ultra-right are terms used to discuss the qualitative or quantitative position a group or person occupies within right-wing politics. Far-right politics may involve anti-immigration and anti-integration stances towards groups that are...
and fascist press, including the journals Sfarmă-Piatră
Sfarma-Piatra
Sfarmă-Piatră was an antisemitic daily, monthly and later weekly newspaper, published in Romania during the late 1930s and early 1940s...
, Buna Vestire and Neamul Românesc. These journals, owned respectively by Nichifor Crainic
Nichifor Crainic
Nichifor Crainic was a Romanian writer, editor, philosopher, poet and theologian famed for his traditionalist and antisemitic activities...
, Mihail Manoilescu
Mihail Manoilescu
Mihail Manoilescu was a Romanian journalist, engineer, economist, politician and memoirist, who served as Foreign Minister of Romania during the summer of 1940...
and Nicolae Iorga
Nicolae Iorga
Nicolae Iorga was a Romanian historian, politician, literary critic, memoirist, poet and playwright. Co-founder of the Democratic Nationalist Party , he served as a member of Parliament, President of the Deputies' Assembly and Senate, cabinet minister and briefly as Prime Minister...
, produced various inflammatory allegations and insults, in particular claims of Judeo-Bolshevik
Jewish Bolshevism
Jewish Bolshevism, Judeo-Bolshevism, and known as Żydokomuna in Poland, is an antisemitic stereotype based on the claim that Jews have been the driving force behind or are disproportionately involved in the modern Communist movement, or sometimes more specifically Russian Bolshevism.The expression...
plot and antisemitic slurs. In reaction to this, Perpessicius seconded his colleague Pompiliu Constantinescu
Pompiliu Constantinescu
Pompiliu Constantinescu was a Romanian literary critic.-Biography:He was born on 17 May 1901, "in a place where he saw the light of day for the first time, on Sabines Street no...
in creating Gruparea Criticilor Literari Români (GCLR, the Group of Romanian Literary Critics), a professional association which aimed to protect its members' reputation and reacted in particular to accusations of modernist "pornography
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
". The GCLR counted among its members Şerban Cioculescu
Şerban Cioculescu
Şerban Cioculescu was a Romanian literary critic, literary historian and columnist, who held teaching positions in Romanian literature at the University of Iaşi and the University of Bucharest, as well as membership of the Romanian Academy and chairmanship of its Library...
and Vladimir Streinu, as well as Sebastian, Ion Biberi and Octav Şuluţiu. The members carried a polemic with Iorga's Cuget Clar magazine, defending Arghezi against accusations of obscenity repeatedly launched by Iorga and opinion journalist N. Georgescu-Cocoş. Perpessicius also tried his hand at mediating the parallel conflict between Streinu and Tudor Vianu, speaking out in writing and on the radio against Streinu's uncharacteristically harsh treatment of Vianu's contributions (1935).
King Carol's dictatorship and World War II
Perpessicius controversially remained active in the cultural mainstream after 1938, when authoritarianAuthoritarianism
Authoritarianism is a form of social organization characterized by submission to authority. It is usually opposed to individualism and democracy...
King
King of Romania
King of the Romanians , rather than King of Romania , was the official title of the ruler of the Kingdom of Romania from 1881 until 1947, when Romania was proclaimed a republic....
Carol II
Carol II of Romania
Carol II reigned as King of Romania from 8 June 1930 until 6 September 1940. Eldest son of Ferdinand, King of Romania, and his wife, Queen Marie, a daughter of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, the second eldest son of Queen Victoria...
banned political activities and created a corporatist
Corporatism
Corporatism, also known as corporativism, is a system of economic, political, or social organization that involves association of the people of society into corporate groups, such as agricultural, business, ethnic, labor, military, patronage, or scientific affiliations, on the basis of common...
and fascist-inspired regime around the National Renaissance Front
National Renaissance Front
The National Renaissance Front was a fascist Romanian political party created by King Carol II in 1938 as the single monopoly party of government following his decision to ban all other political parties and suspend the 1923 Constitution, and the passing of the 1938 Constitution of Romania...
, thus countering the threat posed by revolutionary fascism. In this context, he began collaborating on Cezar Petrescu
Cezar Petrescu
Cezar Petrescu was a Romanian journalist, novelist and children's writer.He was inspired by the works of Honoré de Balzac, attempting to write a Romanian novel cycle that would mirror Balzac's La Comédie humaine...
's propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
outlet for the regime, the newspaper România. Also then, he published his collected articles of 1925-1933 as Dictando divers ("Various Writing Exercises"), and received the King Carol II Award for Literature and Art. The critic was a contributor to the state-owned Revista Fundaţiilor Regale journal, where he played a part in imposing Carol's personality cult. Thus, as part of a 1940 homage to the ruler, he stated: "Fatherly love and love for the motherland have blended together and submerged into this enchanted river bed, where, together with the Prince's intellectual and spiritual education, was forged the very future of the Motherland." The text, together with similar pieces by cultural figures such as Arghezi, Camil Petrescu, Lucian Blaga
Lucian Blaga
-Biography:Lucian Blaga was a commanding personality of the Romanian culture of the interbellum period. He was a philosopher and writer higly acclaimed for his originality, a university professor and a diplomat. He was born on May 9, 1895 in Lancrăm, near Alba Iulia, Romania, his father being an...
, George Călinescu
George Calinescu
George Călinescu was a Romanian literary critic, historian, novelist, academician and journalist, and a writer of classicist and humanist tendencies...
, Constantin Daicoviciu
Constantin Daicoviciu
Constantin Daicoviciu – May 27, 1973) was an Austro-Hungarian-born Romanian historian and archaeologist.He was rector of Babeş-Bolyai University, and a member of the Romanian Academy....
, Constantin Rădulescu-Motru
Constantin Radulescu-Motru
Constantin Rădulescu-Motru was a Romanian philosopher, psychologist, sociologist, logician, academic, dramatist, as well as centre-left nationalist politician with a noted anti-fascist discourse...
, Mihail Sadoveanu
Mihail Sadoveanu
Mihail Sadoveanu was a Romanian novelist, short story writer, journalist and political figure, who twice served as acting republican head of state under the communist regime . One of the most prolific Romanian-language writers, he is remembered mostly for his historical and adventure novels, as...
and Ionel Teodoreanu
Ionel Teodoreanu
Ionel Teodoreanu was a Romanian novelist and lawyer. He is mostly remembered for his books on the themes of childhood and adolescence.-Biography:...
, sparked a controversy in the political underground: one adversary of the monarch, psychologist Nicolae Mărgineanu, referred to the authors in question as "scoundrels". However, Perpessicius took a stand against the regime's adoption of antisemitism. He thus spoke out against the Romanian Writers' Society decision to eliminate its Jewish members, being, with Nicolae M. Condiescu and Rosetti, one of just three members to voice support for their Jewish colleague Mihail Sebastian. According to literary historian Ovidiu Morar, Perpessicius and novelist Zaharia Stancu
Zaharia Stancu
Zaharia Stancu was a Romanian prose writer, novelist, poet, and philosopher.Stancu was born in 1902 in Salcia, a village in Teleorman County, Romania. After leaving school at the age of thirteen he worked at various jobs. In 1921, with the help of Gala Galaction, he became a journalist...
were also the only literary men to speak out against the marginalization of Felix Aderca
Felix Aderca
Felix Aderca or F. Aderca Aderca, also known as Zelicu Froim Adercu or Froim Aderca; March 13, 1891 – December 12, 1962) was a Romanian novelist, playwright, poet, journalist and critic, noted as a representative of rebellious modernism in the context of Romanian literature...
, who was also Jewish.
These events were taking place in the first year of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, just months before Carol's regime lost credibility for the peaceful cession of Romanian territories to the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
(see Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, Second Vienna Award
Second Vienna Award
The Second Vienna Award was the second of two Vienna Awards arbitrated by the Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Rendered on August 30, 1940, it re-assigned the territory of Northern Transylvania from Romania to Hungary.-Prelude and historical background :After the World War I, the multi-ethnic...
). This was followed by the proclamation of a new Axis
Axis Powers
The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...
-aligned fascist regime, the National Legionary State
National Legionary State
The National Legionary State was the Romanian government from September 6, 1940 to January 23, 1941. It was a single-party regime dictatorship dominated by the overtly fascist Iron Guard in uneasy conjunction with the head of government and Conducător Ion Antonescu, the leader of the Romanian...
, formed as an uneasy partnership between the Iron Guard and Conducător
Conducator
Conducător was the title used officially in two instances by Romanian politicians, and earlier by Carol II.-History:...
Ion Antonescu
Ion Antonescu
Ion Victor Antonescu was a Romanian soldier, authoritarian politician and convicted war criminal. The Prime Minister and Conducător during most of World War II, he presided over two successive wartime dictatorships...
. Perpessicius left ironic notes on National Legionary propaganda, recording the Romanian Radio speakers' disjointed and unprofessional praise for the new government, the self-proclaimed purge of Romanian culture by the Guard's Legionary critics, or the rapid fascization of modernist poets such as Ion Barbu
Ion Barbu
Ion Barbu was a distinguished Romanian mathematician and poet.He was born in Câmpulung-Muscel, Argeş County, the son of Constantin Barbilian and Smaranda, born Şoiculescu. He attended Ion Brătianu High School in Piteşti and Gheorghe Lazăr High School in Bucharest...
(who wrote a special poem for Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
). The Iron Guard-appointed new head of Revista Fundaţiilor Regale, D. Caracostea, temporarily suspended the contributions of critics whom he considered supporters of Jewish writers: Perpessicius, Cioculescu and Streinu. At the time, the measure was commented upon by the anti-fascist and modernist literary historian Eugen Lovinescu
Eugen Lovinescu
Eugen Lovinescu was a Romanian modernist literary historian, literary critic, academic, and novelist, who in 1919 established the Sburătorul literary club. He was the father of Monica Lovinescu, and the uncle of Horia Lovinescu, Vasile Lovinescu, and Anton Holban...
, who deemed it "idiotic".
Legionary government broke apart in early 1941, when the Iron Guard's Bucharest Rebellion
Legionnaires' Rebellion and Bucharest Pogrom
The Legionnaires' rebellion and the Bucharest pogrom occurred in Bucharest, Romania, between 21 and 23 January 1941.As the privileges of the Iron Guard were being cut off by Conducător Ion Antonescu, members of the Iron Guard, also known as the Legionnaires, revolted...
caused Antonescu to reclaim all power, and later to join Romania into the Nazi German
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
-led invasion of the Soviet Union
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
. Perpessicius was isolated from political events. In 1942, with Cioculescu, Constantinescu, Streinu, and Vianu, he contributed essays dedicated to their mentor Lovinescu, celebrating his 60th birthday. They were collected in a single volume, published by Editura Vremea the following year—months before Lovinescu's death. In 1943, he published a second volume of Eminescu's Opere, which included the alternative versions of lyrical works, including the Luceafărul poem. In 1944, he followed up with the essay volume Jurnal de lector ("A Reader's Diary"), which also included Eminesciana, a collection of his Revista Fundaţiilor Regale articles on the 19th century poet. Also that year, he completed a third volume of Eminescu's Opere, comprising anthumous variants of poems, from Doina to Kamadeva.
Soon after Antonescu was ousted during the August 23 Coup of 1944 and Romania began cooperating with the Allies
Allies of World War II
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...
, Perpessicius made his return to the public arena. For a while in 1944-1945, he joined the Romanian Writers' Society Board, replacing the resigned Zaharia Stancu. The major decision taken by the body was to exclude 28 of its members on grounds that they had actively supported fascist ideologies, which, literary historian Victor Durnea notes, was an arbitrary selection. This purge was followed by the integration of 20 authors known for their communist or left-wing convictions. In late 1944, Perpessicius also joined the Romanian Society for Friendship with the Soviet Union (ARLUS), set up by the newly-legalized Romanian Communist Party
Romanian Communist Party
The Romanian Communist Party was a communist political party in Romania. Successor to the Bolshevik wing of the Socialist Party of Romania, it gave ideological endorsement to communist revolution and the disestablishment of Greater Romania. The PCR was a minor and illegal grouping for much of the...
in order to attract intellectuals and professionals to its cause, and supporting the Soviet occupation forces
Soviet occupation of Romania
The Soviet occupation of Romania refers to the period from 1944 to August 1958, during which the Soviet Union maintained a significant military presence in Romania...
. He was, with Mihai Ralea, vice president of ARLUS' Literary Section (presided over by Mihail Sadoveanu). In May 1945, he represented ARLUS at the funeral of Mihail Sebastian, who had been killed in a road accident, and contributed one of Sebastian's obituaries
Obituary
An obituary is a news article that reports the recent death of a person, typically along with an account of the person's life and information about the upcoming funeral. In large cities and larger newspapers, obituaries are written only for people considered significant...
in Revista Fundaţiilor Regale. Shortly after Lovinescu's death, Perpessicius also sat on the commission granting a memorial award, presented to aspiring authors such as Ştefan Augustin Doinaş
Stefan Augustin Doinas
Ştefan Augustin Doinaş was a Romanian Neoclassical poet of the Communist era....
. In 1945, he made the last of several sporadic visits to Brăila, where his mother still resided.
He had by that stage resumed his activity as a chronicler, publishing articles in Familia
Familia (literary magazine)
The Romanian-language Familia literary magazine was first published by Iosif Vulcan in Budapest from June 5, 1865 to April 17, 1880. The magazine moved to Oradea and continued publication from April 27, 1880 to December 31, 1906....
, Gazeta Literară, Lumea
Lumea
Lumea is a monthly magazine on international politics, published in Bucharest, Romania....
, Tribuna, Universul
Universul
Universul was a mass-circulation newspaper in Romania. It existed from 1884 to 1953, and was run by Stelian Popescu from 1914 to 1943 ....
, as well as in Steaua, Jurnalul de Dimineaţă and Tânărul Scriitor. With Rosetti and Jacques Byck, Perpessicius authored a 1946 literature textbook for the 7th year of secondary education (final year of high school). The following year, he published the 5th volume of his Menţiuni critice.
During communism
Perpessicius' career was affected in various ways by Romania's communist regimeCommunist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
. In 1948, he joined the editing staff of Viaţa Românească
Viata Româneasca
Viaţa Românească, originally Viaţa Romînească , is a monthly literary magazine published in Romania...
magazine, and, upon the proposal of Gala Galaction
Gala Galaction
Gala Galaction was a Romanian Orthodox clergyman and theologian, writer, journalist, left-wing activist, as well as a political figure of the People's Republic of Romania...
, was made a corresponding member of the newly-reshaped Romanian Academy
Romanian Academy
The Romanian Academy is a cultural forum founded in Bucharest, Romania, in 1866. It covers the scientific, artistic and literary domains. The academy has 181 acting members who are elected for life....
. In 1949, again on Galaction's proposal, he was considered for full membership the Academy (at the same time as Stancu, Alexandru Al. Philippide and poet Mihai Beniuc
Mihai Beniuc
Mihai Beniuc was a Romanian proletcultist poet, dramatist and novelist. He graduated from the University of Cluj in 1931 majoring in psychology, philosophy and sociology. This was reflected in his writing, particularly the novels...
), serving as head of section at its Institute of Literary History and Folklore until 1954. Also in 1949, Perpessicius joined the communist-endorsed Writers' Union of Romania
Writers' Union of Romania
The Writers' Union of Romania , founded in March 1949, is a professional association of writers in Romania. It also has a subsidiary in Chişinău, Republic of Moldova...
, created on the Writers' Society structure. A new volume of Eminescu's Opere (the first to feature previously unpublished works) and an edition of Însemnare a călătoriei mele ("Account of My Travel") by the early 19th century author Dinicu Golescu
Dinicu Golescu
Dinicu Golescu , a member of the Golescu family of boyars, was a Wallachian Romanian man of letters, mostly noted for his travel writings and journalism....
were both published in 1952. Perpessicius was also contributing prefaces to books published by Editura Cartea Rusă, a newly created institution which exclusively published works of Russian and Soviet literature
Russian literature
Russian literature refers to the literature of Russia or its émigrés, and to the Russian-language literature of several independent nations once a part of what was historically Russia or the Soviet Union...
. He received the State Prize for 1954, in recognition for his work in editing Eminescu, and, on June 21, 1955, received full Academy membership, with Camil Petrescu
Camil Petrescu
Camil Petrescu was a Romanian playwright, novelist, philosopher and poet. He marked the end of the traditional novel era and laid the foundation of the modern novel era.- Life :...
as rapporteur
Rapporteur
Rapporteur is used in international and European legal and political contexts to refer to a person appointed by a deliberative body to investigate an issue or a situation....
. At around the same time, Perpessicius focused some of his studies on the work of Lazăr Şăineanu
Lazăr Şăineanu
Lazăr Şăineanu was a Romanian-born philologist, linguist, folklorist and cultural historian. A specialist in Oriental and Romance studies, as well as a Hebraist and a Germanist, he was primarily known for his contribution to Yiddish and Romanian philology, his work in evolutionary linguistics, and...
, a linguist and folklorist whom specialized criticism of the time had come to ignore.
Despite official endorsement, his relationship with the new authorities had its moments of tension. An unsigned 1953 article in the Communist Party's main daily, Scînteia
Scînteia
Scînteia was the name of two newspapers edited by Communist groups at different intervals in Romanian history...
, accused the author of being indifferent to the Marxist-Leninist
Marxism-Leninism
Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology, officially based upon the theories of Marxism and Vladimir Lenin, that promotes the development and creation of a international communist society through the leadership of a vanguard party over a revolutionary socialist state that represents a dictatorship...
view of "class struggle
Class struggle
Class struggle is the active expression of a class conflict looked at from any kind of socialist perspective. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote "The [written] history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle"....
", and noted that the Opere volume's introduction cited "reactionary
Reactionary
The term reactionary refers to viewpoints that seek to return to a previous state in a society. The term is meant to describe one end of a political spectrum whose opposite pole is "radical". While it has not been generally considered a term of praise it has been adopted as a self-description by...
" critics Titu Maiorescu
Titu Maiorescu
Titu Liviu Maiorescu was a Romanian literary critic and politician, founder of the Junimea Society. As a literary critic, he was instrumental in the development of Romanian culture in the second half of the 19th century....
, Mihail Dragomirescu and Gheorghe Bogdan-Duică without "assuming a critical stance". Some of his own earlier works, like those of the colleagues of his generation, were subjected to official censorship
Censorship in Communist Romania
Censorship in Communist Romania was widespread and virtually every published document, be it a newspaper article or a book, had to pass the censor's approval...
, and several were not given approval for publication. A relaxation of political pressures on the literary environment followed in the late 1950s, when communist leader Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was the Communist leader of Romania from 1948 until his death in 1965.-Early life:Gheorghe was the son of a poor worker, Tănase Gheorghiu, and his wife Ana. Gheorghiu-Dej joined the Communist Party of Romania in 1930...
embarked on the path of controlled De-Stalinization
De-Stalinization
De-Stalinization refers to the process of eliminating the cult of personality, Stalinist political system and the Gulag labour-camp system created by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Stalin was succeeded by a collective leadership after his death in March 1953...
, but totalitarianism
Totalitarianism
Totalitarianism is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible...
still had direct consequences on the critic's life and career. Perpessicius' son Dumitru D. Panaitescu, a student at the University of Bucharest
University of Bucharest
The University of Bucharest , in Romania, is a university founded in 1864 by decree of Prince Alexander John Cuza to convert the former Saint Sava Academy into the current University of Bucharest.-Presentation:...
during the mid-1950s, was arrested by the Securitate
Securitate
The Securitate was the secret police agency of Communist Romania. Previously, the Romanian secret police was called Siguranţa Statului. Founded on August 30, 1948, with help from the Soviet NKVD, the Securitate was abolished in December 1989, shortly after President Nicolae Ceaușescu was...
secret police and implicated in the "Dardena trial", becoming a political prisoner
Political prisoner
According to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, a political prisoner is ‘someone who is in prison because they have opposed or criticized the government of their own country’....
of the communist regime. Panaitescu had been found guilty of sedition
Sedition
In law, sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that is deemed by the legal authority to tend toward insurrection against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent to lawful authority. Sedition may include any...
, for having joined Mihai Stere Dedena and others in organizing a dissident Marxist
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
circle, which sympathized with the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and stood behind the Bucharest student protest
Bucharest student movement of 1956
The events in Poland which led to the elimination of that country's Stalinist leadership and the rise to power of Władysław Gomułka on 19 October 1956 provoked unrest among university students in Eastern bloc countries. The state of unrest in Poland began to spread into Hungary...
. The same year, at a Writers' Union congress consecrating the rehabilitation
Rehabilitation (Soviet)
Rehabilitation in the context of the former Soviet Union, and the Post-Soviet states, was the restoration of a person who was criminally prosecuted without due basis, to the state of acquittal...
of formerly-censored Tudor Arghezi, Perpessicius made negative comments on the impact of Romanian Socialist Realism
Socialist realism in Romania
After World War II, socialist realism on the Soviet model was imposed on the USSR's new satellites, including Romania. This was accompanied by a series of organisational and repressive moves, for instance the incarceration of numerous poets...
: "The Arghezi case is, without doubt, one of the most painful cases literature has known over the past ten years".
Perpessicius was appointed head of the Academy Library in 1957, with a mission to create the Museum of Romanian Literature (MLR). Unable to provide adequate facilities for the Library, he presented the authorities with a series of proposals, but only received an increase in the funds allocated, and resigned. He did however succeed in creating the museum itself, and presided over it until his death. Also in 1957, he collected his various essays on literary history and Romanian folklore, as Menţiuni de istoriografie literară şi folclor ("Mentions in Literary Historiography and Folklore"), followed by two more volumes in 1961 and 1964 respectively. Perpessicius returned with a new volume of Opere in 1958, by gathering the printed versions of Mihai Eminescu's original drafts and apocrypha
Apocrypha
The term apocrypha is used with various meanings, including "hidden", "esoteric", "spurious", "of questionable authenticity", ancient Chinese "revealed texts and objects" and "Christian texts that are not canonical"....
. The 6th Opere volume of 1963 comprised the poet's folklore and paremiology collection, together with his works of direct folkloric inspiration. In 1964-1965, he edited Eminescu's selected works in an Editura pentru literatură edition, followed by a similar edition of Mateiu Caragiale's works.
His 75th birthday of 1966 came at an interval when newly-instated communist leader Nicolae Ceauşescu
Nicolae Ceausescu
Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader...
was effecting liberalization
Liberalization
In general, liberalization refers to a relaxation of previous government restrictions, usually in areas of social or economic policy. In some contexts this process or concept is often, but not always, referred to as deregulation...
measures. It was celebrated nationally, and the authorities granted him the Order of Cultural Merit 1st class. He also began publishing his own Opere, largely based on Menţiuni critice, in four volumes (the last of which was posthumous). The following year, Perpessicius' Museum was faced with a crisis, having been evicted out of its original quarters and provisionally relocated to an apartment on Şoseaua Kiseleff
Soseaua Kiseleff
Şoseaua Kiseleff is a major road in Bucharest that runs as a northward continuation of Calea Victoriei. The road was created in 1832 by Pavel Kiselyov, the commander of the Russian occupation troops in Wallachia and Moldavia...
. The matter was resolved when the director appealed to his friend Arghezi, by then a prominent cultural figure, and who managed to have the MLR relocated to a spacious location once occupied by the defunct Romanian-Russian Museum. One year before his death, Perpessicius also founded the MLR archive's press venue, Manuscriptum. By 1968, he was also collaborating on the new edition of Gazeta Literară, with the column Lecturi intermitente ("Intermittent Readings"), and collected his lifelong articles to be republished as a series of volumes.
Having fallen ill and losing much of his eyesight, Perpessicius died on the morning of March 29, 1971, after prolonged and acute suffering. He was buried in Bellu cemetery. Two posthumous volumes were published as tribute during the same year: Lecturi intermitente with Editura Dacia
Editura Dacia
Editura Dacia is a publishing house based in Romania, located on Pavel Chinezul Street 2, Cluj-Napoca. Named after the ancient region of Dacia, it was founded in 1969 by a group of Transylvanian intellectuals, and printed works in Romanian, German and Hungarian.According to its official site,...
, and Eminesciana with Editura Minerva
Editura Minerva
Editura Minerva is one of the largest publishing houses in Romania. Located in Bucharest, it is known, among other things, for publishing classic Romanian literature, children's books, and scientific books.-External links:**...
(forwarded by his son, Dumitru D. Panaitescu).
Cultural context
Perpessicius is seen by various researchers as one of the most authoritative and recognizable figures among the Romanian critics of the interwarInterwar period
Interwar period can refer to any period between two wars. The Interbellum is understood to be the period between the end of the Great War or First World War and the beginning of the Second World War in Europe....
. Tudor Vianu thus described him as "one of the purest figures of writers who came to develop in the period between the two wars." The generic group also includes George Călinescu
George Calinescu
George Călinescu was a Romanian literary critic, historian, novelist, academician and journalist, and a writer of classicist and humanist tendencies...
, Şerban Cioculescu
Şerban Cioculescu
Şerban Cioculescu was a Romanian literary critic, literary historian and columnist, who held teaching positions in Romanian literature at the University of Iaşi and the University of Bucharest, as well as membership of the Romanian Academy and chairmanship of its Library...
, Pompiliu Constantinescu
Pompiliu Constantinescu
Pompiliu Constantinescu was a Romanian literary critic.-Biography:He was born on 17 May 1901, "in a place where he saw the light of day for the first time, on Sabines Street no...
, Eugen Lovinescu
Eugen Lovinescu
Eugen Lovinescu was a Romanian modernist literary historian, literary critic, academic, and novelist, who in 1919 established the Sburătorul literary club. He was the father of Monica Lovinescu, and the uncle of Horia Lovinescu, Vasile Lovinescu, and Anton Holban...
, Vladimir Streinu, Tudor Vianu
Tudor Vianu
Tudor Vianu was a Romanian literary critic, art critic, poet, philosopher, academic, and translator. Known for his left-wing and anti-fascist convictions, he had a major role on the reception and development of Modernism in Romanian literature and art...
and others. This entire generation of critics stood for the legacy of Junimea
Junimea
Junimea was a Romanian literary society founded in Iaşi in 1863, through the initiative of several foreign-educated personalities led by Titu Maiorescu, Petre P. Carp, Vasile Pogor, Theodor Rosetti and Iacob Negruzzi...
, a literary society influential in the second half of the 19th century. They followed in the footsteps of Junimist leader and philosopher Titu Maiorescu
Titu Maiorescu
Titu Liviu Maiorescu was a Romanian literary critic and politician, founder of the Junimea Society. As a literary critic, he was instrumental in the development of Romanian culture in the second half of the 19th century....
, who was known for his rationalist
Rationalism
In epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" . In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive"...
approach, his conservative
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
suspicion of nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
, his calls for pragmatic Westernization
Westernization
Westernization or Westernisation , also occidentalization or occidentalisation , is a process whereby societies come under or adopt Western culture in such matters as industry, technology, law, politics, economics, lifestyle, diet, language, alphabet,...
and controlled modernization
Modernization
In the social sciences, modernization or modernisation refers to a model of an evolutionary transition from a 'pre-modern' or 'traditional' to a 'modern' society. The teleology of modernization is described in social evolutionism theories, existing as a template that has been generally followed by...
, his advocacy of professionalization
Professionalization
Professionalization is the social process by which any trade or occupation transforms itself into a true "profession of the highest integrity and competence." This process tends to involve establishing acceptable qualifications, a professional body or association to oversee the conduct of members...
in science and literature, and, in particular, his critique of literary didacticism
Didacticism
Didacticism is an artistic philosophy that emphasizes instructional and informative qualities in literature and other types of art. The term has its origin in the Ancient Greek word διδακτικός , "related to education/teaching." Originally, signifying learning in a fascinating and intriguing...
in favor of "art for art's sake
Art for art's sake
"Art for art's sake" is the usual English rendering of a French slogan, from the early 19th century, l'art pour l'art, and expresses a philosophy that the intrinsic value of art, and the only "true" art, is divorced from any didactic, moral or utilitarian function...
". Lovinescu referred to himself and his colleagues as "the third post-Maiorescian generation", and, in the 1942 homage to Lovinescu, Perpessicius's essay, called "deepest and most convincing" by 21st century literary historian Nicolae Manolescu
Nicolae Manolescu
Nicolae Manolescu is a Romanian literary critic. As an editor of România Literară literary magazine, he has reached a record in reviewing books for almost 30 years...
, focused primarily on Lovinescu's own study of Maiorescu. However, Z. Ornea notes, the analogy with Junimea only has limited application, given that the interwar critics all espoused "historicist
Historicism
Historicism is a mode of thinking that assigns a central and basic significance to a specific context, such as historical period, geographical place and local culture. As such it is in contrast to individualist theories of knowledges such as empiricism and rationalism, which neglect the role of...
" beliefs to varying degrees, and contextualized literary movements in a manner rejected by Maiorescu. Perpessicius' other mentors, Vianu notes, were critics and academics of diverse backgrounds: Ovid Densusianu
Ovid Densusianu
Ovid Densusianu was a Romanian poet, philologist, linguist and folklorist. He is known for introducing new trends of European modernism into Romanian literature.He was a professor at the University of Bucharest, and a member of the Romanian Academy....
, Dumitru Evolceanu and Ion Bianu.
Out of this environment, Perpessicius emerged with a personal style, characterized by literary historian Paul Cernat as both "eclectic
Eclecticism
Eclecticism is a conceptual approach that does not hold rigidly to a single paradigm or set of assumptions, but instead draws upon multiple theories, styles, or ideas to gain complementary insights into a subject, or applies different theories in particular cases.It can sometimes seem inelegant or...
" and "impressionist
Impressionism (literature)
Influenced by the Impressionist art movement, many writers adopted a style that relied on associations. The Dutch Tachtigers explicitly tried to incorporate impressionism into their prose, poems, and other literary works...
". Cernat also notes that Perpessicius parts with the Junimist tradition of combative, and ideally "masculine" criticism, establishing an ideological alternative: "The utopia of 'Perpessician' criticism is an aesthetic ecumenism
Ecumenism
Ecumenism or oecumenism mainly refers to initiatives aimed at greater Christian unity or cooperation. It is used predominantly by and with reference to Christian denominations and Christian Churches separated by doctrine, history, and practice...
purged of sociological
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
, ethical and ethnic intrusions, and likewise of dogmatic, rationalist-positivist
Positivism
Positivism is a a view of scientific methods and a philosophical approach, theory, or system based on the view that, in the social as well as natural sciences, sensory experiences and their logical and mathematical treatment are together the exclusive source of all worthwhile information....
, prejudice." Contantinescu referred to his friend as "the only Romanian critic not to have practiced dogmatism" and "our most civilized critic, both spiritually and ethically".
According to literary critic Ştefan Cazimir, Perpessicius and George Călinescu are "our only 'poets and critics' who honor both terms of the sequence", while, in Cernat's view, Perpessicius and his friend Ion Pillat
Ion Pillat
Ion Pillat grew up in Bucharest. He was a poet, best known for his volume Pe Argeş în sus and Poeme într-un vers...
stood out for having internalized "the collaboration between 'poet' and 'critic' ". This particularity resulted in the literary mix of De la Chateaubriand la Mallarmé, partly inspired by the ideas of Albert Thibaudet
Albert Thibaudet
Albert Thibaudet was a French essayist and literary critic. A former student of Henri Bergson, he was a professor of Jean Rousset...
: here, the critic blurs the lines between views expressed by writers and views expressed about the writers, using fragments of narratives to deduce critical thought. As a compliment to his stated preference for lyricism in prose, Perpessicius also believed that the modern novel and novella
Novella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
were interfering with each other to the point were distinction became "absolute gratuitousness" (a vision discussed in his Menţiuni critice).
This tendency toward aesthetic relativism
Aesthetic relativism
Aesthetic relativism is the philosophical view that the judgement of beauty is relative to individuals, cultures, time periods and contexts, and that there are no universal criteria of beauty...
owed inspiration to the theories of French Symbolist Remy de Gourmont
Remy de Gourmont
Remy de Gourmont was a French Symbolist poet, novelist, and influential critic. He was widely read in his era, and an important influence on Blaise Cendrars...
, and brought Perpessicius into conflict with Lovinescu, whose more rigid version of Impressionism was based on the views of Émile Faguet
Émile Faguet
Auguste Émile Faguet was a French author and literary critic.Faguet was born at La Roche-sur-Yon, and educated at the École normale supérieure in Paris. After teaching for some time in La Rochelle and Bordeaux, he returned to Paris to act as assistant professor of poetry in the university. He...
. Initially, the elder critic had expressed approval of Repertoriul critic, calling Perpessicius himself "a man of taste, a graceful stylist and an ornate spirit". A major point of contention between the two figures emerged in the late 1920s, when Lovinescu published his Istoria literaturii române contemporane ("The History of Contemporary Romanian Literature"). The work was received with reserve by Perpessicius, who, in his chronicle at Cuvântul
Cuvântul
Cuvântul is a newspaper from Rezina, the Republic of Moldova, founded in 1995 by Tudor Iaşcenco.- External links :*...
, objected to his senior's belief in the inferiority of lyricism over both narratives and epic poetry
Epic poetry
An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
, and also to his dismissive treatment of avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
writers and of paraliterature
Paraliterature
Paraliterature is an academic term for genre literature, such as science fiction, fantasy, mystery, pulp fiction and comic books, which is not generally considered literary fiction by mainstream literary standards....
. He declared himself disappointed by Lovinescu having disregarded the post-Symbolist poetry of George Bacovia
George Bacovia
George Bacovia was a Romanian symbolist poet. While he initially belonged to the local Symbolist movement, his poetry came to be seen as a precursor of Romanian Modernism and eventually established him in critical esteem alongside Tudor Arghezi, Lucian Blaga and Ion Barbu as one of the most...
, and criticized him for deriding the lyricized prose of traditionalist author Mihail Sadoveanu
Mihail Sadoveanu
Mihail Sadoveanu was a Romanian novelist, short story writer, journalist and political figure, who twice served as acting republican head of state under the communist regime . One of the most prolific Romanian-language writers, he is remembered mostly for his historical and adventure novels, as...
. He commented with irony on Lovinescu's primarily historicist perspective, arguing that it closely resembled what he himself criticized in the didacticism of Mihail Dragomirescu and Henri Sanielevici, and claiming that his rival's Sburătorul
Sburatorul
Sburătorul was a Romanian modernist literary magazine and literary society, established in Bucharest in April 1919. Led by Eugen Lovinescu, the circle was instrumental in developing new trends and styles in Romanian literature, ranging from a new wave of Romanian Symbolism to an urban-themed...
society aggravated "the dependence on literary schools". However, Perpessicius recognized Lovinescu's mentorship in his 1941-1942 essays, joining what literary historian Mircea Iorgulescu defines as "Lovinescu's first posterity" (also grouping, alongside the other authors of the 1942 volume, the younger-aged Sibiu Literary Circle
Sibiu Literary Circle
The Sibiu Literary Circle was a literary group created during World War II in Sibiu to promote the modernist liberal ideas of Eugen Lovinescu....
).
The modernist chronicler
Unlike many of his generation colleagues, Perpessicius welcomed the birth of an avant-garde movement in his native country, and offered encouragement to some of its members. According to Paul Cernat, his appreciation for the avant-garde was in general reciprocated, the more radical authors viewing Perpessicius with a degree of esteem they refused to all other leading interwar chroniclers. With Antologia poeţilor de azi, Perpessicius and Pillat effected what Cernat calls "the critical assimilation of autochthonous Symbolism and modernism", and, citing Şerban CioculescuŞerban Cioculescu
Şerban Cioculescu was a Romanian literary critic, literary historian and columnist, who held teaching positions in Romanian literature at the University of Iaşi and the University of Bucharest, as well as membership of the Romanian Academy and chairmanship of its Library...
, an expansion outside "the traditional realm of Romanian poetry, which had penetrated public consciousness through its cultural and didactic elements." The book was based on similar anthologies of German
German literature
German literature comprises those literary texts written in the German language. This includes literature written in Germany, Austria, the German part of Switzerland, and to a lesser extent works of the German diaspora. German literature of the modern period is mostly in Standard German, but there...
or French literature
French literature
French literature is, generally speaking, literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak traditional languages of France other than French. Literature written in French language, by citizens...
, as compiled by Kurt Pinthus and Paul Fort
Paul Fort
Paul Fort was a French poet associated with the Symbolist movement. At the age of 18, reacting against the Naturalistic theatre, Fort founded the Théâtre d’Art...
. As part of his dislike for historicist definitions, he most often refused to differentiate between the various "-isms" within the current, referring to the avant-garde in general as the "far left
Far left
Far left, also known as the revolutionary left, radical left and extreme left are terms which refer to the highest degree of leftist positions among left-wing politics...
" of modernism. This approach partly echoed the pronouncements of his fellow critics, among them Const. T. Emilian, author of the first study on Romania's cutting-edge modernism, a work noted for its ultra-conservative, nationalist
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
and antisemitic conclusions. Perpessicius did not however share Emilian's viewpoint, and, in line with his pronouncements against a "Jewish quota
Jewish quota
Jewish quota was a percentage that limited the number of Jews in various establishments. In particular, in 19th and 20th centuries some countries had Jewish quotas for higher education, a special case of Numerus clausus....
", explicitly rejected the belief that avant-garde poetry was subversive, arguing instead that, at its best, the current displayed a modern "virtuosity". In his review of Emilian's polemical study of the avant-garde, Perpessicus spoke of the author's "rigid and timorous" approach to the subject.
Perpessicius was especially sympathetic to poet Tudor Arghezi
Tudor Arghezi
Tudor Arghezi was a Romanian writer, best known for his contribution to poetry and children's literature. Born Ion N. Theodorescu in Bucharest , he explained that his pen name was related to Argesis, the Latin name for the Argeş River.-Early life:Along with Mihai Eminescu, Mateiu Caragiale, and...
, a former Symbolist who had created a mixture of radical modernism and traditionalism, and who was hailed as a hero by the avant-garde circles. According to Cernat, the critic was the first-ever professional to declare Arghezi compatible with and comparable to Mihai Eminescu
Mihai Eminescu
Mihai Eminescu was a Romantic poet, novelist and journalist, often regarded as the most famous and influential Romanian poet. Eminescu was an active member of the Junimea literary society and he worked as an editor for the newspaper Timpul , the official newspaper of the Conservative Party...
, thus cementing into mainstream verdict what had previously existed only as an isolated avant-garde claim. He was also interested in the work of another avant-garde champion, the suicidal clerk Urmuz
Urmuz
Urmuz was a Romanian writer, lawyer and civil servant, who became a cult hero in Romania's avant-garde scene. His scattered work, consisting of absurdist short prose and poetry, opened a new genre in Romanian letters and humor, and captured the imagination of modernists for several generations...
, being one of the first to take Urmuz's work seriously, producing an essay which Nicolae Manolescu describes as "the most profound in our country's interwar criticism." Perpessicius stripped Urmuz's fragmentary and absurdist
Absurdism
In philosophy, "The Absurd" refers to the conflict between the human tendency to seek value and meaning in life and the human inability to find any...
prose of its satirical elements, believing to have found profound cultural meanings, such as elements of fairy tale
Fairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...
s, echoes from Norse
Norse mythology
Norse mythology, a subset of Germanic mythology, is the overall term for the myths, legends and beliefs about supernatural beings of Norse pagans. It flourished prior to the Christianization of Scandinavia, during the Early Middle Ages, and passed into Nordic folklore, with some aspects surviving...
and Greek mythology
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
, and allusions to the puppet theater, all of which created "new, daring and amazing, forms".
His essays included ample comments on Urmuz's following, discussing his influence on diverse authors, avant-garde as well as mainstream: Arghezi, Geo Bogza
Geo Bogza
Geo Bogza was a Romanian avant-garde theorist, poet, and journalist, known for his left-wing and communist political convictions. As a young man in the interwar period, he was known as a rebel and was one of the most influential Romanian Surrealists...
, Jacques G. Costin, Adrian Maniu, Tudor Muşatescu
Tudor Musatescu
Tudor Muşatescu was a Romanian playwright and short story writer, best known for his humorous prose.-Biography:Muşatescu was born in Câmpulung to a family of middle-class intellectuals — his father was a lawyer while his mother was a writer. He began writing during his early years in school...
, Saşa Pană
Sasa Pana
Saşa Pană was a Romanian avant-garde poet, novelist, and short story writer.-Biography:...
, Stephan Roll and Ion Vinea. He focuses such pieces on Costin, whom he believed was an important author with "sharp traits" and "great subtlety", different from Urmuz in that he was "good-humored". He believed that Costin's parody
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
of Don Quixote needed only "a mild process of purification" in order to join the "Romanian models" of its genre. Other avant-garde affiliates favorably reviewed by Perpessicius include: Ion Călugăru
Ion Călugăru
Ion Călugăru was a Romanian novelist, short story writer, journalist and critic. As a figure on Romania's modernist scene throughout the early interwar period, he was noted for combining a picturesque perspective on the rural Jewish-Romanian community, to which he belonged, with traditionalist and...
, whose fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
writings and folk story parodies he considered suited for "the heaven of dreams"; Benjamin Fondane
Benjamin Fondane
Benjamin Fondane or Benjamin Fundoianu was a Romanian and French poet, critic and existentialist philosopher, also noted for his work in film and theater. Known from his Romanian youth as a Symbolist poet and columnist, he alternated Neoromantic and Expressionist themes with echoes from Tudor...
, a "reputable essayist" in whose poetic work, which reinterpreted the rural landscape, "patriarchy
Patriarchy
Patriarchy is a social system in which the role of the male as the primary authority figure is central to social organization, and where fathers hold authority over women, children, and property. It implies the institutions of male rule and privilege, and entails female subordination...
suffered and made itself seem outraged"; and the post-Symbolist Ion Minulescu
Ion Minulescu
Ion Minulescu was a Romanian avant-garde poet, novelist, short story writer, journalist, literary critic, and playwright. Often publishing his works under the pseudonyms I. M. Nirvan and Koh-i-Noor , he journeyed to Paris, where he was heavily influenced by the growing Symbolist movement and...
, whose 1930 volume Strofe pentru toată lumea ("Stanzas for All") he deemed "fantasy poetry [...] transfiguring the every day and the trend [...], raising jokes to the level of poetic principle and conversing with God in a simpler, more citizen-like [...], more democratic [...] than [Minulescu] was conversing with himself some twenty years ago". Perpessicius also backed Fondane's verdict according to which Minulescu was "the first bell-ringer of Romania's lyrical revolt". His interest also covered Mateiu Caragiale
Mateiu Caragiale
Mateiu Ion Caragiale was a Romanian poet and prose writer, best known for his novel Craii de Curtea-Veche, which portrays the milieu of boyar descendants before and after World War I. Caragiale's style, associated with Symbolism, the Decadent movement of the fin de siècle, and early modernism, was...
, but his surviving renditions of the latter's texts have been criticized for being selective.
Despite this interest in innovation, Perpessicius treated the work of various avant-garde authors with noted reserve, and attempted to correct tendencies he considered negative. This attitude surfaced in his reviews of Ilarie Voronca
Ilarie Voronca
Ilarie Voronca was a Romanian-French avant-garde poet and essayist.Voronca was of Jewish ethnicity...
's poetry, when, although not adverse to the subconscious
Subconscious
The term subconscious is used in many different contexts and has no single or precise definition. This greatly limits its significance as a definition-bearing concept, and in consequence the word tends to be avoided in academic and scientific settings....
explorations of Dada
Dada
Dada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...
ism and Surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
, Perpessicius voiced his concern that the resulting imagery was chaotic, and therefore hard to merge into the lyrical tradition. This reproach he combined with earlier objections: in his review of Voronca's 1923 collection of Decadent
Decadent movement
The Decadent movement was a late 19th century artistic and literary movement of Western Europe. It flourished in France, but also had devotees in England and throughout Europe, as well as in the United States.-Overview:...
poems, Restrişti ("Tribulations"), he first criticized the poet for introducing neologisms or barbarisms to literary Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
. Referring to Voronca's later Imagist
Imagism
Imagism was a movement in early 20th-century Anglo-American poetry that favored precision of imagery and clear, sharp language. The Imagists rejected the sentiment and discursiveness typical of much Romantic and Victorian poetry. This was in contrast to their contemporaries, the Georgian poets,...
and Surrealist volume Plante şi animale, Perpessicius noted: "such poetry impresses, but does not charm. It strikes, but it does maintain. That's because it is fragmentary poetry." This kind of "prudent" conclusions, Cernat proposes, made the critic resemble all his colleagues of the moderate mainstream. Although discussing the shortcomings of Voronca's literature, Paul Cernat notes, Perpessicius was overall his most sympathetic of his more important early reviewers. Praise became the norm after 1928, when Voronca parted with radicalism and, through his Ulise (Romanian for "Ulysses
Odysseus
Odysseus or Ulysses was a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homer's Iliad and other works in the Epic Cycle....
"), elaborated a personal style at the junction of visionary tradition and introspective modernity. He believed this change had brought Voronca close to the types of poetry illustrated by classics such as Novalis
Novalis
Novalis was the pseudonym of Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg , an author and philosopher of early German Romanticism.-Biography:...
, Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
and Eminescu, or by former Dadaist doyen Tristan Tzara
Tristan Tzara
Tristan Tzara was a Romanian and French avant-garde poet, essayist and performance artist. Also active as a journalist, playwright, literary and art critic, composer and film director, he was known best for being one of the founders and central figures of the anti-establishment Dada movement...
in his The Approximate Man, while protesting that the Romanian Writers' Society had failed to honor Voronca with a prize.
Perpessicius was welcoming of other Surrealist productions, among which was a cryptic prose poem
Prose poetry
Prose poetry is poetry written in prose instead of using verse but preserving poetic qualities such as heightened imagery and emotional effects.-Characteristics:Prose poetry can be considered either primarily poetry or prose, or a separate genre altogether...
by Stephan Roll, Moartea Eleonorei ("Eleonora's Death"). He also enjoyed Ion Vinea's lyrical and marginally-Surrealist novel Paradisul suspinelor ("The Paradise of Sighs"), which he described as "a picturesque theater of reflexive puppets" emerging from the combined "virtuosity" of "poet, psychoanalyst
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
and Surrealist aesthete". Other texts by Perpessicius focused on the impact of psychoanalysis on modernist and psychological novel
Psychological novel
A psychological novel, also called psychological realism, is a work of prose fiction which places more than the usual amount of emphasis on interior characterization, and on the motives, circumstances, and internal action which springs from, and develops, external action...
authors such as Felix Aderca
Felix Aderca
Felix Aderca or F. Aderca Aderca, also known as Zelicu Froim Adercu or Froim Aderca; March 13, 1891 – December 12, 1962) was a Romanian novelist, playwright, poet, journalist and critic, noted as a representative of rebellious modernism in the context of Romanian literature...
, Gib Mihăescu
Gib Mihaescu
Gib I. Mihăescu was a Romanian novelist and dramatist.Born in Drăgăşani, Mihăescu wrote short stories such as Grandiflora, and novels. His work depicts obsessive, often erotic, feelings. His works include Rusoaica , Femeia de ciocolată , and his masterpiece, Donna Alba...
and Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu
Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu
-Life:She was born in Iveşti, Galaţi County, the daughter of General Dimitrie Bengescu and of Zoe . She attended high-school in Bucharest and, aged 20, she married the magistrate Nicolae Papadat but her literary career was delayed because her husband was transferred from town to town and because...
, or experimented in art criticism, with a review of Marcel Janco
Marcel Janco
Marcel Janco was a Romanian and Israeli visual artist, architect, art theorist and cultural promoter, known as the co-inventor of Dadaism and a leading exponent of Constructivism in Eastern Europe. His first contribution came in the 1910s, when he joined up with poets Tristan Tzara and Ion Vinea...
's vignette portraits for Antologia.... Perpessicius viewed the latter drawings as "masks", "macerated by outer flames and drained of blood" and displaying "great vital force." He also took an interest in the illustrations contributed to Voronca and Pană by, respectively, Constantin Brâncuşi
Constantin Brancusi
Constantin Brâncuşi was a Romanian-born sculptor who made his career in France. As a child he displayed an aptitude for carving wooden farm tools. Formal studies took him first to Bucharest, then to Munich, then to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris...
and Victor Brauner
Victor Brauner
Victor Brauner was a Romanian Jewish painter of surrealistic images.-Early life:He was born in Piatra Neamţ, the son of a timber manufacturer who subsequently settled in Vienna with his family for a few years. It is there that young Victor attended elementary school...
, expressing admiration for their "primitivist
Primitivism
Primitivism is a Western art movement that borrows visual forms from non-Western or prehistoric peoples, such as Paul Gauguin's inclusion of Tahitian motifs in paintings and ceramics...
" aesthetics. Sympathetic to Mircea Eliade
Mircea Eliade
Mircea Eliade was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. He was a leading interpreter of religious experience, who established paradigms in religious studies that persist to this day...
, leader of the new radical modernism of the 1930s (a current emerging from Trăirism), he also offered positive reviews to other members of Eliade's generation, among them Mihail Sebastian
Mihail Sebastian
-Life:Sebastian was born to a Jewish family in Brăila. After finishing his secondary studies, Sebastian went on to study law in Bucharest, but was soon attracted to the literary life and the exciting ideas of the new generation of Romanian intellectuals, as epitomized by the literary group...
(in particular for the controversial novel De două mii de ani...) and Petru Comarnescu
Petru Comarnescu
Petru Comarnescu was a Romanian literary and art critic and translator.Born in Iași into a family that was related to the metropolitan bishop Veniamin Costache, he studied at the University of Bucharest law , philosophy and philology before going in 1931 on a two-year scholarship to the United...
(for Homo americanus, a group of essays on the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
). According to one assessment, he was also the only critic of his generation to defend Camil Petrescu
Camil Petrescu
Camil Petrescu was a Romanian playwright, novelist, philosopher and poet. He marked the end of the traditional novel era and laid the foundation of the modern novel era.- Life :...
's novel Ultima noapte de dragoste, întâia noapte de război, criticized from early on for being sharply divided into two seemingly unrelated sections—in his assessment, this arrangement resonated with a profound message.
Eminescu's exegete
Having reportedly developed a passion for Eminescu's poetry while still a student, Perpessicius was part of a generation poised on recovering and popularizing their predecessor. According to Perpessicius' own editor, Ileana Ene, "Our literary history has had the exceptional chance of finding in Perpessicius the ideal editor for a monumental edition of Eminescu's Opere." Early on, while closely following the various editions of collected works by various Romanian authors, the author voiced protests against what he believed was the political establishment's tendency to overlook a national poet: "we have no monographMonograph
A monograph is a work of writing upon a single subject, usually by a single author.It is often a scholarly essay or learned treatise, and may be released in the manner of a book or journal article. It is by definition a single document that forms a complete text in itself...
on the poet, we have no critical edition [...] and we are even further from the prospect of a monument. We nonetheless have a Ministry of the Arts, and we carry on erecting, instead of statues [...], blocks of granite and beams of steel, more perishable than the paper stanzas of [Eminescu's] Floare albastră." By compiling his own edition, Perpessicius also sought to point out perceived flaws in previous selections, including that of his Junimist model Maiorescu—an approach revered by his political adversary, the post-Junimist historian and critic Nicolae Iorga
Nicolae Iorga
Nicolae Iorga was a Romanian historian, politician, literary critic, memoirist, poet and playwright. Co-founder of the Democratic Nationalist Party , he served as a member of Parliament, President of the Deputies' Assembly and Senate, cabinet minister and briefly as Prime Minister...
. Both Iorga and Pompiliu Constantinescu
Pompiliu Constantinescu
Pompiliu Constantinescu was a Romanian literary critic.-Biography:He was born on 17 May 1901, "in a place where he saw the light of day for the first time, on Sabines Street no...
offered special praise to Perpessicius' detailed study of Eminescu's biography on a strictly chronological basis (a chronology mirrored by the sorting of poem variants). Vianu saw the book as a major progress in understanding Eminescu's poetry. Noting that, in all, Perpessicius reviewed and transcribed some 15,000 pages of Eminescu's manuscripts, a prospect others had avoided, Vianu stated: "No one will ever be able to study Eminescu, the history and connections of each of his works, their genesis and echoes in literary historiography and criticism, without using Perpessicius' critical edition as their starting point."
One major contribution made by Perpessicius to the field of Eminescu studies is his uncovering and publication of posthumous works. Vianu noted that, together with the bio-bibliographical writings of George Călinescu, Perpessicius' version of Opere initiated "the most significant transformation in posterity's image of the Romanians' greatest writer [Eminescu]." This helped highlight the successive periods in Eminescu's work, from his Romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
of the 1860s to his epic
Epic poetry
An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
interpretations of Romanian folklore, early Balkan myths and Norse mythology
Norse mythology
Norse mythology, a subset of Germanic mythology, is the overall term for the myths, legends and beliefs about supernatural beings of Norse pagans. It flourished prior to the Christianization of Scandinavia, during the Early Middle Ages, and passed into Nordic folklore, with some aspects surviving...
. An entire section of Operes fifth volume sorted Eminescu's random and often unused drafts, collectively titled Moloz ("Debris"), thus allowing readers to differentiate between Eminescu's moments of inspiration and his routine poetic exercises. Perpessicius' research is also credited with having tracked down and compared the various drafts of Luceafărul, a process which, according to Ene, might not have otherwise been attempted. The late article collection Eminesciana, was criticized by some for being overall inferior to Perpessicius' other contributions, a conclusion which, Ene believes, is owed to some of the pieces having been prompted by public events. The author himself saw it as a diary and document of his studies, with "a certain kind of usefulness".
Equidistant positioning and related controversy
A controversy surrounding Perpessicius' contributions as chronicler and theorist emerged during his lifetime, centered on perceptions that he was neither polemically engaged nor a proponent of hierarchies, but that he preferred to write equidistantly. Contrary to his contemporaries, Perpessicius believed the work of a critic to be not the imposition of a direction, but the "registry office" and panorama of naturally-occurring trends, an idea notably present in the title of his article În tinda unei registraturi ("In the Parlor of a Registry Office"). The text spoke in favor of diversity and against "sectarianism": "I shall weed out [...] any sectarian prejudice and shall strive to comment on any work", because "the critic would do better not to consider novelty a scarecrow." Elsewhere, he cited Thibaudet for having inspired in him "great comprehension" and the ideal of "plurality in tastes". In a 1962 interview with Luceafărul, Perpessicius stated: "young writers [...] should have the habit of reading the critics, but should not obey their assessments blindly. Just as there are writers who request any verdict, no matter how severe, as long as it is sincere, there are those pompous critics, who have never doubted the justness of their verdicts. Our experience from both sides of the barricade has taught us that both are wrong. Albeit mediocre, the middle way is the golden way."Reproaches on this perspective were notably voiced by his colleague and rival Lovinescu, who, in his Istoria literaturii..., argued that critics were supposed to resemble the folk legend hero Meşterul Manole
Mesterul Manole
In Romanian mythology, Meșterul Manole was the chief architect of the Curtea de Argeș Monastery in Wallachia...
, who sacrificed his wife in the name of art, and claimed that, contrary to this ideal, Perpessicius had not waived "affective connections", particularly when discussing Arghezi. Lovinescu argued that his preference for modernism "embraces almost everything in contemporary literature, down to its minor products", an attitude which he equated with "abdication". George Călinescu discussed Perpessicius' reviews of "the most insignificant books", which, he claimed, consecrated his belonging to a "brilliant generation of secondary teachers" ill-adapted to the job of critics, lacking both "general ideas" and the ability of detecting "a work's hierarchic place" (in support of which he mentioned Perpessicius's claim that novelist Eugen Goga was one of Romania's best). Călinescu went on to argue that any negative comment made by his colleague could "seem like praise" by being "sweetened" from one phrase to the next, making reference to his use of euphemism
Euphemism
A euphemism is the substitution of a mild, inoffensive, relatively uncontroversial phrase for another more frank expression that might offend or otherwise suggest something unpleasant to the audience...
s, "digressions" and "excessive delicacy". The same comemntator did however note that Menţiuni critice was "a precious bibliographic guide."
Similar judgments were issued from various sides of the cultural spectrum. Although himself a collaborator of Perpessicius, Vladimir Streinu once referred to him as "the flower girl of our literature". While Tudor Vianu believed the "discreet" Perpessicius able of "biting irony", he also claimed: "The critic is at times too indulgent and, as a consequence, the contrasts in his appreciations are somewhat toned down. But how many young people did not absorb fortifying strengths from Perpessicius' benevolent verdicts?" Perpessicius' rejection of "sectarianism" was unfavorably reviewed by Cioculescu in a 1928 article for Adevărul
Adevarul
Adevărul is a Romanian daily newspaper, based in Bucharest. Founded in 1871 and reestablished in 1888, it was the main left-wing press venue to be published during the Romanian Kingdom's existence, adopting an independent pro-democratic position, advocating land reform and universal suffrage...
, which prompted a reply from Perpessicius. For Alexandru Al, Philippide, the second volume of Antologia poeţilor de azi was a sample of such leniency, to the point of becoming "embarrassingly instructive" by including talentless authors. He noted: "Seventy real poets in a quarter of a century is an a priori impossibility. [...] In such conditions, poetry presents itself as a real scourge, like some dangerous pestilence, almost like a social peril. And in such circumstances an anthology as horrifyingly complete as that of Mr. Pillat and Mr. Perpessicius appears to be disastrous. It is made to implant the belief that poets are to be found in a sum of individuals who, perhaps, had they been lacking such 'consecration', would be growing disillusioned and turn back into decent men, brave citizens and diligent clerks". The dispute touched on Perpessicius' own relationship with the avant-garde. In his account of Voronca's departure from the Surrealist group (part of a 1933 letter addressed to Fondane), Roll sarcastically downplayed his former colleague's success, alleging: "Only Perpessicius smothered [Voronca] in slobbery, grandmotherly, kisses; only Perpessicius showered with gifts, produced licks of the tongue, telephone calls and accolades."
These themes of criticism were revisited by newer generation of critics. According to Eugen Simion, in following the Symbolist path of Remy de Gourmont, Perpessicius "gazes without discrimination over a Surrealist poem or a late Romantic work." Expanding on his take on the conflicting perspectives of Romanian criticism, Cernat observed: "Not at all lacking in critical spirit, Perpessicius most obviously belongs to the category of 'feminine', 'artistic' and 'poetic' critics [...]." Cernat also notes that, despite common perception, Perpessicius was "coherent with himself". Writing in 2002, literary historian Florin Mihăilescu argued that "directional criticism" as exemplified by Maiorescu, Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea
Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea
Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea was a Romanian Marxist theorist, politician, sociologist, literary critic, and journalist....
, Garabet Ibrăileanu
Garabet Ibraileanu
Garabet Ibrăileanu was a Romanian-Armenian literary critic and theorist, writer, translator, sociologist, Iaşi University professor , and, together with Paul Bujor and Constantin Stere, for long main editor of the Viaţa Românească literary magazine between 1906 and 1930...
and Lovinescu, "will always be superior to the eternally well-disposed and always equable reviewer's office, à la Perpessicius".
War poet
Perpessicius' early war poems comprise the larger part of Scut şi targă volume. Its other sections of the book were identified by Vianu as political satirePolitical satire
Political satire is a significant part of satire that specializes in gaining entertainment from politics; it has also been used with subversive intent where political speech and dissent are forbidden by a regime, as a method of advancing political arguments where such arguments are expressly...
directed at the regime changes in Greater Romania
Greater Romania
The Greater Romania generally refers to the territory of Romania in the years between the First World War and the Second World War, the largest geographical extent of Romania up to that time and its largest peacetime extent ever ; more precisely, it refers to the territory of the Kingdom of...
. Like its immediate successor Itinerar sentimental, Scut şi targă was seen by Vianu as among "the most delicate and spiritual inspirations of [their] epoch." From a stylistic perspective, Scut şi targă fitted within the scope of Symbolist poetry and, as Perpessicius himself is said to have recounted, marked by the influence of Jules Laforgue
Jules Laforgue
Jules Laforgue was an innovative Franco-Uruguayan poet, often referred to as a Symbolist poet. Critics and commentators have also pointed to Impressionism as a direct influence and his poetry has been called "part-symbolist, part-impressionist".-Life:...
. George Călinescu, who notes that their apparently "detached" tone allows glimpses of a "profound emotion", also stresses that the poems are indebted to the school of Arthur Rimbaud
Arthur Rimbaud
Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud was a French poet. Born in Charleville, Ardennes, he produced his best known works while still in his late teens—Victor Hugo described him at the time as "an infant Shakespeare"—and he gave up creative writing altogether before the age of 21. As part of the decadent...
. He thus sees a connection between Rimbaud's The Sleeper of the Vale and scenes of "solar putrefaction" he associates with Perpessicius' lines for men killed by firing squads:
Prin viile din preajmă e-un straşnic chiuit De greieri ce cu mustul s-au îmbătat şi joacă Şi ţipă să trezească pe cei ce-ntro-băltoacă De sânge, zac în şanţuri, sătui de chefuit. |
A grand shriek roams the surrounding vineyards, From crickets tipsy with must Must Must is freshly pressed fruit juice that contains the skins, seeds, and stems of the fruit. The solid portion of the must is called pomace; it typically makes up 7%–23% of the total weight of the must. Making must is the first step in winemaking... and dancing And yelling to wake up those who, in ponds of blood, Rest in gutters, all weary of boozing. |
For Călinescu, Perpessicius combined a Rimbaudesque appetite for "vagrancy" with a love for his native Bărăgan Plain
Baragan Plain
The Bărăgan Plain is a steppe plain in south-eastern Romania. It makes up much of the eastern part of the Wallachian Plain. The region is known for its black soil and a rich humus, and is mostly a cereal-growing area....
, providing him with "a sense for the vigorous eternity of the fields, indifferent as they are to human waste". This, he argued, was made obvious by stanzas such as:
Florile de câmpie le cosesc mitraliere Şi cu sucurile scurse spală rănile mortale De eroi căzuţi în tină ca şi simple efemere, Ce adorm pe veci pe-o floare, îngropându-se-n petale. Singură, în tot cuprinsul, floarea stelelor polare Înflorind spontan în ghiolul de argint ca dintr-o seră, Scutură multiple jerbe şi coroane funerare Peste flori şi peste oameni seceraţi de mitralieră. |
Machine guns mow down the flowers of the field And with the juices spilled they clean the mortal wounds Of heroes sunk in mud like mere ephemeridae Ephemeridae Ephemeridae is a family of mayflies with about 150 described species found throughout the world except Australia and Oceania. These are generally quite large mayflies with either two or three very long tails... , Who fall into the sleep of ages on flowers, burying themselves into the petals. Alone in all the setting, the flower of lodestar Lodestar A lodestar or guiding star may be:*Polaris*any star used in celestial navigation*metaphorically, any guiding principle*Guiding Star... s Spontaneously blooming the silvery lake as if in a greenhouse Drops multiple festoons and wreaths Over flowers and men whom the machine gun has mowed down. |
Intimism
Perpessicius' lyrical poetry slowly evolved toward "intimism", which implies a focus on the immediate aspects of urban life and ample references to the interior world. George Călinescu includes him in this category around non-Symbolist poets such as Emanoil Bucuţa, Alexandru Claudian and Gavril Rotică, noting that what separates him from the group is having "multiple layers, owed to his richer background." The individual approach, called by Călinescu "Symbolist and bookish", is present in pieces such as one dedicated to home ownership:Îţi mulţumesc, o! Doamne, că-n fine am o casă! Că s-a sfârşit calvarul şi pot să intru-n clasă C-o faţă mai senină, cu zâmbetul amabil Al omului ce are un domiciliu stabil... |
I thank you, o! Lord, for at last I own a house! That the ordeal is over and I may enter the classroom With a more serene face, with the amiable smile Of a man who has a stable domicile... |
In Cazimir's view, there is a close connection between Perpessicus' "bookish" poems and some verse works by George Călinescu, particularly as melancholic contributions to Romanian humor. Cazimir believes that Perpessicius' distinguishing notes are the "suspicion toward all sorts of pathos
Pathos
Pathos represents an appeal to the audience's emotions. Pathos is a communication technique used most often in rhetoric , and in literature, film and other narrative art....
", "prosaic touches" and the recourse to "cultural references". As an example of this technique, he cites the poem Toamnă ("Autumn"):
Găzarii de prin depărtări se-ntorc Şi-mbie lumea cu petrol de lampă, În ambianţă-i un ecou Laforgue Şi-un ton dintr-o neerlandeză stampă. |
Gasmen are returning from faraway places And tempt people with their paraffin, The ambiance carries an echo from Laforgue And a tone from some Dutch print Dutch Golden Age painting Dutch Golden Age painting is the painting of the Dutch Golden Age, a period in Dutch history generally spanning the 17th century, during and after the later part of the Eighty Years War for Dutch independence. The new Dutch Republic was the most prosperous nation in Europe, and led European trade,... . |
According to Călinescu himself, while the type of "intimism" had roots reaching as far back as medieval poet Alain Chartier
Alain Chartier
Alain Chartier was a French poet and political writer.He was born at Bayeux, into a family marked by considerable ability. His eldest brother Guillaume became bishop of Paris; and Thomas became notary to the king. Jean Chartier, a monk of St Denis, whose history of Charles VII is printed in vol. III...
, Perpessicius' other tendency was a form of Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...
which directly referenced the major figures of Latin literature
Latin literature
Latin literature includes the essays, histories, poems, plays, and other writings of the ancient Romans. In many ways, it seems to be a continuation of Greek literature, using many of the same forms...
: Catullus
Catullus
Gaius Valerius Catullus was a Latin poet of the Republican period. His surviving works are still read widely, and continue to influence poetry and other forms of art.-Biography:...
, Horace
Horace
Quintus Horatius Flaccus , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:...
, Ovid
Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...
and Sextus Propertius
Sextus Propertius
Sextus Aurelius Propertius was a Latin elegiac poet of the Augustan age. He was born around 50–45 BC in Assisium and died shortly after 15 BC.Propertius' surviving work comprises four books of Elegies...
. The latter influence, he argues, explained how Perpessicius return adoption of elegy
Elegy
In literature, an elegy is a mournful, melancholic or plaintive poem, especially a funeral song or a lament for the dead.-History:The Greek term elegeia originally referred to any verse written in elegiac couplets and covering a wide range of subject matter, including epitaphs for tombs...
as a form of poetic expression, in which "melancholy is without neurosis
Neurosis
Neurosis is a class of functional mental disorders involving distress but neither delusions nor hallucinations, whereby behavior is not outside socially acceptable norms. It is also known as psychoneurosis or neurotic disorder, and thus those suffering from it are said to be neurotic...
, but only slightly purple, like a funerary urn." In what Călinescu deems "such an excellent poem", Perpessicius depicts the Mureş River
Mures River
The Mureș is an approximately 761 km long river in Eastern Europe. It originates in the Hășmașu Mare Range in the Eastern Carpathian Mountains, Romania, and joins the Tisza river at Szeged in southeastern Hungary....
as his Styx
Styx
In Greek mythology the Styx is the river that forms the boundary between the underworld and the world of the living, as well as a goddess and a nymph that represents the river.Styx may also refer to:-Popular culture:...
:
Dar Mureşul e-n vale cu apa-i cătrănită, Podarul, soi de Caron, cu luntrea ghiftuită Ne-aşteaptă să ne treacă pe celalt ţărm, cu bacul, Şi ni-i aşa de bine că-aici ne-am face vacul Şi-n ostrovul de tihnă, ne-am veşnici hodina De n-ar grăbi podarul şi n-ar scădea lumina. |
But downhill is the Mureş with its blackened waters, The collector, like a Charon Charon (mythology) In Greek mythology, Charon or Kharon is the ferryman of Hades who carries souls of the newly deceased across the rivers Styx and Acheron that divided the world of the living from the world of the dead. A coin to pay Charon for passage, usually an obolus or danake, was sometimes placed in or on... , with his bloated boat Awaits to take us to the other shore, on the ferry, And we feel so good that we would stay for ages And, on the quiet eyot, we'd be resting for eternity Were the collector not hurrying us and the light not dimming. |
Perpessicius' work in fiction includes several unfinished novels. In addition to Veninul, they include Fatma sau focul de paie ("Fatma or the Straw Fire") and Amor academic ("Academic Love Affair"), both of them mentioned in his profile for the 1925 Antologia poeţilor de azi. According to literary historian Ioana Pârvulescu, who suspects that Amor academic was Perpessicius' intended homage to Yvoria Secoşanu, the author portrayed himself under the fictional names Mototolea (from mototol, "wuss") and Pentapolin (the shepherd king in Don Quixote).
For the final half of his life, Perpessicius' Eminescu studies took precedence over his contributions to both poetry and fiction. Reflecting on this situation, Tudor Vianu noted: "We may at times experience regret that the poet, the literary historian, the prose writer [in Perpessicius] have consented to such a sacrifice. But we cannot prevent ourselves from saying that Perpessicius has thus fulfilled himself through the best part of his moral nature, through his modesty, generosity and dedication." In addition to this and his translations from Francis Jammes
Francis Jammes
Francis Jammes was a French poet. Coming from an ancient family, he spent most of his life in his native region of Béarn and the Basque Country and his poems are known for their lyricism and for singing the pleasures of a humble country life...
, he also rendered some of Charles Baudelaire
Charles Baudelaire
Charles Baudelaire was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the nineteenth century...
's poetry, being noted by Tudor Vianu for his "beautiful" translation of The Kind-hearted Servant of Whom You Were Jealous (part of Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal
Les Fleurs du mal
Les Fleurs du mal is a volume of French poetry by Charles Baudelaire. First published in 1857 , it was important in the symbolist and modernist movements...
).
Legacy
Perpessicius' contribution and biography were the subject of several later volumes of critical interpretations, beginning with the 1971 Excurs sentimental Perpessicius ("Perpessicius, a Sentimenal Excursion"), dedicated to his memory by the Museum of Romanian Literature. His work was itself anthologized, most notably in a 1971 edition by Eugen Simion. Several of his Eminescu transcripts, intended as the final volumes of Opere, were still unpublished by the time of his death, leaving the MLR to group them into later editions. The posthumous series includes a 1977 volume of Eminescu's prose and exercises in drama, as well as records of his early participation in the development of Romanian theater with Iorgu Caragiale's troupe. His renditions of Mateiu CaragialeMateiu Caragiale
Mateiu Ion Caragiale was a Romanian poet and prose writer, best known for his novel Craii de Curtea-Veche, which portrays the milieu of boyar descendants before and after World War I. Caragiale's style, associated with Symbolism, the Decadent movement of the fin de siècle, and early modernism, was...
's texts, like the similar notebooks kept by Alexandru Rosetti, appear to have been lost forever under mysterious circumstances. Perpessicus' own private notebooks were only published in fragments, in various 1970s issues of Manuscriptum; the majority of these notes are kept away from the public eye, and, according to his express wish, can only be published at an unknown term in the future.
His native home in Brăila
Braila
Brăila is a city in Muntenia, eastern Romania, a port on the Danube and the capital of Brăila County, in the close vicinity of Galaţi.According to the 2002 Romanian census there were 216,292 people living within the city of Brăila, making it the 10th most populous city in Romania.-History:A...
was torn down in 1977, as the result of error, and rebuilt soon after with more modern materials. The new building became the Perpessicius Memorial House, hosting a permanent exhibit of his personal objects (including more than 7,000 of the books he owned). It also features a marble bust of the author, the work of Romanian-born Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
sculptor Nicăpetre. A teacher training school in the city was named the D. P. Perpessicius in the critic's honor. The 17 volumes of his Mihai Eminescu edition form part of an Eminescu book collection at the Botoşani County
Botosani County
Botoșani is a county of Romania, in Moldavia, with the capital city at Botoșani.-Demographics:In 2002, it had a population of 452,834 and the population density was 91/km2.*Romanians – – the highest percentage of Romanians in Romania...
Library, which in turn resulted from an exceptionally large donation made after the Romanian Revolution of 1989
Romanian Revolution of 1989
The Romanian Revolution of 1989 was a series of riots and clashes in December 1989. These were part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred in several Warsaw Pact countries...
.
In 2006, Adevărul
Adevarul
Adevărul is a Romanian daily newspaper, based in Bucharest. Founded in 1871 and reestablished in 1888, it was the main left-wing press venue to be published during the Romanian Kingdom's existence, adopting an independent pro-democratic position, advocating land reform and universal suffrage...
journalist Christian Levant investigated the Dedena affair, concluding that Panaitescu Jr.'s arrest, like that of other members of his Marxist circle, was made possible by the actions of an informant
Informant
An informant is a person who provides privileged information about a person or organization to an agency. The term is usually used within the law enforcement world, where they are officially known as confidential or criminal informants , and can often refer pejoratively to the supply of information...
. In Levant's view, that person was Eugen Florescu, who later made a career in the Communist Party and, after the Revolution, in the nationalist Greater Romania Party
Greater Romania Party
The Greater Romania Party is a Romanian radical right-wing, ultra-nationalist political party, led by Corneliu Vadim Tudor. The party is sometimes referred to in English as the Great Romania Party....
, having served in the Senate
Senate of Romania
The Senate of Romania is the upper house in the bicameral Parliament of Romania. It has 137 seats , to which members are elected by direct popular vote, using Mixed member proportional representation in 42 electoral districts , to serve four-year terms.-Former location:After the Romanian...
until 2004.